Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome and I do not question his personal commitment to the project. As he knows and as we now realise, climate change will affect our children's lives in the future. We have to look back and remember our mistakes. It is not that there were not warnings at the time when those mistakes were being made, such as when there was development on floodplains throughout the country. I recently listened to Senator Lombard's contribution and I welcome his late conversion to climate action. Senator Higgins and I, along with the former Senator, Grace O'Sullivan, fought line by line on the Heritage Act, which sought to allow the cutting down of hedgerows on a pilot scheme. Thankfully, the legislation was never commenced, which is a great recommendation to all the Senators who opposed it line by line. Nevertheless, that was only a few years ago. Nine months ago, we watched as all the Ministers lined up in this Chamber, gave their five-minute statement on climate change and left the room without listening to the debate, before repeating the process the following week in the Dáil Chamber. It showed to the public the lack of seriousness of the Government on the issue of climate change. The uproar, the arguments in both Houses and the campaign led by the young people of the country have made the Government realise that it is a real issue and that people care.

We have to learn lessons from the past. It is not so long ago that people welcomed the initiative in respect of dirty diesel that Fianna Fáil and the Green Party proposed. It was in line with the research at the time but due diligence was not done to ensure that it would not encourage the use of dirty diesel. As Senator Lombard noted clearly, it has had an impact in Dublin in particular but Cork, Limerick and Galway also experience the harmful effects of dirty diesel.We need to keep the public on board and to keep moving forward. One thing that really concerns me is whether due diligence is being practised with regard to what we are proposing. I will concentrate on electric cars because we are talking about spending €11 billion on them between now and 2030. One must question whether this is the right way to go. Electric vehicles will have a role to play in the future and with regard to how we tackle climate change but Senator Higgins was right. We must ask how we spend this money. Is it better spent on public transport? Do we get more bang for our euro by spending it in the right area? The Government is talking about having 840,000 electric vehicles on our roads by 2030. In principle, this is correct. We should encourage electric cars. However, if we are going to replace cars powered by petrol and diesel with 840,000 electric cars, it will not do anything about congestion. If we replace a conventional car with an electric car, we will still have congestion on our roads. Go out in this city on any evening during rush hour and one can see that we have far too many people commuting by private vehicles carrying one person so that will not resolve that problem. What has the Government said? It has said that it has set aside €200 million in Project Ireland 2040. The only problem is that the funding only runs to 2021. We are talking about 100,000 electric cars at a cost of €1.4 billion over the next five years. There are problems with this. We must look at what has been promised. We want 1,100 charging stations to be provided over the next five years by local authorities and the Minister has provided funding for that. If we get to the Minister's target, which is 180,000 electric cars operating within five years with 1,100 additional charging points bringing us up to 2,100 charging points with approximately 70 fast-charging stations, what will happen elsewhere? Many people talk about Scandinavian countries such as Norway being ahead of the curve on this, as indeed they are. There are 200,000 electric cars in Norway with 12,000 charging points yet there are queues. We are talking about 2,200 charging points for 180,000 electric cars in five years' time. Norway has 12,000 charging points for 200,000 electric cars, 2,800 of which are fast-charging points, yet it has queues. Where are we going with regard to the planning of this? There is one charging point for every 100 km of Irish road. There is one charging point for every 23 km of road in Norway yet there are queues. Do we really want to see Irish owners of electric cars having arguments over charging points or will we plan this properly and carry out due diligence? Will we work out how we get the best results for our euro?

We must be honest with people. The carbon tax receipts in 2018 were just over €400 million while fuel excise receipts for 2017 were nearly €2 billion. As the growth in electric vehicles will result in a loss of up to €1.5 billion in motor tax, VAT and fuel tax between now and 2030, how do we make up the difference? I would be delighted to see a drop-off in raising taxes because it would mean that we are starting to move towards a reduction in our carbon emissions but we must be honest with people about how this shortfall will be made up. The Minister mentioned the just transition. We must make sure that it is not the weakest people who are affected to make up for this drop in taxation. We need to be honest and to tell people exactly where this shortfall will be made up because we need to keep the public on board and to keep moving forward. We need real progress where people see real benefits in Ireland starting to take climate change seriously.

Senator Reilly has previously celebrated the new charging point that was installed on the grounds of the Houses of the Oireachtas. He said there were significant incentives, that the Government would give people thousands of euro to buy a new electric car and that there is no reason not to buy one. He said it was a win-win situation for everyone. How many people who are struggling on the average industrial wage can afford to buy a new electric car and get the €5,000 grant? If we want to benefit the many and not the few, would it not be much more prudent, and Fine Gael champions itself as the prudent party, to invest the money in public transport?

Recently, the Cabinet sanctioned 40 new rail carriages at a cost of €150 million. A figure of €35 million would produce an extra €250 in fuel allowance for vulnerable and older people, while €54 million would lead to a 10% reduction in public transport fees and would encourage more people to use public transport. A sum of €30 million could extend the city bikes schemes to five new towns, while for €600 million per year, we could have free public transport nationwide. Do we want 840,000 electric cars clogging up our roads and making us queue at charging stations or would we rather have free rail and bus travel to work for 20 years because these are the choices we need to make and they need to be that honest and rational about how we can encourage people to use public transport? People will say that this is find and grand if someone lives in a city like Cork, Dublin or Limerick. What would I say about electric vehicles and grants for electric vehicles? They must be targeted. They cannot be done in an aggressive manner, in that people in rural Ireland will never have a bus stop at the end of their road so we need targeted grants for rural Ireland to ensure people can move around their communities. Should we give grants to everyone who has access to public transport to enable them to buy electric cars and create congestion in our cities and towns or should we put that money into public transport?

The Minister's party has come late to the party. Fine Gael has not always believed in tackling climate change and dealing with it in a serious manner. We must now do so in a collaborative manner. I will certainly pull my weight but I believe the way forward is serious investment in good public transport.