Malcolm Noonan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I congratulate Darragh. It is the first time I have had an opportunity to publicly congratulate him. He was a fantastic Minister to serve under in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and I wish him all the best in his new role.

I want to make a couple of quick points. I support the motion. The one concern the Green Party and I would have is that the 2:1 ratio split for public transport, cycling and walking that had been committed to in Our Shared Future, the previous programme for Government, does not seem to be overt in this programme for Government. While the Government reiterates its commitment to public transport, I would be concerned, particularly when one of the Minister's ministerial colleagues is saying people want tar when we talk about the local and regional roads programme. There was no decrease in the local regional roads programme from previous years, and the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, kept that on a positive trajectory over his time in office. Yet, this motion acknowledges that direction of travel, including the mode of travel put forward by the Green Party. I hope the Minister stays with that commitment. He has spoken about a transformational change and shift in public transport over his tenure, and I hope he will keep that, because what people want are safer routes to school, cleaner and more vibrant towns and cities and the ability to feel safe in urban and rural areas.

The commitment that was made by the three parties in the previous Government that led to a massive boon in the uptake of public transport, the reduction of fares and those under nine being able to use it for free has been hugely significant. That is what people are looking for. People in my own area feel that the extra Local Link routes committed to under Connecting Ireland have been transformative. They have brought rural communities together. People are getting to hospital appointments, education and training. It has made an immense difference.

In my own home city of Kilkenny, we have a road project that we want progressed, namely, the completion of the ring road in Kilkenny city. It has been a project I have been campaigning on for more than 20 years. It has been blocked politically for various reasons, when it was more convenient to plough a road through the historic urban core of the city. Now, calls are growing louder as the city expands. Thanks to the funding the Minister put in under Housing for All, the city is expanding and there is a lot more housing on the periphery of the city. To keep the city vibrant and to keep its heart and core alive, the only option is to take those trucks and HGVs out of the older parts of the city. I raise the commitment from Kilkenny County Council that it continues to progress the project, because a lot of the delays have been of its own making, but I would welcome the Minister's commitment to support whatever trajectory that heads on. It is vitally important the Kilkenny city ring road completes that loop around the city.

Again, I hope that the spending and the trajectory in public transport, cycling and walking the Minister has talked about continues, because it has led to very positive outcomes in our towns and cities. Perhaps I will bring this to a Minister at a later date, but we need to look at the integration of rural public transport services with the Local Link services in our towns and cities. It is a piece of work I was involved in with Kilkenny Leader Partnership and the Ring a Link demand-responsive transport service we had running very successfully for the past 20 years. There are proposals regarding that which I think could be really innovative and transformative in making the connection between the Local Link services and how they fit in with the roll-out of the broader town bus services.

I wish Darragh all the best and continued success in his new role.