Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy and I share a common belief that we want to reduce emissions, particularly from private cars. We probably part company after that. Like everybody else, I would love to see public transport free for everyone. It would undoubtedly produce, as the Deputy said, a big rush into public transport. The problem is that the €600 million only addresses the current issue. It would be an extraordinarily expensive operation suddenly to announce free public transport, which we could not do because we do not have the capacity. It would not work overnight. It would be a very long-term project which would cost vast sums of money in terms of extra vehicles, extra depots and extra drivers.

As the Deputy will know, we are determined to reduce emissions and to get people out of their private cars into buses, and there are very large-scale projects, such as the metro, BusConnects, the Luas expansion and the DART expansion. All of those projects are directed simply to getting people out of their private cars, which will, of course, reduce emissions, which are a common enemy.

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