Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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46. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the new measures he plans to introduce to reduce the 20.3% contribution of the transport sector to Ireland’s total greenhouse gas emissions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15579/21]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the Minister about his plans for the transport sector as part of our overall action against climate change. I very much welcome the revised climate action Bill published yesterday. The scale of the challenge is huge and with the transport sector accounting for 20.3% of emissions, I ask the Minister what contribution he sees the transport sector making to our 2030 target.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I am committed to achieving substantial carbon abatement across Ireland's society and economy, or helping our society to do that, and securing an efficient and low emission transport system. The programme for Government climate action commitments represent an important step up in ambition, seeking to fundamentally change the nature of transport in Ireland and achieve a 7% average annual emissions reduction to 2030.

Targets and measures set out in the existing 2019 climate action plan will not be sufficient to meet this Government's increased ambition. Therefore, work is under way to frame a new 2021 climate action plan. This work will determine the nature and scale of additional measures required to achieve the step up in emissions reduction within the transport sector.

Key targets for electric vehicles and biofuels already represent ambitious goals, but we need to do more right across the transport sector. Continued investment, increasing capacity and improving access and quality across a range of sustainable mobility options and better managing the demand for transport will need to play a critical role.

When agreed, the 2021 climate action plan will chart a course to reduce transport greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in line with our programme for Government commitment. This will advance us towards the ultimate goal nationally and at EU level, which is to reach a near zero emissions mobility system by 2050.

Work to reduce emissions continues apace even as we prepare the new plan. The Deputy will have seen evidence of this in yesterday's announcement of the set of interim actions that we are committed to implementing even while the climate action plan 2021 is being developed. It will ensure continued momentum of our emissions reduction effort across the transport sector.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I have supplementary questions on two matters. One is the Connecting Ireland programme. There are particular challenges in Ireland because of the spatial configuration of our communities. We are unique in many respects, specifically the dominance of Dublin and the types of rural and sparsely populated communities we have. Connecting Ireland is essentially a BusConnects programme for the rest of Ireland, as I understand it.

Related to that, there will continue to be significant car dependency. Our electric vehicle plan seems to be all over the place. It is not delivering anywhere close to what it needs to deliver. It needs fundamental reform in every way. I ask the Minister to speak to those points.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Deputy O'Rourke is absolutely right to focus on Connecting Ireland as a key element in our transport plans. To achieve the level of emissions reductions will involve everywhere and every place matters. Connecting Ireland is critical to achieve the national planning framework objective of better balanced regional development. The programme for Government committed to significant improvements in rural bus connectivity and public transport. People do not have the level of services and access to public transport they deserve.

TII, the NTA and my Department are examining specific measures, including moving to a testing and implementation phase where we establish new bus networks and ways of delivering rural bus connectivity. That will involve the likes of Bus Éireann, private bus operators, Local Link operators and getting the connecting element of this strategy right. The advantage of such bus systems is that they can be rolled out relatively quickly. Such a project will require significant additional resources and good planning to back it up in our towns-based strategy so that people can live in towns served by buses. I will come back to the Deputy on his second question in a further reply.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister. On that point, at the climate committee yesterday we heard from Dr. Lynn Sloman who referred to a Swiss example of good rural public transport. Built into it were performance and service standards that were binding. That is the type of direction we should be moving in. I will let the Minister come back to me on the point on electric vehicles.

I refer to the Road Traffic (Amendment) (Personal Light Electric Vehicles) Bill 2021. Does the Minister know how quickly that legislation will move forward? We have done pre-legislative scrutiny at the transport committee. When might we expect to see the amendments and the legislation enacted?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I should have said that we will discuss this on Committee Stage. The joint committee did very useful and good work in its assessment of the climate Bill at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. I was very aware of those hearings yesterday which were very useful and interesting. I look forward to reading the committee's report on transport because in my mind it is the most challenging issue. In the next four to five months, I will seek to work on a collaborative basis with all Oireachtas parties on how we draft this plan.

The electric vehicle element is key. I do not accept that it is not working at present. The key restriction in terms of the roll-out of electric vehicles is the availability of vehicles from international suppliers. That is starting to change as a variety of different car companies start to provide electric vehicles options across their ranges. At the same time, we are using the carbon fund to invest in the ESB's fast-charging network.

We will continue to look at other legislative measures and other financial mechanisms to ensure we get the charging infrastructure to match what will be a very significant ramp-up in electric vehicles.