Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Government will develop and deliver a new clean air strategy which recognises exactly that, namely, that this is a matter of life and death in respect of which we need to be really progressive. We have started that with the provisions to end the burning of smoky fuels throughout the country, which is probably the most immediately critical initiative to improve air quality and which I hope the Deputy will support.

Nevertheless, the Deputy is correct. The switch to cleaner public transport vehicles and other measures to improve the flow of traffic in city and town centres throughout the country will be critical. It involves a combination of measures, including the public transport fleet but also supporting the likes of the BusConnects projects. We were talking about it earlier in respect of Galway but the same applies to Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. While that fleet of diesel-hybrid buses will evolve to being one of fully electric buses, emissions are reduced significantly when they are given priority over a private traffic solution.

There are a variety of ways in which we can address the issue. The Deputy is correct to say there are black spots in Dublin, particularly around the public transport stations such as Heuston Station and on the quays. We need specific solutions for those areas, which will be included in the clean air strategy.

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