Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----away from roads and towards public transport, either some of those projects will have to be cancelled or maintenance will have to be slashed. That would be a big mistake, and I am alarmed to hear some Opposition parties suggest it.

The climate change papers produced by NESC fed into the climate action plan and were very helpful. The transport papers are in line with the national spatial strategy and the climate change papers fed into the governance models in the climate action plan.

As Deputy Martin mentioned, we already have free public transport for large sections of our society including senior citizens, many people with disabilities and young children. That was expanded in recent years, but two factors would have to be considered before expanding free public transport to everyone: first, the cost, which I imagine would run into hundreds of millions of euros, and second, what the capacity constraints might be. We all want to encourage more people to use public transport, and I have no doubt that public transport being free or much cheaper would do that. However, the additional capacity would have to be provided in advance, if not in parallel.

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