Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and congratulate him and everybody in the Green Party, for whom this must be a proud time, given the many decades it has been campaigning. It is a proud time for everybody around the country who, in a big and small way, has contributed to getting us to where we are. This is a historic piece of legislation and one that hopefully will serve generations to come, including my children, their children, whoever. It is important that we get this right.

I commend everybody on the joint Oireachtas committee who engaged in very intense pre-legislative scrutiny. My understanding is the committee met five days a week and more than 78 amendments were adopted in the legislation. The legislation has been considerably strengthened since last October and that is an achievement of this coalition. This legislation reflects commitments in the programme for Government to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and to reduce our carbon emissions by 51% by 2030. That is an important milestone and it is important there will be the climate action plan and the carbon budgets. There will be five-yearly budgets and annual reviews. All of this focus on not just aspiring to achieve climate resilience and make us a climate resilient island, but to target, measure and count it is important. What is counted actually gets done.

I commend everybody who has got this legislation this far. I am proud to have the opportunity to speak in support of it, and to support the Minister and the Government, to work with everybody within and outside of Government to ensure this legislation does not just adorn our Statute Book but delivers for our society and communities across the country.

Others have spoken about their communities. I am a townie so I will talk about city issues. We can achieve many great objectives through this legislation and other policy changes. The Minister is doing tremendous work on public transport and I commend him for that. Covid has shown how the city has changed. The streets have been largely deserted, apart from essential movements, for most of the pandemic. In that time, the city council and local authorities around the country, to their credit, have taken the opportunity to create safer and greater space for pedestrians and cyclists. That is the most healthy and sustainable form of movement. It is good for us individually and for our environment. They are to be commended.

We need to go much further, as the Minister knows. I encourage him to continue to invest and to support our local authorities to increase the space for cycling and pedestrians and to give motorists an alternative. The National Transport Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the Department of Transport are doing great work in progressing public transportation infrastructure. I saw the Minister was out this week launching the first spine of the BusConnects out to Howth.That is a welcome development in terms of eight-minute buses as part of a high-frequency, reliable bus service. What is not to like? Come October, there will also be the new ticketing system and 90-minute fare system. That will be welcomed by people. It will make using public transportation much more affordable in the city. We will be able to transfer from one route to another.

I want to talk specifically about the proposals to upgrade the DART, especially the DART+ south west project, which will come from Hazelhatch to the city and connect, in my constituency, at Cross Guns Bridge on the Phibsborough-Glasnevin border, where there is also a proposal for a MetroLink station and we already have what will become the DART Maynooth line and the main line rail for Sligo running through there. It has huge potential.

The DART+ south west route coming across, I am sad to say, does not include a stop in Cabra. The Minister can look at the route himself. There is a huge opportunity for us. There is a spot in Cabra at the old cement silo site off the Cabra road. The rail line runs through the site and it has a catchment area of tens of thousands of people. We need to give people in the city not just the infrastructure but the access to the infrastructure. I ask the Minister to examine the possibility of a stop in Cabra on the proposed DART+ south west route.

I would like to return to two other public transport-related issues. One of them is the MetroLink stop. The MetroLink is a huge infrastructure project which will have the potential to give hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to ditch the car and use public transport. The route, as currently proposed, calls for an intervention shaft at Albert College in Glasnevin-Ballymun. That is essential because of the way the route is being proposed and I do not dispute that.

However, this infrastructure will be there for at least 100 years and maybe longer. I ask the Minister to give us a station instead of an intervention shaft, to let the people in that area be able to get onto the MetroLink, as opposed to hearing it rumble underground through their park and having the fumes and emissions come out of it. I am wholly supportive of it as a proposal, but I would appreciate if we could be a little bit more ambitious - I ask the Cathaoirleach to give me a moment - and give people access to the MetroLink by giving them a stop instead of an intervention shaft.

I think the other speakers are not here, Cathaoirleach. I will be one moment and I promise-----