Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time. I will take five minutes, leaving two and a half minutes each for Deputies Cathal Crowe, Christopher O'Sullivan, O'Dea and Ó Cuív. I am thankful for the opportunity to say a few words on the matter. Our transitioning, in terms of lowering of transport emissions, has been an abject failure so far with an increase from 2017 to 2018 of 1.7%. Transport accounts for 20% of overall emissions and 39% of energy-related emissions. We are at a crisis stage.

We have been very slow in our procurement of alternative and more sustainable forms of transport. That we have just nine hybrid buses is an indictment of us all and there is no move to the electrification of our railways. My figure for electric cars was a bit lower than that of the Minister but I will assume his figure of 15,500 is correct. In any event, we are dreaming if we think we can get to 1 million such vehicles by 2030, as there are only 100 fast-charging points throughout the entire country. According to the researchers and the marine and renewable energy research centre at University College, Cork, pollution from cars during this period has decreased by 50%. This might buy us a little time but in overall terms it will not make any significant contribution to our targets for 2030 and 2050.

The entire transport budget must be repurposed to focus on bringing down our emissions but to do that we must of course acknowledge that the private car is a fact of life for many people throughout rural Ireland. The public transport options are just not there and we must be conscious of that. Equally, the kind of electric vehicles that are available and their cost are beyond some people, and I have already highlighted how infrastructure is not in place to support that form of transport.

Through the Covid-19 period France promoted a 600 km pop-up greenway and cycle route but we have done nothing to that effect here. There is anecdotal evidence that some shops have struggled to get bicycle stock because people have resorted to cycling. We must press ahead and I hope the new Government, whomsoever it comprises, will refocus and prioritise the major challenges that exist. The Minister has highlighted challenges in which, I am sad to say, we have not really made any gains over the past five years. These include encouraging micro-mobility, facilitating it and incentivising it.

In the immediate term, we will have major issues arising from Covid-19. What plans are in place to use the private sector in this regard? The Minister is aware of lobbying from the coach operators throughout the country, many of which are facing bankruptcy. The double-decker buses in Dublin are usually able to take up to 67 people but they can now only take 17. A four-carriage train can typically take 600 people but it can now take 75 people. Could we use a little imagination and throw a bone to the private sector to help us in this regard to meet the challenges that social distancing demands?

Before finishing and handing over to my colleagues, I will raise a matter I appreciate is not related to climate change. In the past couple of days the Minister established a task force on aviation and its members were named today. The Irish Aviation Authority is absent from the group, which seems most strange, and groups like IBEC, ISME, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland are also absent.

It would not reflect aviation in Ireland if those organisations did not have a voice on it.

We need a pathway for opening aviation. While no one is suggesting in any way that we should undermine the fragile gains we have earned in the fight against Covid-19, it is an issue that the Minister is expecting a pathway working group to report back on 10 July in terms of laying out a strategy for reopening aviation in Ireland. I am at pains to point out that nobody wants to put at risk the gains we have made. We want to ensure that testing, contract tracing and so on is in place but while the rest of Europe will reopen on 8 June, many more on 18 June with Spain, as an outlier, reopening on 1 July, it will be 10 July before the Minister, if he is still in situ, or his successor, will be in a position to act on that. I ask that he would the reopening a little quicker than he is doing and give this group of professionals who know their business a matter of days to report rather than the many weeks he outlined.

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