Results 28,401-28,420 of 31,374 for speaker:Eamon Ryan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The Technological University of the Shannon. I am sorry. Similarly, on the eastern side of the city, there is the likes of a region such as Ballysimon, which is close to the centre, where we could put significant new development in. Similarly, on the reopening of the rail line to Foynes, if you look at the Dooradoyle region and Raheen, again it is a matter of reopening. It is not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The Deputy is right in that it is a very significant amount of money for a single road project, although I would argue in this case that it should not be seen just as that road project. I have had the great privilege of being able to go round the counties. The next county I will visit tomorrow will be County Meath. I sat down with each council for several hours to get an understanding of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: Yes. As I said, that was originally signed off in 2005. We do not reverse decisions. As a State, we tend to prefer to keep to our word. That was appropriate in this case.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I was at this committee previously with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and I was very critical of the strategy that was in place. That has changed with the Green Party coming into Government. The previous strategy was to expand capacity on private cars.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: If I could be permitted to answer the question, pretty much all of the approach roads to the M50, including the N11, were due for major expansion. As I saw it, the previous plans for the N11 were major expansions in road capacity. They included all sorts of new construction, including going up over the Glen of the Downs. Some of the options were incredible, to my mind. In an effort to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I appreciate the Deputy's kind words at the start. It is important that we do not give people a sense that it is not possible; real change is possible on decarbonising. While we do not yet have the final figures my estimate is that we will see at least a 5% reduction in emissions last year, which is what we were planning for. It is slightly ahead of what the Climate Advisory Council set so...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I agree and that is why we are going to fund, through the climate action fund, the incentives to make that happen. The key partnership is with the grid. It is where you have sufficient power supply. I agree with the Deputy and we will work with local authorities to make that work. Similarly, I agree on vehicle size. We are working with the Department of Finance which has a remit in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I agree with Deputy Bruton. One of the mechanisms we are using to deliver on sustainable mobility plans as part of the overall delivery of the climate action plan is the establishment of task forces which are designed to get us out of silos and to bring in outside agencies. Often, it is Departments that do not talk to each other, never mind other organisations, and we have deliberately...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I do not quite understand. By corrective actions, does the Deputy mean in terms of adjusting to be more ambitious?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I will give three examples to the Deputy. First, the most critical point is that we have to do much more on transport. We have to turn those figures around and to have more impact. The measures we have in place are working but the law tells us that we have to do more and it is correct. What might that mean? It is an emphasis on road space reallocation and making quick decisions around...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The Deputy is right. The solution cannot be more road capacity because, effectively, it is leading to the M50, which is at full capacity. Even then, we are rightly going to allocate space on the M50 for BusConnects. Therefore, we would be bringing traffic to a complete bottleneck. That would serve no one. The Deputy is right; there has to be alternative. There has to be investment in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I absolutely agree with the Deputy and share his concern that some of the cooking oils or biofuels that are imported into Europe and claimed to be waste cooking oil may come from other sources. That is something we have to stamp out. That has to be done at European level because Europe has the competence and scale when it comes to the monitoring and enforcement of that. In addition, it is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: We will have it shortly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: That is true, but we expect to have approximately 13 terawatt hours, TWh, of electricity surplus from renewables by the end of the decade. That is not a small amount. If we wait it out, the offshore wind and onshore wind and solar, we can build.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: No, but there will be times, particularly when it is windy, when there will be surplus energy. How we use that will be key.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: We will be looking for solutions. Solutions will start to arise, including in our offshore programme. We will designate approximately 2 GW of offshore renewables that we want to convert into molecules or power-to-X solutions. Out of that, we will start to seek models. It is not too distant. We will start to see hydrogen programmes and projects, initially at test phase, in the coming years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Feb 2024)

Eamon Ryan: We need to take out Covid because it distorts the figures. One of the reasons there was a large percentage increase last year is that it was coming up from a Covid base. If one looks from 2019 to 2023, however, although there was significant population growth and, similarly, the economy grew by 15% or 20% or something in that region, there were approximately 45 billion km driven in 2019 and...