Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

-----when there are other solutions available. A route via Cahir would save €500 million which could be used to provide the public transport system Fine Gael is not providing in Limerick or Cork. On Monday the party voted against such a system.

The air quality issue in Dublin is exacerbated by the fact that the Government is widening every motorway approach road in Dublin to the M50 that is gridlocked. That will only make the problem worse and do nothing to solve the transport problems of the city. It will make them even more difficult, as the Government plans to remove front gardens and every tree in the city to cope with the model into w hich it has bought and the resulting ever-increasing traffic. It is the same in just about every city or area at which one looks. The Government is following an old-fashioned and sprawling road-based development model. It claims in the national planning framework that it wants to go back to the core, but its transport policy is doing the exact opposite. It is encouraging sprawling development that can never be sustainable. That is not good for our society. That is the reality of what is happening. The reality is that 51 major national road and motorway projects are on the go, while not one single public transport project is being built or even in the planning system. Fine Gael is voting against one in Cork and ignoring the air quality issue in Dublin. Nothing is happening to promote cycling. That is what is happening. That is the reality. A Green mandate will see it change.

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