Written answers

Tuesday, 30 January 2018

Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport

Climate Change Policy

Photo of Niall CollinsNiall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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531. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his views on each recommendation (details supplied) as contained in the National Competitiveness Council report Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2017; his plans to implement the policy recommendations for which he has a statutory remit; and the timeframe for implementation. [4056/18]

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Ireland’s national mitigation objective, as set out in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act, 2015 is to ensure transition to a low carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy by 2050. The responsibility for emissions reduction is a collective one and Ireland's emission reduction targets are national and not sectorial in nature. A reduction in carbon emissions of at least 80% (compared to 1990 levels) by 2050 has been collectively targeted across the electricity generation, built environment and transport sectors, in parallel with an approach to carbon neutrality in the agriculture and land-use sector.

To progress this objective and place transport firmly on a decarbonisation pathway we are deploying a diverse range of measures, key among them being the increased uptake and operation of cleaner alternative fuels and technologies as well as promoting modal shift to public transport and active travel modes where possible. A wide-ranging set of transport mitigation measures and corresponding action points are detailed in the National Mitigation Plan and it is anticipated that these measures will develop further as climate research and technological innovations progress.

It is worthwhile noting that a number of successful mitigation measures have been introduced which have impacted and are positively addressing greenhouse gas emissions from transport. They include sustained investment in the public and sustainable transport network, implementation of EU vehicle standard regulations limiting tail pipe emissions, redesigning the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) and motor tax regimes to promote low carbon emitting vehicles, incentives to encourage alternative fuel and technologies, and the introduction of a Biofuel Obligation Scheme.

Yet, the transport sector needs to build on these and go further to address this challenge. A series of measures announced in Budget 2018 clearly reflected this Government’s determination to make progress on decarbonising transport. I am pleased to have secured significant funding commitments to actively address the climate challenge on three key fronts. Firstly, we are working to enhance the capacity and quality of public transport to ensure that, as far as possible and practical, our increased transport demand is met by greener public transport (over €400m will be invested in public transport infrastructure in 2018 alone with a 4 year capital envelope of over €2.5bn). Secondly, we will invest over €100m in a multi-annual cycling and walking programme to support greater uptake of active travel. And, as recommended by the Low Emissions Vehicle Taskforce, a suite of tax and expenditure measures was announced to clearly indicate the Government’s commitment to a low-carbon electric vehicle future.

The MLR Project is an extremely complex multi annual project involving the merging of two totally different data sets. The current focus of the project is in relation to the linking of driver and vehicle records, which supports the requirement for the Cost of Insurance Working Group. The first phase of the MLR matching project is complete. This phase involved associating vehicle owner records with driver records by matching on name and address details. After removing all duplicate owner and duplicate driver records to reduce the possibility of mismatches, roughly 18% of active vehicle records have been successfully matched with driver records. This matching process runs every week, after which a file containing the vehicle-driver associations is sent by my Department to An Garda Síochána for use in the Fixed Charge Processing System.

The establishment of National Claims Information database falls under the remit of the Minister for Finance.

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