Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I rise in utter frustration and, indeed, with determination when it comes to even the smallest of green actions. Virtually all the parties across the board yet again voted against a cycle lane in Galway last night, this time on the east side of the city. This was a proposal put forward by the council itself. People will recall the famous Salthill cycle lane that was voted against, but this time, not only did Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael vote against the cycle lane but so also did the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and Independents. I fear things are getting more difficult when it comes to some of these small measures of climate action. Without this cycle lane, safe routes to school cannot happen now around two schools, Scoil Chaitríona and Gaelscoil Dara in the east of the city.

Not everything is going to be perfect. The major problem that councillors had seemed to relate to the removal of parking spaces that would be required, but we are going to have to remove some parking spaces if we want to take climate action seriously. Effectively, this involves retrofitting a scheme into something that was never designed to have cars, buses and cyclists on it, but we have to do it. We have no other option. We have all made a commitment, across the political spectrum, to reduce our emissions by 50% by 2030, and these are the easiest measures to take. This morning, the Cabinet agreed to look at demand management, which is a fancy way of saying we will use more of a stick in respect of some of these actions relating to climate, such as increasing parking charges or perhaps even going as far as introducing congestion charges.I do not want to see these things happen, but we are being left with no other option if it is the case that things that actually make people's lives better are not being embraced by politicians, particularly at council level. We often hear of councillors objecting to the building of houses - that is very real, and I see it every day across the councils - but it seems they are also objecting to everything else at the same time and are thereby preventing us from moving forward and being the leaders I know we can be when it comes to climate.

I also know the public, especially young people, want and expect that leadership. I ask politicians to think again. In the Seanad and the Dáil, I ask that Members call up their own councillors and ask what is going on. They have an obligation to their own parties, as, indeed, I have to mine. We will push as hard as we can but we need the support.