Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is also opposed to making public transport free. He is against doing those measures which make it easier for people to engage in better ways of being in Dublin city and not adding to congestion in our city centre by taking public transport and engaging in active travel. He opposed abolishing public transport fares because it would lead to "unnecessary journeys". What we need to target are unnecessary car journeys and the way to do that is not by charging people which seems to be what the Minister is getting at when he talks about keeping the tolls, but by massively increasing investment, expanding public transport and active travel, and making it free for everybody.

I hope that it is not the €172 million in total income from the M50 and the €4 million in income from the Eastlink Bridge that is determining policy on this. The Government has the capacity to amend the Roads Act, abolish these tolls to direct car journeys out of the city centre thereby improving the city centre along with the other measures. I agree it is not of itself a silver bullet, but it is one part of the solution.

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