Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I congratulate him on his elevation. We will miss him in the corridors of LH2000. I agree with the speakers who have said the Title of this legislation is somewhat confusing to the ordinary individual and I support Senator Ward in his suggestion regarding the need for consolidated legislation in the not-too-distant future.

There is a lot of talk about retrofitting, particularly when we look towards the Bord na Móna workers and their like. I walk around south Dublin and I watch new developments and I have to congratulate the construction industry on the way in which it has tried to build houses that are more green and eco-friendly etc. On retrofitting, I was recently talking to a relative of mine and I told him I was thinking of changing my windows again. The response I got was that at my age I might as well leave it for the next guy. When we thinks about the costs involved for the people who desperately need to retrofit their properties, it must be remembered that, by and large, they are in the more elderly age group in the country.

It struck me when I visited Finland a couple of years ago that the further education and training sector is actively involved in the community and in work such as retrofitting. As a former trade unionist, I realise this would cause problems, but there may be scope to bring in something like the old FÁS projects from years ago, in which community work was done by trainees under the auspices of FÁS, with respect to retrofitting houses for the elderly. The costs involved are prohibitive and they simply could not afford to do it otherwise, so why should they be left out of the loop when it comes to retrofitting their properties? I ask the Minister to engage with his colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, to see if there is a way we could bring education and training into the area of retrofitting properties and making them more eco-friendly.

There is a lot of talk about electric cars, both in this House and outside of this House. I am 100% supportive of this but I want us to be a little bit more realistic about the human cost of some of the raw materials that are required in the building of electric vehicles and I want us to be honest about the carbon footprint from the manufacture of an electric car. I have heard estimates that suggest it takes up to ten years to write off the carbon footprint for the manufacturing process involved in an electric car.Very few people in this country have cars that are more than ten years old. Those who do will be levied by an insurance company because their cars are too old. We need a more honest debate about replacing petrol or diesel vehicles with electric vehicles. I am not saying it should not be done. I am 100% supportive of it. However, we have to be more honest about the actual costs, both in human and ecological terms.

The Minister will be aware that last year I took to two wheels and cycled around Dublin to try it out for myself. I had not sat on a bicycle for perhaps 50 years. The experience of travelling around Dublin was horrific. In recent days I have seen experienced cyclists bringing their young children onto the roads on bicycles. One of the interesting things I saw over the last few days was a cycleway where young novice cyclists were brought by their parents to experience cycling and become competent in it, only to find that it was a racetrack for more competent cyclists. I am not sure what we can do about that other than consider changes to by-laws. We can at least state in this House that cycleways are for people to travel in a normal cycling capacity. They are not raceways. People who want to race fellow cyclists should find a track somewhere or get out on the main road. For God's sake, young children and novice cyclists should not be put in danger by people racing down cycleways that were not constructed for that purpose.

The cycle to work scheme must be extended and electric bicycles must be included for more elderly persons such as myself. My legs are still reeling from the two days I spent on a bicycle. It would have been nice for my bicycle to have been assisted by electrical power. We need to look at how we can offer more grant aid or subvention to get more and more people on bicycles. That will fall into the Minister's remit and I know he will be 100% committed to it. I wish the Minister well in his portfolio. I hope he brings the educational issue I spoke of to the relevant Minister.