Results 30,441-30,460 of 31,374 for speaker:Eamon Ryan

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Road Safety (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for overall policy and exchequer funding in relation to the National Roads Programme. Under the Roads Acts 1993-2015 and in line with the National Development Plan (NDP), the operation and management of individual national roads is a matter for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. This is...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Bus Services (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport; however, I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally and for the scheduling and timetabling of these services in...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Bus Services (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally. The NTA also has national responsibility for integrated local and rural transport, including delivering the Connecting Ireland Rural...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Bus Services (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: As the Deputy may be aware, as Minister for Transport I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has responsibility for the planning and development of public transport infrastructure, including the provision of bus stops/shelters nationally. Noting the NTA's responsibility in the matter, I have referred the...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Electric Vehicles (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The Government is fully committed to supporting a significant expansion of the electric vehicle charging network over the coming years. Having an effective and reliable recharging network is essential to enabling drivers to choose electric. Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI), a dedicated office which oversees and accelerates Ireland’s transition to zero emission vehicles, has...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Electric Vehicles (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The Government is fully committed to supporting a significant expansion and modernisation of the EV charging network over the coming years. The EV Charging infrastructure Strategy 2022-2025 sets out the Government’s ambition regarding the delivery of this network to support up to 195,000 electric cars and vans by the middle of the decade. This includes the National Road EV...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Departmental Reviews (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The information sought by the Deputy is outlined in the table below. Name of live study, review and research Approximate date scheduled for completion Review of the Road Safety Authority. Q3 2024 ILV Granuaile independent review. Q3 2024 Review of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety. Q4 2024 ...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: EU Funding (18 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for overall policy and exchequer funding in relation to the National Roads Programme. Under the Roads Acts 1993-2015 and in line with the National Development Plan (NDP), the planning, design and construction of individual national roads is a matter for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), in conjunction with the local authorities concerned....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I thank the Chair and the committee members for having me here today as part of the enhanced climate governance and reporting procedures implemented by the 2021 climate Act. This provision in the Act supports greater transparency and accountability in how we plan and deliver our climate action. This committee has an important role in this process, that is, reviewing the climate action plan...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I thank the Chair. We are going to have to throw everything at transport, which is the hardest to change. This is because we have embedded a car-dependent system. I am not blaming anyone or any individual who is driving, because they often have to do so to carry out everyday functions. It is difficult. We are going against a system that for many decades designed our systems and towns on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I thank the Deputy. I agree with him. First, I want to focus on renewables and the electricity sector in general. The two are completely connected. We are moving towards a renewable electricity system. Addressing the transport sector is probably the hardest thing. The electricity sector is probably proving to be the fastest in making the change, which is understandable because there are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I am referring to the time it takes to get through a legal process. That is equally an issue. The planning and legal systems have proven to be a genuine bottleneck. The planning system was particularly bad in recent years due to difficulties in An Bord Pleanála. We did not have a large number of projects coming through the planning system to go into the auction system. That was a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: The Deputy will recall that was very much centre stage in our minds because of international developments in which pipelines, including the Nord Stream and Baltic gas pipelines, and fibre-optic networks were taken out. If this happened to the two gas interconnectors coming into this country, it would have very significant repercussions for the Irish public, which we have to try to avoid....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: It will still take number of months. Even if proceed as we are already going, without the further analysis which I asked to be developed, it would still be a number of months because it is highly complex. Very good analysis has been done by Gas Networks Ireland looking at the technology that would be best used. It is fair to say that some of the lessons from this are different from what...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: I thank Deputy Bruton. It is not easy to get your head around this because it is so complex. It is a wicked problem in the first place and while, in many cases, the solutions are very beneficial and are at the centre of an industrial revolution, they are in many sectors and they are technical, and this is difficult. Keeping on track of how we are doing is the job of the EPA. Its annual...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: This year, the EPA's sectoral assessment reasonably gives the most accurate sense of the showing in each sector. I read them in my introduction, with decreases in agriculture of 4.6% and in residential of 7% while transport had an increase of 0.3%. This is the baseline for this entire approach. It is encouraging that there is progress. It was even more encouraging last week when it was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: That is what I understand from our best modelling agency in Cork, the university MaREI centre. That is just from reports in the media. I have not talked to it since, but my understanding is that it is saying we seem to be on track to meet our first carbon budget. If that transpires, that would be a remarkable achievement because it requires such an incredible leap.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: That is what I said when I was qualifying. According to the latest research from our best modelling university, to meet it would still require at least an 8% per annum reduction. We delivered 6.8% last year so it would be a scaling up from that. It is no small challenge before us.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: That did not help us on our land use side. We have started to separate out how we treat land-use emissions, like a lot of European and other countries, recognising that there is a completely different characteristic. My understanding is that land-use emissions last year went from approximately 3.9 million tonnes source of emissions to between 5 million and 6 million tonnes. I apologise, I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (19 Sep 2024)

Eamon Ryan: Yes. We have further complexities which are going to have to be ironed out early next year. We also have a black box of unallocated emissions which we need to reduce from other sectors from other new activity. To go back to what Deputy Bruton said, the complexity of this is sometimes challenging. Our land use emissions are not helping us at the present time. They are making it harder to...