Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A survey undertaken by NUI Galway regarding Covid-19 found that 83% of people want to work remotely. One in five identified connectivity as an issue. The previous Government had nine Ministers in Dublin. How does it expect the rest of the country to deal with emissions when it has not dealt with them in Dublin? Dublin commuters spend 246 hours in traffic each year. That is higher than is the case in Paris, Rome and London. The Government has not started at home, but it will start it. It blames the farmers for emissions. It is farmers, farmers, farmers for everything, yet nine Ministers have done nothing about correcting the issue in Dublin, where they started.

On the first day I was travelling to Leinster House, I said I would travel on the green bus. I had to travel 20 miles to that bus, and because there was no adequate parking, my wife had to drive me. That was 40 miles. I returned on the green bus and my wife had to collect me and bring me home. That was 80 miles. If there were parking facilities where the green buses depart from Limerick to Dublin - adequate safe parking or any parking - I would have saved 40 miles of travel. Multiply that by 10,000 and 40,000 miles would be saved in one day. Why has the Government not looked at the simpler solutions? It goes everywhere else aside from starting from home, where it must start. Park-and-ride is a brilliant idea, but again there is no parking and no room on the bus when one gets there because any parking facilities that are there are full. If people want to make a difference, they should go to every sector. Too many plans have been made but none has been followed through.

What about electrifying the rail system? What about reducing the number of times a Minister or Members of the European Parliament go to Europe, whereby they can only travel a certain number of times and not travel over and back all the time? Why do we not try simple things like saying that if somebody has to go to Europe, he or she must stay there for two weeks or a month, so the person is not travelling over and back every week? Why do we not start at home and work out from there?

As I said, Dublin commuters spend more hours in traffic than commuters in Paris, Rome or London. The Government has the infrastructure but it has not got it right.

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