Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Ministers for their written speeches. It is helpful to have the details. The Minister for Transport talked about how we are an island heavily reliant on international connectivity. That is correct. We have had to keep our borders open throughout this health crisis to maintain critical supply lines and allow essential travel. I do not believe there is a single person in this country who would have a difficulty with that. It is not what happened, however. We utterly failed to deal with people coming into our country and we are now belatedly looking at quarantine. That sentence is therefore disingenuous and should not be part of the speech.

Generally, with regard to transport, I agree with the Minister that there are opportunities now as a result of Covid-19. I hope we seize those opportunities. I will take a parochial view, although with national implications, and refer to Galway. To date, the Minister has refused to sanction a feasibility study for light rail. We know Galway is one of the five cities destined to grow with a 50% population increase by 2040. We know traffic congestion bedevils the city. Notwithstanding that, it is a beautiful city and lucky with regard to employment, although it has been particularly affected because of Covid-19.

I would have thought one big difference the Minister could make is to sanction a feasibility study for light rail. Why do I say that? The Minister knows more than anyone the contribution transport makes towards greenhouse emissions. Indeed, at the moment, we are working in a vacuum since the judgment on the last day of July, which found that our mitigation plan was not fit for purpose. It was an unusual decision by a unanimous Supreme Court composed of seven judges that said the plan was not good enough and was not set out clearly enough for any reasonable citizen to know what was going on.

We are therefore working in a vacuum, and in that vacuum even Covid-19 has not managed to allow us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions significantly. One way is a feasibility study so we can have it out of the way, one way or another. The second is to ensure there are park-and-ride facilities in Galway. As the Minister's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, knows well, the objectives were put in the plan in 2005 yet here we are in 2021 and no park-and-ride facility has ever been rolled out in Galway city. These are practical things. Equally, during both lockdowns we had better facilities on the promenade. As soon as we lifted those facilities, however, we went back to the old way in Galway.

I am utterly on the Minister's side with regard to all these measures. What I am frustrated with is the tardiness. We are using language to say there are opportunities but we are not seizing those opportunities to make lasting, long-term changes to our city and country in order that we comply with our obligations, not under national legislation because it is not clear enough, and as I said, we are in a vacuum, but for future legislation we bring in.

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