John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like my colleague, I want to huff and puff, but I will take the opportunity to advocate for the cycling argument. The transition statement on climate action provides us with an opportunity to look at the opportunities provided by Covid-19, the opportunities provided in a crisis, the changing behaviour of the public, especially over the past couple of months, and the reluctance of some members of the public, and regrettably for the immediate future, to take to public transport in huge numbers until we get some kind of resolution to the crisis. There is an opportunity but also an issue. There is an opportunity to really embed the change in pedestrian and cycling behaviour that has grown among the public, but we also need to tackle the attraction of people taking to their cars to come back into the city as they return to work, and it is very welcome that they are returning to work.

I would like to focus on Project Ireland 2040 in the two minutes I have, and it is ridiculous to have just two minutes in which to contribute to this debate. Project Ireland 2040 does not mention e-bikes. On the science of e-bikes the Minister talks of them being optimum for journeys from 10 km to 15 km. We need to tax incentivise those. Sales of e-bikes during Covid-19 have grown exponentially. Some of the sellers and providers are running out of them. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport of course had very little to say about the issues of transport for four years, and he never moved on the e-scooters. The Minister went out to public consultation and never came back with a resolution. It is well past time to embed this and to regulate them. A huge amount of innovation is taking place in this space. We talk about e-cars, and the Minister has set targets for e-cars, but the plan does not mention e-motorbikes, which are a coming phenomenon also. These are relatively cheap and incredibly efficient, while reducing carbon in their own way. There are no measures, however, in this regard. Any of the measures taken in the past number of weeks have been taken by the local authorities, on which I commend them.

A number of measures need to be taken, and I have produced a document on behalf of Fianna Fáil on mobility and cycling connected to Dublin. We need to look at safety and basic things, if one can believe it, in relation to signage. We need to look at secure parking facilities. There is one public bicycle-parking facility in this town. Just one. If we want to encourage people to take to bikes in greater numbers and use them to commute to work and for leisure activities then we need to take some measures. We need to undertake immediate research and investigate exactly why women are reluctant to cycle. There is an opportunity now. During Covid-19 women, children and young families took to bikes in big numbers. We need to look at tax incentives and not just the cycle to work scheme. We need to look at tax incentives for employers to encourage their employees to replace their cars and to come to work on their bikes. The time to move is now.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, said that we need to change the habits of a lifetime. People have done that in their hundreds of thousands in the past two months. It does not requires the millions of euro the Minister is talking about. These are small measures that could be incentivised quite quickly and would have a dramatic reduction in carbon.

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