James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister again. We had a long discussion here yesterday on another mode of transport. I welcome much of what he said in his contribution. Having listened to other speakers talk about aspiration, we as a Government would be the first to be criticised if we did not have plans in place before we acted. Nobody is more frustrated than I at the time it has taken to bring metro to any sense of reality. We have been talking about it since before 2000. When I was in government in the midst of a financial crisis, I fought to have it maintained rather than killed off altogether. I am delighted the Minister said that the project will go to planning next year. So much hinges on that for people on the northside of Dublin city and out to Swords and the airport. For example, four master plans have been developed by Fingal County Council which will result in 18,000 jobs in Airside, Swords. This will be marketed by IDA Ireland and Fingal County Council to foreign direct investment companies. There will also be room for 3,000 houses, 1,100 of them at Fosterstown. This is an area in which there has been significant expansion in population. It has the youngest population in Ireland and possibly in Europe. The people are highly talented and mobile and they want to stay in the area, live there and contribute to it, but they want to be able to access the city for work. There are nearly as many people coming out from the city to work in Fingal as there are going back in. This infrastructure is critical and I welcome that the Minister has stated again that planning will come next year. I certainly hope it will be expedited and that there will be no further delays.

Electrification of the line to Balbriggan and on to Drogheda would be welcome and would have a massive impact on Balbriggan and all the stations in between such as Skerries, Rush and Lusk, and Donabate. However, people will be concerned that the DART trains will be full before they get to them. There will have to be a significant increase in the number of trains running and in the length of carriages. The Minister has alluded to this.

Other Senators have talked about electric scooters but the electric bicycle is certainly worth considering for longer journeys that one would not necessarily want to undertake on a daily basis. I welcome the greenways, which I have raised here time and time again. I have asked that the Minister for Finance make at least €200 million available for them. It is very important not just in terms of the environment and tourism but in terms of community and family. There is no safe place to go cycling with the kids as a family around Dublin city or around the north county. We have called for greenways and I know that Fingal County Council has plans for different sections to run from Sutton all the way to Balbriggan. This would be a massive boon. We have something unique, as I have said previously, in that we have a railway station in each area so if people are tired of cycling they can park their bikes and take the train back into town.It is also an offering that Fingal would have for Dublin Airport through which nearly 32 million people passed last year. These are huge opportunities that are very important for community and health, and for connecting up to the environment.

This brings us to the whole issue of climate change. I am aware that this debate is not about climate change but the Minister mentioned it. As someone who has an electric vehicle, which is very much in the mid-price range and cheaper than many of the cars I see being driven by Deputies and Senators in this institution, I can tell the House that electric cars are extremely practical, worthwhile, efficient and very cost effective. I fought hard to get a charger in the grounds here and there is just the one now, but we need more. In fairness to Senator Bacik, we also need a place for bikes to park safely.

The Minister referred to greenways. A joint application has been made by Fingal, Louth and Meath councils for a greenway that would run through Balbriggan, over to the Boyne and up to Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange. It would be a fantastic offering from a tourism perspective. It would be a huge amenity and would connect up with the other greenway. The opportunities are myriad.

I will now turn to safe cycling in the city in particular. We really need to have safe places for people to cycle. We have lost a lot of good, young people on our roads in the city through fatal accidents such as cyclists being hit by lorries and others on site at the time.

I do not want to delay any further but have some final points. Ireland has a large rural area but so has Norway. I read recently that 53% of new cars sold in Norway this year are electric. If they are good enough for Norway, they are surely good enough for Ireland.

I also want to mention the issue of micro-generation that I have raised here time and again, and perhaps the Minister could use his influence at Cabinet in this regard. We debate feed-in tariffs for big solar farms and big biodigesters but there are also many people around the State who would be very happy to put up photovoltaic cells and feed their excess power into the grid. This is particularly relevant to farmers who have massive hay sheds with huge potential. There has to be some encouragement for that. I am aware that this costs money but I would prefer to see the money spent on that and going to our own people to solve our carbon tax problem than buying credits elsewhere or paying big fines to the European Union.