Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This Independent is entirely on her own for ten minutes. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion and giving us an opportunity to put the spotlight on public transport. I welcome the amendment proposed by Solidarity-People Before Profit. I hope Sinn Féin will consider it. I will come back to the western rail corridor, which is given the thumbs-up in the motion, and that is welcome. I did not see the motion in time to propose an amendment regarding light rail for Galway and a feasibility study in that regard. I am sure Sinn Féin would have no difficulty with that but, unfortunately, I did not table it in time.

I will preface my remarks by quoting a Minister who said: "We are losing biodiversity around the globe at a rate unprecedented in human history." Those are not my words or those of somebody on the radical left but those of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, on 29 May 2019. She also said:

We are losing biodiversity around the globe at a rate unprecedented in human history. The number of plants, insects, mammals and birds that are threatened or endangered grows every year, while the land, ocean and atmosphere are being altered to an unparalleled degree.

That is a Fine Gael Minister of State talking about what is happening with our world and biodiversity is just one aspect of it. It seems that we have no choice but to embrace public transport as only one of the significant aspects of dealing with our obligations in respect of climate change. I find the manner in which, here in the Dáil, we regularly demonise people who take court cases disturbing. I will refer to two court cases taken by Friends of the Irish Environment. We have no choice. Notwithstanding those wonderful words from the Minister of State or the Minister for Finance's earlier acknowledgement when I said the planet was burning - he nodded his head having said that himself in his budget speech last year - we are utterly dependent on these people. What do we do if the planet is burning?

We want to take what the children told us. They embarrassed us into declaring a climate and biodiversity emergency. I welcome that. I welcome what the Government did there but really we were forced into it. We repeatedly ignored all of the reports, going back to Rio de Janeiro. We have persisted with development that is completely out of keeping with our obligations.

Deputy O'Connor had some words about the recent decision on the outer bypass with which I do not agree. I was elected in 1999. Since 1999, I and a number of other voices, including the now President of Ireland, were part of a group called Hands across the Corrib. It was not NIMBYism or anything like that but because the bypass was wrong. This outer bypass is wrong. We knew it was wrong but even worse was the fact that it was the only egg in the basket, as it were. It was the only thing the city and county councils pursued and it precluded any other solution. Since 1999, I have continuously lost votes on this issue. I am not going to change. I fundamentally believe that that road and the N6 are wrong. It is completely out of keeping with the type of development we need. Both routes have now gone down a cul-de-sac. We choose to demonise as opposed to grasping the opportunity that has been given to us now. The decision by An Bord Pleanála to agree with Friends of the Irish Environment that the board's decision should be quashed is a wonderful opportunity. That is what it agreed. We should embrace that and the Government should take a hands-on approach to what is needed in Galway city.

The Minister of State has been in Galway many times and been subjected to traffic congestion. We have no park-and-ride services, as he well knows. I am repeating myself at the risk of boring people. In 2005, when I was mayor, the council and I led in putting in park-and-ride objectives. That has remained in the city development plan and never been rolled out. The NTA is now telling us that it is looking at it. Imagine that. Some 17 years later it is going to look at park-and-ride services on the east side of the city. Quite incredibly, it is telling us that they are not needed on the west side of the city. That is what it told us. It is not looking at any site on the west side of the city, notwithstanding the traffic coming in from Connemara. Somebody who works in my office has to come in in that traffic.

There was the decision from An Bord Pleanála. I made a submission so we all got copies. There were three sets of precedents but I am focusing on the Friends of the Irish Environment. The letter from the solicitor tells us, "The board held five meetings to consider the application before making its decision at its fifth and final meeting on November 8th, 2021". Quite incredibly, the board granted planning permission even though it was not aware that the new climate action plan had been adopted four days previously. It went on to say it had not been informed. One wonders what world the board members are living in. The Government itself promoted the climate action plan way back in March of that year. It set out clearly what it intended to do in the climate action plan, which An Bord Pleanála was simply unaware of. It is quite incredible. Add to that the response of the two local authorities, which once again put their heads in the sand and said they were disappointed that the decision to quash the consent for the N6 project was done on narrow grounds. Can the Minister of State imagine that? They say it was done on a very limited ground, that is, their utter failure to consider the climate action plan. I am going around in a circle to come back and say our words mean nothing.

An Bord Pleanála and the two local authorities are now interpreting that decision, saying it was narrow grounds when they utterly failed to consider the climate action plan. Prior to that, An Bord Pleanála must have been completely asleep because back in 2020 the Friends of the Irish Environment brought a case to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court held that the national mitigation plan for climate change was too vague. It quashed that plan. That is what led to us having a new plan. It said citizens were entitled to know what was in a plan and what the Government intended. It seems An Bord Pleanála was not aware of that either and was not aware of any of the reports that showed the substantial emissions from transport. Perhaps there might be a different way with a combination of solutions. When the decision was made in March, there was a major press release from the Government regarding the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021.

I fully support the amendment relating to free transport. Perhaps it is not feasible to introduce it in January 2023 but we have no choice but to go down that road. We should look at the countries that have already been mentioned. Luxembourg became the first country to introduce it on 29 February 2020 and on 1 October this year Malta became the second country to make public transport free for all residents. Germany was overwhelmed when it introduced a fare of €9 a month, such was the demand for it. I welcome the changes that have been made by the Government through public transport fare reductions. In fact, I am back on the bus myself. I was always on a bus but I went to a car when I got the extra job and am now back on a bus again. People want to use public transport. People in Galway want to use public transport. I certainly do not want to punish the motorist in Galway who has no option because we have failed to bring in park-and-ride facilities. We have failed to lift the school transport of the city. We have failed to listen to the people of Galway. Around 25,000 people signed a petition so long ago I cannot remember. We stood in the rain asking the Government to please carry out a feasibility study. We still have no study. We have a thriving city, a beautiful city that is positioned between the beautiful Corrib and the Atlantic Ocean and Galway Bay. Within that, we need to lift the traffic off the road.

There was duplicity about the western rail corridor. Hypocrisy has gone on while the north west has been demoted yet again, for the second time, by the European Commission. I did not have the chance to go to that wonderful conference on Saturday. The Minister of State was there. I have read all the blurbs relating to it and so I know they laid out exactly what was possible and the vision for it. I fully endorse that. If we are seriously interested in regional balance and if we are seriously interested in tackling climate change and biodiversity, we need a transformative vision and transformative action. It is too late for any other type of piecemeal approach.

See this speech in context