Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am struck by a number of things about this report. First, let us look around us. This is supposed to be the burning issue of our times and of this Government. I am one of three Opposition Members here, along with the Minister of State from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Deputies Matthews and Leddin. I have no doubt that a huge amount of work went into preparing this report. I have been on committees over the years. I read through the report, albeit not in as much detail as I would have liked, and it is very clear that a lot of time and work went into it. There was much discussion in the Chamber about battery trains, buses and cars. We should save a thought for the battery chickens working down in the committee rooms, in the darkness with a lack of natural light. The work they do down there should be feeding into what the Dáil does and into policy. I am a little longer in the Dáil than Deputy Leddin but not very long.

I have formed the view that what happens in committees tends to be pretty irrelevant to policy in this State. He will soon get a response to his report, and once he does, he will know it is done and that nobody will ever look at the report again. It will be finished, finito. That is a pity because this report is about a very important issue, namely, the need to reduce emissions, especially in the transport sector.

The premise of the report related to how to reduce emissions by 51% by 2030 but I disagree with that target. Our transport sector has the third or fourth highest emissions per capitain the EU generally. That being the case, it seems we need to reduce our emissions in the transport sector by a lot more than 51%. This has been approached with the premise that we will reduce emissions in every sector by 51%, and I disagree with that because we have to strategise on how to reduce emissions. Every sector is going to have share the burden, with which I have no problem, and reduce emissions a great deal, but there is going to have to be a difference between the sectors because, simply put, that will be required in any budget where we have to trim spending. Sinn Féin is talking about increasing taxation and never talks about trimming spending. It will be in government pretty soon, I think, and it seems the current Government is afraid Sinn Féin will break the country when it gets into power. In fact, it is so afraid that it is going to break the country to prevent Sinn Féin from getting into government in case it breaks the country. In any event, by the time Sinn Féin gets into power, the country will be broke. There will be very little money and it will have to find money in the way the Government I supported had to find money.

The options are pretty horrible, ranging from bad to worse, and it is a little bit like that with reducing emissions. When faced with the options bad and worse, you have to be strategic, protect what you think is most important and trim where you think there are excesses. You cannot just take the same amount from everybody because that is not how it works with taxation. Some people are in a position to pay more than others, and some sectors are in a position to be reduced by more than others. In that regard, some taxation measures were introduced when the country was on its knees in 2011, 2012 and 2013, but corporation tax was not targeted. There was a view, rightly or wrongly, that it was in our strategic interest to maintain corporation tax at a certain level that resulted in inward investment in the country, and we needed to protect that and, most important, the jobs created from that investment. There were also certain taxation measures relating to agriculture because there was a view agriculture was one area that could reinvigorate our economy. Some bad decisions were made by that Government but, in general, the economy recovered.

We need to be strategic in setting our carbon and sectoral targets. We cannot have every Department or every sector take the same amount because that is not strategic. I am not saying we should depart from our overall goals, but we have to be strategic in how we set them. The Dáil has to have a proper debate and vote on this because if this is really the burning issue of our time, there are only five of us Deputies, including the Ceann Comhairle, debating it before we finish for the week. That is simply not reflective of it being the burning issue of our times. Equally, there has to be a proper debate on the sectoral targets as they are set. I am a farmer from an agricultural community and I represent Clare, where agriculture is an important facet of the economy, so perhaps I am biased. Nevertheless, if we stop generating agricultural produce, there will be a degree of displacement and we will import more agricultural produce. I am not saying farmers should not reduce where possible, but we have to keep in sight the possibility Brazil, Argentina and other countries will ramp up production to replace ours. Farmers and agriculture do need to reduce, but not by the same level of transport. Our highest emissions come from our transport sector and there are very high emissions from our agriculture sector too - higher than that in most other EU countries - but most other EU other countries eat food produced in Ireland. Conversely, while we drive cars produced in Germany, the manufacturer of the car is not included in our emissions but rather in Germany's emissions, whereas just the emissions from the driving of it are. We should be more ambitious in our scope in reducing transport emissions.

On the avoid, shift and improve idea, I completely agree but I did not necessarily hear that in Deputy Leddin's contribution. Our approach in Ireland is one of penalising people who drive cars and making it difficult for them without putting an alternative in place. I would love to go to Heuston Station, hop on a train to Ballybrophy and drive not all the way to Clare but only halfway, but the last train to Ballybrophy today has left. I used to get the train from Birdhill. Deputy Leddin will know this line well because it goes through Castleconnell and into Limerick. I would have to get the train at 7 a.m. in Birdhill to get to Dublin for 10 a.m. It used to be 8 a.m. but that was affected by speed limits on the line and so on. There was even a change whereby it was like the Trans-Siberian Railway when they lifted off the thing and changed the gauge. There was something not quite as dramatic as that but not so different in Nenagh to make it even less attractive to get the train in Birdhiill if someone wanted to go on to Dublin. Instead of taking the train in Birdhill, which would involve me driving a car empty apart from me, I had to drive to Ballybrophy, halfway to Dublin. Even at that, the service on that line is wholly inadequate, and it is not just about Birdhill but also about Nenagh, Roscrea and Castleconnell and, ultimately, about having a proper train service.

If we want to shift people from cars into trains and buses, we need to provide the alternative, but we are not doing it. Moreover, we need to subsidise it heavily and perhaps even make it free. I am not the first to suggest that; far from it. My former constituency colleague and current fellow Oireachtas Member, Senator Dooley, also suggested it and it is a very good idea because we need to make it attractive to get people into the idea of public transport, build up the number of people using public transport and then make the case for further investment in public transport. Merely penalising people is not the solution. One contributor to this debate earlier derided people who have made a political career out of roads. The Acting Chairman is indicating with her bell that I am using up more valuable emissions than I had anticipated, so I will conclude presently. People argue to have the road built, get the road built, repair it and whatever: if only as much effort went into getting more buses and trains from those who believe in buses and trains as goes into deriding those arguing for roads.

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