Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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352. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the projected carbon savings from the National Development Plans transport projects; whether modal share targets for public transport are on track; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59017/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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For the transport sector, we are required to pursue a decarbonisation pathway to achieve a 50% reduction in transport emissions by 2030 in a manner that is consistent with sectoral emission ceilings that were agreed by Government in August 2022.

The transport chapter of the annually updated national Climate Action Plan (CAP) sets out the policy pathway to achieve these emission reductions and is supported by the specific transport-focused initiatives outlined in the National Development Plan.

The Department of Transport's annual capital allocations from 2026 to 2030 were confirmed in the Review of the National Development Plan, published by the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation in July 2025. The Department is reviewing key programmes and projects in the transport sector in the context of that capital funding envelope, including public transport projects. A sectoral investment plan with specific details on the projects to be delivered between 2026 and 2030 will be published shortly.

While it is not yet possible to provide the overall projected carbon savings from the projects to be funded under the updated NDP, all projects will be appraised individually on a range of criteria, including their likely emissions abatement.

Despite continued economic and population growth, transport emissions have started to drop year-on-year. Investments to date are paying off; just not quickly enough. To address this, the Department of Transport is collaborating closely with its Agencies and stakeholders on the “Corrective Action Modelling Project”; a project to identify potential pathways to correct the trajectory of carbon emissions from the transport sector out to 2030, and to deliver sustained and accelerated emissions abatement beyond 2030 into Carbon Budget 3 (2031-2035). This work includes detailed transport emissions modelling of intervention scenarios, as well as socio-economic analysis and high-level costing of those potential pathways.

The outputs of this work and the subsequent decisions about which policy pathways to pursue will be essential in informing the investment programme needed to deliver on our legally binding climate targets for transport. The NDP sectoral plan will naturally require a degree of flexibility. Given that transport makes up over a fifth of Ireland’ greenhouse gas emissions, investment in transport infrastructure should be agile and responsive to meeting Ireland’s climate goals.

In relation to modal share targets set out in previous climate action plans, despite strong public transport use and relatively strong active travel, particularly in urban areas, thewww.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/NTA_NHTS2024_IpsosBA_Report_24September2025.pdf shows that the modal share of car journeys is still above 70% nationally. Any increases in the uptake of active travel and public transport use are likely being outpaced by growth in economic activity and demographics.

Whilst the decarbonisation and modal shift targets set by government remain challenging, the additional investments being implemented in programmes such as BusConnect and DART+ will play a key role in supporting modal shift and meeting our decarbonisation targets.

The challenge for the transport sector over the coming years is to continue to accelerate our pace of delivery so that we can, collectively, enable a widespread behavioural change in how we move in our daily lives. Continuing to further decouple emissions from transport activity remains the pivotal challenge for the sector.