Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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243. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the progress in emission reduction targets in areas that are the responsibility of his Department; which measures are particularly successful and which measures are underperforming; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [67058/25]

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 (relative to 2018 levels) in a manner that is consistent with sectoral emission ceilings that were agreed by Government in August 2022. Despite continued economic and population growth, transport emissions have started to decline year-on-year.

The transport chapter of the annually updated national Climate Action Plan (CAP) sets out the policy pathway to achieve these emission reductions and uses an Avoid-Shift-Improve framework where the aim is to:

• Avoid: generating unsustainable additional transport demand through, for example, better spatial, urban, and land-use planning.

• Shift: to more sustainable modes of transport, such as active travel and public transport.

• Improve: the efficiency of residual vehicle journeys through widespread electrification and the use of renewable alternative fuels.

Avoid: My Department has developed a new national strategy, Moving Together: A Collaborative Approach to Systems Change in Transport. It is expected to have a key role in reducing congestion and air pollution, and in meeting the CAP23 commitment of reducing total vehicle kilometres travelled, both private and commercial, by 20%. I look forward to progressing work on the recommendations within the strategy, following approval by Government which will complement and mutually reinforce the significant investment that is being made in public transport services and active travel infrastructure to help ‘Shift’ people to more sustainable modes like walking, cycling, public and shared transport.

Shift: Since the publication of the Climate Action Plan 2021, my Department has invested over €1 billion in active travel projects through the National Transport Authority’s (NTA’s) Active and Sustainable Transport Investment Programme, delivering over 1,000 km of walking and cycling projects around the country. In 2025 approximately €293 million has been allocated to this Programme, in addition to a commitment by my Department and TII to spending €67 million on Greenways and National Roads Active Travel infrastructure. It is expected that approximately 200km of walking and cycling infrastructure will be delivered in 2025.

In addition to environmental benefits, the economic impact of active travel across the five metropolitan areas is estimated at over €3 billion annually, alongside major and important improvements in public health and air quality.

Walking, wheeling, and cycling in our metropolitan areas removes approximately 680,000 car trips every day, reducing congestion and meaningfully cutting emissions. In 2023 alone, active travel saved an estimated 160,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 2.2 million passenger trips from Dublin to London Heathrow.

As for commuters in County Dublin, I am delighted to say that every day those commuters who walk, wheel or cycle are taking nearly 530,000 cars off the road in the Dublin Metropolitan Area. These practices are saving approximately 120,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ireland’s shared mobility schemes are also performing well and offer enormous potential for emissions reduction long-term as services expand. The Government’s new National Policy Statement on Shared Mobility is supporting such expansion through public bike sharing schemes and other shared mobility initiatives. For example, earlier this year, a TFI e-bike trial scheme commenced with the introduction of 100 e-bikes in Cork, with a further 400 due to be put into operation across all the regional cities in the coming months.

In respect of Public Transport, passenger numbers on the Public Service Obligation (PSO) network have grown significantly in recent years, with a 9% increase in 2024 compared to 2023. So far in 2025, passenger numbers are approximately 6% higher than in 2024, continuing a strong upward trend.

Connecting Ireland is great example of progress for rural transport, delivering exponential growth in services since its launch in 2022 with over 180 new and enhanced services rolled out since it commenced in 2022.

Improve: One achievement from my Department this year and a completed action from CAP25 was the publication of Renewable Transport Fuel Policy 2025-2027, which sets out an updated policy pathway for delivery of transport targets for the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) towards the achievement of 2030 targets as set out in the CAP. Corresponding to an RTFO rate of 21% by energy in 2024, a physical blend of approximately 10% biofuel in diesel was achieved in road transport and we saw our biofuel blend rates increased in volume of biofuel supply by 60% between 2021 and 2023, representing displacement of two hundred thousand tonnes of CO2 each year.

We are also seeing steady growth in the number of EV registrations, and I announced in October that Ireland has already met its Climate Action Plan target of 195,000 electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2025, a key milestone in the nation's transition to cleaner transport.

Although significant progress has been made toward our emission reduction targets, Transport remains one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise. The Climate Action Plans 2023–2025 outline policies designed to place the sector on a trajectory to achieve a 50% emissions reduction by 2030. However, meeting the Carbon Budget 1 target of 54 Mt CO2eq will be extremely demanding. To address this, my Department is working closely with the National Transport Authority (NTA) on the CAP corrective action modelling project, which aims to identify potential measures to correct the trajectory of carbon emissions from the transport sector out to 2030 and beyond. This work is advancing well and will provide critical insights to inform future iterations of the Climate Action Plan and broader transport decarbonisation policies.