Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy made certain statements, most of which I agree with. If one said some years ago electric vehicles, EVs, were the business, one was probably a lone voice. Those of us who are saying it now are probably also lone voices, to some extent. There is a large number of non-believers out there. I was one myself for a short period, even when I was in this job, because we were set some extraordinary targets by the climate action group. It looked as if they were ambitious and difficult to achieve, particularly the target of 936,000 electric vehicles by 2030. I bought one and I am finding it works extraordinarily well. It is effective and cheap once one has it. It is very expensive to buy, I agree, although there are grants available. That future is here, and this Government is committed to that target. I imagine that whatever the complexion on the next Government it will keep that commitment and target. It is ambitious but it is back loaded - in other words, most of it will probably be achieved towards the end of the period 2025 to 2030. We must aim high. The other target, which is going to be difficult to achieve because high targets often are, is to have 500,000 additional public transport journeys every day - in other words, people walking or cycling. They are environmentally-friendly ambitions we intend to set as targets for our successors in order to do some real good and show some real progress about reforms in respect of which we have failed. One of the Deputies said that he thinks we have not succeeded in meeting our targets and have not succeeded in climate change.

The Deputy is right - we have not succeeded in fighting climate change. We have to set such ambitious targets now because we are playing catch-up on some of these areas. We are going to do it by the use of the electrification to which Deputy Durkan referred and to which we are committed.

On air transport, it is sometimes a little alarming to see what has happened in Europe in recent times. Many countries have taken a different route on state aid by doing things that certainly would not have been allowed a little time ago. The airlines should be helped but it would be far better if that were led by similar, if not identical, standards defined by the EU so that all countries would be on the same, level playing field. That does not seem to be the case now on the issue of air transport during the Covid-19 crisis.

As Deputy Durkan will know, we are helping the airlines through the wage subsidy scheme. Airports and most of the airlines are availing of that. They are also taking the pandemic unemployment payment so, in that sense, we are helping them in different ways. Many other countries are helping their national carriers in that way.

The last question was about greenways. I had the pleasure of opening a greenway in the Deputy's area not too long ago; Deputy Catherine Murphy was also there. It was tremendous to see that. Of course, we are not spending enough on greenways but there will never be enough. The demand for greenways is insatiable because the initiative has been such an extraordinary success. I hope the commitment that this Government has given to greenways will continue because it has been a tremendously successful project throughout Ireland.

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