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

In the first instance, I believe it is the Minister for Finance who has the signing order on any such measures and he or she would have a key role in anything.

I go back to the point I made already that we cannot do this as a punitive thing where certain workers are forced into a workforce transport mode and then have the conditions change from under their feet, as it were.

This speaks to a wider issue. We have seen in this city the real cost to everyone from the way in which we saw the rezoning of the outer city, often involving corrupt planning, and even the design of that motorway which was, by definition, going to be unsustainable and very expensive for people in respect of time, fuel costs, and so on. That is the real problem we have; it is that cost. It is the hours stuck in traffic that is costing people as well as the car parking, which is a real problem.

That is all history now and goes back 30 years-plus but what do we do now? We create the alternatives. The bus is super-fast, super-quick and super-cheap. That gives and allows people an option. We must look at the whole transport system in this city, in particular - the same applies in other cities - to see if we can retrofit more sustainable practices to something that, by definition, was not.

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