Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if I have had the pleasure of speaking to the Minister before but I am in awe of the challenges and the work that he has to do in his role as Minister. It is an honour to have him in the House.

On paper, the national development plan is the largest and greenest plan we have ever seen.The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, has said that himself. It is most welcome. It is delivering on the Green Party commitments to future-proof the plan and deliver for climate, communities and equality. It is not going to be an easy decade. If nothing in the plan commences, this will leave us in a much worse off place. It is important that we see action on this plan because on paper it is very good. The plan shows commitment to supporting sustainable job creation and contributes to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of communities most affected by the transition to a low-carbon future.

I live in the middle of nowhere in west Clare. Rural dwellers will be most vulnerable, not just through land loss from flooding and climate mitigation but also with rising fuel costs. There is an unfairness there. When I come to Dublin, I can get a Dublin Bike, DART or Luas. There are lots of options. I work with Cycling Safety. There is pretty good infrastructure here in Dublin but down in Clare we are hard pressed. Yesterday, I nearly opened a bottle of champagne because we had five bike lockers in the county. There is a very different animal in rural areas.

I was looking at the figures. One fifth of our carbon emissions come from transport alone. The total emissions are 12 Mt. Of that total, 8 Mt, or two thirds, comes from private car owners. Given that private car owners in rural areas are responsible to a great extent for carbon emissions, when we talk about the national development plan and funding, we must make sure we see the financial backing to match that when we invest in transport.

We had a meeting with the NTA recently, but I was disappointed with its lack of vision about what needs to be done for transport in rural areas. Thanks to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, we have a big increase in public service obligation, PSO, services and Local Link services, but not everybody has a Local Link or a PSO service passing their door. There is a whole other piece around rural roads, speed on secondary and tertiary roads, and how we get to buses, which only stop in towns at the moment. We need rural bus stops, bike racks on buses and proper vision in this regard because we have seen it work in other countries, where one can hail a bus and one does not have to go to one's local town. Lots of rural dwellers might live 10 km or 12 km from a town or village, so how do they get there if they are supposed to be relying on expensive fossil fuels? There is a huge piece there that we need to look at. The State bodies will have to catch up with the reality of what we are facing in the next ten years. Otherwise, the money will be badly spent.

Now is the time for significant investment in greening the country and the economy. They go hand in hand. Larry Fink, the billionaire, wrote to all the multinationals and said "climate risk is investment risk", and that they should not be investing their money unless it is climate resilient. He said that climate resilience equates with economic resilience. It is no longer just the green thing that we have been going on about as a party for 40 years. This is the reality. We can forget about economic growth if we do not have climate resilience. What good is money if it does not stop the land from flooding? The farming community is losing so much land.

That is another aspect of the matter that we must look at as well. I refer to the type of flood infrastructure we are putting in. Hard engineering alone costs four times that of catchment-based solutions. It has not solved the problem, it just shoves it on somewhere else. If we want to invest, we must do so wisely as well. I urge the Minister to bring that point back to the Cabinet. The OPW's old ways of doing things are no longer sufficient and do not work. A woman contacted me yesterday who lives in Ballyvaughan, which is a beautiful village near the sea. Looking at predictive maps, in 2050, it will be under water. She asked me what the Government is going to do about that. She knows she has to move inland. This is not a green issue, it is about homes and farms as well. The national development plan is good. It is the greenest ever, but that is for a very good reason.

The western rail corridor has the potential to revitalise the entire west. We talk about rural development. Every time I speak, I will talk about what we need in rural areas. There is a train to Ennis, once in the morning and once at 3 p.m. The morning train at 6.50 a.m. is packed with students and people going to Galway, but we need more trains and there is a commitment in that regard in the plan. If these projects are delivered, they will change the country and give us the protection that we need if we are to face climate change head-on and the economic threat it will bring.

The green transition fund will drive decarbonisation. We had a very successful meeting with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, who has committed €22 million to the SME sector. I made a pre-budget submission on how to decarbonise and digitalise SMEs and he agreed to it. I am also seeking that the Oireachtas committee would bring in people such as the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, to speak about the circular economy and Seamus Hoyne, who is working hard on how we help small businesses survive the new challenge we face due to hikes in the cost of fossil fuels. We can forget the carbon tax. It is such a minor detail in the overall scheme. Fossil fuel costs are increasing. It is either a green future or no future. That is how serious the situation is now. For that reason, it is great that the national development plan is so green.

The digital transition is going to play a significant part too. In Clare, we are leading the way on digital hubs to encourage people to have microbusinesses that are going green as well. I am taking my seven minutes. There is a huge piece there on the circular economy as well. It is great that we have a Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, who has responsibility for that area. Some good work is being done in the area which will lead to so many more jobs if we take the circular economy seriously. I met a great man today, by accident, who is designing and making bikes in Ireland. We have a huge part to play in manufacturing. We saw at the beginning of Covid that we could not even make our own masks. There is something about us being resilient as a country and in doing so we will create more jobs and will be resilient as a nation. I look forward to seeing the NDP rolled out and coming to fruition as soon as possible. I wish the Minister the best of luck with it.