Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications sends his apologies as he is unable to be with us today. On his behalf, I wish to thank and express an appreciation to Deputy Leddin, members of the committee and the various stakeholders who met with the committee, for their work and leadership in developing this comprehensive report. This report is an important distillation of complex analysis that both sets out the scale of the challenge in transport succinctly and points the way to how we can together achieve a reduction in transport emissions.

It is clear that the scale of the decarbonisation challenge for transport is not to be underestimated and will involve fundamental behavioural changes to how we all live and travel. In emissions terms, the climate action plan has outlined a reduction range of 42% to 50% for the transport sector, a reduction of up to 6 megatonnes from the current level of 12 megatonnes. As legislators and public representatives, we have a responsibility to provide the leadership that will be required to deliver on the climate action that we have committed to. I understand that the Minister's Department is addressing many of the key themes and recommendations from the committee's report, which I will go through in turn, but I will first note some key points of progress since the publication of this report last June.

In the past year, there has been strong progress on climate action. The Government has put in place robust new governance structures, underpinned by the signing into law of the Climate and Low-Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 last July, and which have since been followed by the adoption of the carbon budget programme by the Houses of the Oireachtas in April of this year. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications is currently in discussion with all relevant Departments regarding the setting of forthcoming sectoral emissions ceilings that will be required to deliver on our carbon budget programme, and expects to be able to bring proposals to Government in the near future. These sectoral ceilings will set a maximum limit on emissions for each sector of the economy in each of the two five-year periods to 2030, and this year’s update to our climate action plan will be the first that will take these mandatory sectoral emissions ceilings into account. Last week, the Government also published its progress report on the delivery status of the 423 climate action plan measures that were due for delivery in quarter 4 of 2021 and quarter 1 of 2022. Transport accounted for 54 of these measures and had an "on schedule" delivery rate of 69%, demonstrating that while good progress has been made on key impactful actions, we can still further accelerate the delivery of measures with real abatement impact.

Returning to the content and key themes of the committee's report, which I note adopted the key avoid, shift, improve framework to transport decarbonisation, likewise, I can provide the following update on the behalf of the Minister and the Department.

The first of the key themes highlighted in the committee's report is the importance of avoiding the need for travel and reducing transport. Delivery of the national planning framework, NPF, objectives is being supported through better transport planning and investment. The revised national development plan published in October 2021 and the national investment framework for transport in Ireland, NIFTI, subsequently published by the Department in December 2021, set out the key principles and the lens through which further transport projects will be assessed. Through NIFTI, the Department has established its priorities for transport investment and has set out modal and intervention hierarchies that project sponsors will be required to consider, prioritising active travel and public transport over the use of private vehicles. These principles and hierarchies are intended to support the delivery of the NPF objectives and avoid urban sprawl, and instead deliver compact growth through more targeted investments, such as supporting smaller bypasses of regional town centres, prioritising space for active travel and public transport, and by providing proper integration of transport and planning.

I note that we have also seen as a result of the pandemic the potential role for remote working in reducing the overall need for transport and the benefits of a place-based approach to development that prioritises well-being.

Committing to these measures and ensuring that our metropolitan area transport strategies incorporate these transport-oriented and place-based principles will bring real benefits both in the rejuvenation of our urban and rural centres and also in the delivery of real emissions impact through reducing transport demand. This also ties in crucially with the shift principle in getting people to shift to more suitable and sustainable alternatives.

Key developments in sustainable mobility here since the committee’s report include the publication of the new national sustainable mobility policy, SMP, in April of this year, and its associated suite of actions, which aim to deliver at least 500,000 additional daily active travel and public transport journeys. This includes our programme for Government commitment on the reallocation of capital funding, with a 2:1 ratio of new spending for sustainable transport schemes to roads and an unprecedented €360 million annually for active travel projects. These commitments have been complemented by the recent 50% reduction in public transport fares for young people and the wider 20% reduction in public transport fares that will help to make public transport more attractive.

The SMP covers a wide range of areas encompassing infrastructural delivery, enhancements to public transport services, integration with planning and development policies and a host of other initiatives that will support the toolkit of demand management measures that were identified in the Five Cities Demand Management report and help achieve a minimum 10% reduction in kilometres driven by fossil fuelled cars by 2030.

To oversee and accelerate delivery of these actions, a leadership group has been established which includes representatives from the National Transport Authority, NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the regional assemblies, the City and County Management Association and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. In addition, the leadership group has made nominations to a delivery team whose role is to identify and oversee the delivery of a series of pathfinder projects and initiatives which can serve as exemplars for sustainable mobility projects across the country.

Other key sustainable transport projects, beyond the headline projects of BusConnects, DART+ and Metrolink that colleagues will be aware of, include, for example, significant improvements to the Cork area commuter rail programme. This is a €185 million investment in Cork’s rail infrastructure to enable the later electrification of the network. On a national and all-island basis, the ongoing strategic rail review is also examining the potential future role and use of our rail network.

We are also very conscious of the need to connect people and places in rural areas and are continuing to expand public transport measures for dispersed communities to an appropriate level of service. Funding for Local Link services has been increased to €28.3 million in 2022 and has enabled the introduction of 90 new routes, improvements to demand responsive services and several evening services.

Our Connecting Ireland rural mobility programme also aims to increase public transport connectivity for people living outside the major cities and towns, increasing service levels by 25% and providing 70% of people in rural Ireland with access to public transport. Some of these routes are already being accelerated as part of Government’s response to increased pressures on services where the local population has grown in response to the Ukrainian crisis. This acceleration of works will include additional stops, route modifications and more services with the aim of increasing connectivity.

Turning to the improve principle, electrification and biofuels, we are looking to the electrification of our private, commercial and public transport fleets and the use of renewable fuels in transport. In terms of electric vehicles, EVs, our climate action plan targets are ambitious with a target of 195,000 private and light goods EVs on the road by 2025 and 940,000 by 2030. As of the end of May 2022, we currently have just over 60,000 battery or plug-in hybrid EVs registered on Irish roads, of which 30,000 are fully electric. Unfortunately, I note there have been shocks and headwinds arising in the supply of EVs as a result of global supply issues with certain components and because of the Russian war in Ukraine. The Department is closely monitoring these delays for potential impact on our CAP targets.

Following on from the recent public consultation on our EV charging infrastructure strategy, the Department of Transport will also establish Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland, ZEVI, as a new office based within Department of Transport in the coming weeks. ZEVI will bring a number of policy and delivery functions together in one office with a single focus to enable delivery of EV targets for CAP. It will draw on skills and experience from the Department, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, and TII, with input from the NTA and the ESB, further developing our policy and strategy for EVs in Ireland, providing grants and supports for EV purchases and supporting the installation of EV charging infrastructure.

On Monday, the Minister and the NTA also announced the signing of a framework agreement for the purchase and manufacture of 800 electric buses which will initially be rolled out in Dublin and Limerick and work is continuing to electrify commuter rail lines.

On completion of the DART+ programme, the amount of electrified track in the greater Dublin area will be trebled. In December 2021, the Government approved the preliminary business case for the DART+ programme and specifically approved the purchase of 95 new carriages, 65 of which are battery-electric and 30 of which are electric units. These new carriages are expected to enter service in 2025.

I note that the Department published its policy statement on renewable fuels for transport in November of last year and has recently concluded a public consultation on the policy statement. As a transitionary measure, biofuels are expected to deliver in excess of 1 Mt of emissions abatement by 2030 and the policy statement sets out a clear trajectory for the use of bioethanol and biodiesel to 2030.

As part of the annual climate action plan process, the Department will continue to look to identify additional measures to meet the transport sector’s gap to target and at how any additional measures can be introduced in a manner that supports a just transition. While we now have the key policies and strategies in place, we must now start to address the scale of transformation required. There have been some exemplary schemes that demonstrate the potential and vision we are trying to achieve, such as the coastal mobility route in Dún Laoghaire and recent pedestrianisation of Capel Street, but we recognise change is not easy. All of us need to ensure that we communicate the benefits of these schemes to our communities so that we can achieve the behavioural shift and improved well-being I think we all want to see.

I concur with the points made earlier by Deputy Leddin about the importance of bringing people with us and having a clear communication strategy. In our ambition to bring about significant change, we must consult with the people. We must explain to people the ideas and strategies behind the intention and show them the benefits of it, where we can. We must also be mindful that without the people with us, we will not deliver on the ambitions we want to.

I again thank the committee for its work and for tabling this motion. I look forward to the rest of the debate.

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