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

My constituency includes Newcastle West, with 7,000 people, and Abbeyfeale, with more than 2,000 people. They are currently in the throes of having a bypass made for their town. This is welcome for the people who have been in traffic queues from Limerick to Kerry, and from any other part of the country. However, it can be traumatic for an individual owning a house, farm or a business, as I am sure people will agree. People have significant anxiety and more needs to be done to manage people's expectations, given the unrealistic timelines. For example, there might be an announcement that such a project would take six years. People could be given a breakdown of the project. This particular project will take two years to get through the planning stage with An Bord Pleanála, with between six and 12 months for An Bord Pleanála to make its ruling. If planning permission is granted, it will take up to three years for acquisitions of land and houses, and everything else that comes with it. This type of information needs to be brought out into the wider community to help people and to help with future-proofing our country.

I compliment the Adare-Rathkeale councillors who had the foresight to see that withholding with regard to a section of greenway prevented funds from being wasted later. That decision applied to a section of the greenway which was proposed where the Adare bypass will be. I have a question for Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, with regard to the criteria it follows, which relate to the cost ratio, the returning of investment, the least impact on residential homes, biodiversity, cultural impact, and archaeology. I am bothered by how much input the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has had, for example, with regard to the housing list in Newcastle West. In Limerick city and county, there are 2,347 on the housing list. There are currently 343 people waiting for houses in Newcastle West and 139 in Abbeyfeale. My concern is about how planning can be made sustainable for the people of Newcastle West in conjunction with a bypass. This Department deals with heritage and local government as well as housing.

Has TII liaised with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media? The Newcastle West greenway will be crossed at least twice by the proposed route, which only officially opened two weeks ago, at a cost of €100 million. I met Deputy Brian Leddin at the opening of the greenway. The greenway is fantastic infrastructure. Deputy Leddin told me that he cycled in from Abbeyfeale to Barnagh. I asked Deputy Leddin how he got from Limerick to Abbeyfeale. He was a bit red-faced since he could not answer me because he had to use a form of transport with his bike in the boot. Afterwards, he was heading out to meet the Government at the summit. I asked him how he was going to travel from Barnagh. He had to go to get an antigen test and then to go to the airport, where he had to load his bicycle into the boot of another car to return to where he had to go. I acknowledge the bus routes that are proposed for Limerick but a majority are for west Limerick. The need for them in east Limerick has not been fulfilled. West Limerick is a tourist destination and I welcome everything that comes to it, but we also want infrastructure in east Limerick.

To date, 250,000 people have used the Limerick greenway. I question the joined-up thinking relating to the accountability of these two Departments to future-proof the two market towns, Newcastle West and Abbeyfeale. I have complimented the greenway and walked and cycled it myself. It is a brilliant amenity. With this proposed route, we are now telling the people of Newcastle West that the greenway will be crossed at least twice.

That is a waste of taxpayers' money. I mentioned that the Adare-Rathkeale councillors - I was a member of that council at the time - had the foresight to stop the greenway at a particular section until the bypass was built, and then it could be used alongside it, thus saving money. That money saved went towards the construction of the Newcastle West district greenway. Surely to God, we could have joined-up thinking among Departments. This route did not happen yesterday or today. When this route was being proposed, we could have created many things to allow for that road structure. Now, we have to tell the people of Newcastle West and the users of this greenway that if this road goes ahead, they will have to be stopped from using the greenway at two different sections. That is not right.

From the point of view of forward planning, I would like now that the people, especially of Newcastle West, would be properly informed about the full process and that whatever services are available would be provided to them personally to save them the anxiety of having a bypass coming through their homes or lands. This needs to dealt with. I spoke to one woman in particular whose father came to the house that is on one of the routes. The family has lived there since the 1800s. Her great-grandfather lived there. Her father was born into that house in 1915 and she was born into it 52 years ago. There are fierce memories attached to it. This woman told me of her anxieties in regard to the historical past within her home and that her family had had to rely on online platforms to figure out what was happening on the land around their house and in regard to the proposed route. There was no communication between the family and TII.

I want now to speak about e-scooters. I welcome regulation around motorised vehicles, be that an e-scooter, a motorcycle or other vehicle. There are laws in place and we all have to respect them. I would welcome any measure around scooters from the point of view of safety. In this debate, I have heard Members speak about scramblers, quads and so on. I grew up in an area where quads, scooters and scramblers have always been in use. The Government keeps taking away from people, telling them that they cannot drive this or that here or there. Why not invest in places where they can drive them? People who want to engage in motor sports can do so in places like Mondello Park. Likewise, people who want to go horse riding can do so at horse riding tracks. In terms of my culture, when I was growing up I was considered to be what was known as a petrol head. I am interested in vintage vehicles. I support our heritage, from the basic steam engine to the tractor and the horse to everything we have today. That is my culture. It was my heritage. Along with other people in the vintage societies, I use that to recognise our heritage. We also use it to raise much-needed funding for charities and other services who need it in a hurry.

I watch motor sport, from motorbikes to everything else. I love watching it. If the Government is taking something away from people, in particular if it is in a city or large town, it should give them an alternative. We can educate people when it is in a controlled environment. Let us give them something in terms of their culture. E-scooters were mentioned. I agree they should be regulated within built up areas and where people's safety is involved. Where there are people with disabilities, there should be investment. This goes back to the point I made earlier about the opening of the greenway and Deputy Leddin. There was no infrastructure to take the Deputy to the greenway. As I have been saying since I was first elected to the Dáil, we all support the green agenda and we want to lower our carbon footprint, but to do that we need infrastructure. As I see it, up to now, we have put the cart before the horse. There are many students in my area who cannot get to college using bus transport because the bus would not get them there on time. Those who live outside of the town cannot drive to the local town because there is no adequate area where they can park a vehicle to then get a bus to go to college. This is the reason I am always raising the issue of infrastructure.

I would like to speak about the roll-out of bus services throughout the country. When it comes to the Department allocating bus routes for the schools, the private operators are given a specific amount to operate those routes. If we mirror that with the routes serviced by Bus Éireann, I can guarantee you the private bus provider is getting a lot less than the subsidies being paid to those who operate bus services on behalf of the Department. That is wrong. I am aware that bus providers have offered their services in areas which the Government has not looked at yet. The Department is telling them it is not looking at those areas. It is only looking at proposed routes. Why is that? It is because the Department wants all of the money invested in Government-funded bus services. The Department can come up with a route for which it knows it does not have to have a business in place because it knows it will be 100% funded to run these routes. Why not think outside of the box and look at the private bus operators? These are the people who take my child to school. Even though I have to drive a mile or two up the road to meet the bus, my son gets on the bus and he goes to school. Many people in rural areas would use rural transport if it was available, but is not there. I want the Minister to look at all of Ireland.

In our discussions yesterday on emissions, I said that Ireland is 0.01, or one-tenth of 1%, in terms of carbon in Europe and 0.04 globally. Yet, we are importing products from countries which in one case is responsible for 35% and in the other case 25%. We are increasingly importing more from those countries. As I said, Ireland is 0.04 in terms of carbon globally. Why not look at investing in our own sectors and creating work for our people? We now know that the best produce in the world comes out of Ireland. We have grass-fed animals producing milk and beef. We have the best conditions and soils for growing vegetables, as well as everything else that comes with that. We have the best milk in the country because of the Golden Vale grasslands. Why can the Government not invest in our farming and other businesses that can sustain what we have now and stop importing to the benefit of some other country? When you round it up, we are always only talking about Ireland and the changes we need to make. We need change globally. In terms of the changes we can make, we need to stop importing goods from areas that are killing the planet. That is the answer. We need to stop importing and use our own produce. Whatever it is the Government got tied up in in Europe, it seems to be brainwashed. It is using its statistics for Ireland. Ireland could be self-contained. We could reduce imports into this country. By using our own products, we could bring down prices for everyone living here.

I have mentioned several times to the Minister that 98% of the products coming into this country enter through Dublin Port. How many of the trucks we see on the motorway bringing produce to our doors to feed our families are coming in through Dublin? I have asked the Minister to invest in Shannon-Foynes Port, which he said he is doing. We could halve transport costs throughout the country if we got Foynes up and running immediately. The largest ship in Europe could dock there. It would centralise the distribution of goods leaving from places like Limerick. At the moment, everything is centralised through Dublin. A change in this regard could make a real difference if the investment were given.

I have tried different routes to get from Dublin to where I live. Leaving this building at 4.30 p.m. on a Thursday a few weeks ago, it took me an hour and 32 minutes to get to the Red Cow interchange, which is a distance of 9.6 km. I then travelled the 217 km to my home in 2 hours and seven minutes. I drive a diesel vehicle that does approximately 80 km to the gallon. To get to Dublin by public transport, the nearest train station to me is Charleville. If our business is delayed, like it was last night, I cannot get the train home because the last service to Charleville leaves too early. In that case, I have to use the Dublin Coach service, known as the green bus, which will drop me to Arthur's Quay or Adare. The problem then is I have to get somebody to collect me and take me home. When I work out the carbon footprint of getting myself to Dublin, it is lower when I use my car than it is using all the various forms of transport that are otherwise required. Somebody has to drop me to the train station and go home before coming back to collect me and returning home again. It is the same with the bus. There is no adequate parking for people to leave their cars for a couple of days. Students who want to use bus transport find the same problem of there being no parking infrastructure.

I appreciate what the Minister is trying to do but he is doing so from within the bubble of a city area. Everything I have heard about electric scooters today has been focused on their use in urban areas. It is all about cities. In fact, scooters should not be driven on greenways because they are used by people and families to take a recreational walk or cycle. They are a place for exercising. However, for people with an e-scooter who want to get from A to B, they would have to use it on the greenway because they could not take it out on the main road. You could not use an e-scooter on most of our roads because the circumference of the wheels is too small. With the potholes and rough terrain on the roads, the vehicles would need at least a 100 mm wall of a tyre, like on a car, to sustain all the bumps. The condition of the roads is a result of the lack of investment in rural areas.

I ask the Minister to think outside of city areas, look at Ireland as a whole and plan to bring the country together. He will get an awful lot more with honey than with vinegar. The people who are suffering all the time when the Government makes changes in Dublin are those from rural areas. They have no choice but to use a car and they cannot afford electric vehicles because they are too expensive. Not only that, they do not have the range to sustain the journeys people are making. Will the Minister consider an incentive to offer a 50% subsidy on the purchase of an electric vehicle to every household in Ireland? It might encourage people to make the switch. By doing this now, we could offer further incentives when the infrastructure is put in place.

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