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

I do not know if the Taoiseach saw the appearance of Blindboy from the Rubberbandits on "The Late Late Show" about two weeks ago. He put it brilliantly when it comes to climate change. He answered the question that was put, "Why should we do anything in Ireland because we are only a small country?" He said that whatever about our carbon footprint, our cultural footprint is enormous. As a country, we are ready and willing to step up to the plate on the issue. On Monday night, RTÉ broadcast a really good programme "Will Ireland survive 2050?" There was a particularly brilliant programme last night, "Hot Air", which shows that stepping up and addressing this challenge is doable and will be good for this country, if only we did not have Fine Gael.

Fine Gael has a blind spot on this climate issue that stares at us every day. The latest example is that Fine Gael is now thinking about widening a 22 km section of the M11 to get traffic more quickly and better into Dublin, that is, more cars. How is that going to help or benefit our country in any way? Hundreds of millions of euro will be spent on this new road-widening exercise but where will the traffic go when it gets to the junction with the M50? We know for scientific fact that the M50 is goosed. It cannot take any more cars and cannot be widened any further. The section between Cherrywood and Sandyford will be the worst affected as traffic continues to grow. It is not possible to put any more cars on the M50. Maybe it is thought that the traffic will drive into town down the Blackrock road or the Donnybrook road. Anyone who knows this city knows that they cannot take any more traffic.

The Government, however, is starting to do something right. At long last the National Transport Authority, NTA, is starting to listen and will change the Bus Connects project so that it is building communities not corridors. When it hits Nutley Lane or the Blackrock road, it will not take out all the trees or put four-lane highways everywhere. It will start to provide for cycling and walking and buses which is what that programme last night, "Hot Air", told us we need to do.

New housing is going to the outer counties around Dublin, under the watch of the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. It will force all those people, with no public transport options, to drive for two or three hours in and out of Dublin every day. That is injurious to their health. When will they see their families? How can we tackle climate change if the Government is all about sprawl? That is what the Government's transport policy is all about. I could pick a dozen other examples around the country but this may be the most egregious one because we fought the argument on it before, in the Glen of the Downs, when we said 20 years ago that investment in public transport would serve our people better. We did not do that and now we are making the same mistake again, thinking that road building can solve our traffic problems. It cannot and will not. This is madness and should stop today.

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