Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The money allocated is completely inadequate to do what has to be done. This is a challenge for a generation. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, said in response to the report two days ago, "1.5C gives young people and the next generation a fighting chance of getting back to the Holocene", before the impact of humanity, or close to it, and continued, "That is probably necessary if we want to keep shorelines where they are and preserve our coastal cities." Business as usual has got Ireland at the bottom of the table in meeting its emissions targets and simply will not cut it. Radical action is needed to tackle emissions from the two big sectors, which are agriculture and transport. Everything that the Government is proposing about transport is just tinkering around the edges. The answer is not fundamentally hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles or gas-powered vehicles etc., but public transport. Will the Minister agree with that and outline how there can be a project for investment in proper, quality public transport, accessible to all? Does he further agree that a key way to get people out of private cars and on to public transport is to make public transport free, as happened in Estonia?

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