Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is not exactly acting as if his house is on fire given that the committee is due to meet only once before the end of the year. Apart from the increase in the carbon tax, which the Government levied across the board on all workers and the disabled and which is, therefore, regressive, what real measures has the Government taken to deal with the biggest crisis facing the planet?

I want to give the Taoiseach a short anecdote. Yesterday, I drove my daughter to the bus stop to get a bus to school because the rain was so heavy. Along the way, I saw dozens of schoolchildren and workers waiting at every single bus stop. In the 15 minutes that my daughter waited no bus arrived, but that is another story. This drove home to me the futility of introducing a carbon tax when people do not have an alternative means of getting to and from school or work. There has been no alternative investment in public transport. Blanchardstown is a large suburb of the capital city where a large number of multinational companies are located. Every day, 30,000 people drive in and out of the area as they come and go to work, yet the transport system is creaking at the seams. The Government has not brought forward a proposal for a Luas line running from, say, Broombridge to Blanchardstown. That would cost €400 million-----

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