Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action díospóireacht -
Thursday, 22 Feb 2024

Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed)

An Cathaoirleach

I have received apologies from Senator Pauline O'Reilly. The purpose of this afternoon's meeting is to have a discussion as part of our ongoing review of the Climate Action Plan 2023. On behalf of the committee, I welcome the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to the committee.

Before we begin, I will read a note on privilege which is to remind the witnesses of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members of the committee are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members that they are only allowed to participate in the meeting if they are physically located in the Leinster House complex. In that regard, I ask members joining us online to confirm prior to making their contributions that they are indeed on the Leinster House campus.

I invite the Minister to make his opening statement.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (Deputy Eamon Ryan)

I thank the committee for the invitation today to review our Climate Action Plan 2023 and to outline actions that we are taking to cut emissions in the transport sector. I am joined by my officials from the Department of Transport, including Mr. Caoimhín Ó Ciaruáin, assistant secretary responsible for the Department’s climate pillar; Mr. Naoise Grisewood and Mr. John Martin from the climate engagement and governance division; Ms Aoife O’Grady from the Department’s zero emissions vehicles Ireland office; and Ms Aoife Fleming and Mr. Maurice Harnett from our sustainable mobility management and implementation division.

While Ireland’s national emissions decreased by 1.9% in 2022, the EPA’s provisional emissions inventory for the year reports that transport emissions increased by 6% from 2021 to 2022. This reflects the continued growth in economic activity following the pandemic years, coupled with continued demographic growth. During the first two years of Ireland’s first carbon budget period 2021 to 2025, the transport sector has used approximately 42% of its 54 Mt CO2 eq. budget. Initial indications are that the rate of increase is slowing and 2023 emissions are unlikely to have grown by the same rate. Nonetheless, emissions for last year are expected to be above those reached in 2022 but will remain below our 2018 baseline figure of 12.2 Mt CO2 eq. against which our targets are measured.

Having passed the midway point of the first carbon budget, the EPA’s provisional emissions inventory for 2022 shows clearly that cumulative emissions for the transport sector are currently at the very upper limit of being aligned to the required compliance pathway to 2025. We must continue to do everything we can to cut emissions in the sector, both out to 2025, and more rapidly in the second half of the decade.

As members will be aware, the Climate Action Plan 2024 was approved by Government before the end of last year subject to strategic environmental assessment, SEA, and appropriate assessment, AA. Public consultation on the draft will run until 5 April next. CAP24 sets out how Ireland will speed up action to respond to the climate crisis. While setting out that Ireland is making progress across many key sectors, it reinforces that measures must continue to be implemented at greater speed and scale to reduce emissions further, particularly in the transport sector, while ensuring that quality of life is improved.

In terms of CAP23, under the reporting mechanisms established by the Department of the Taoiseach in the delivery of high-impact CAP23 actions, the Department has achieved a 61.5% delivery rate, with 16 of 26 high-impact actions completed. Key achievements included the ongoing expansion of rural mobility services under the National Transport Authority’s Connecting Ireland programme and the completion of the first projects under our sustainable mobility policy pathfinder programme. The Department has published its national cycle network strategy and our national EV charging infrastructure strategy and national en-route EV charging plan. The Your Journey Counts national advertising campaign was launched, and new and revised metropolitan area transport strategies were completed for the Waterford, Limerick-Shannon and greater Dublin Areas. BusConnects, DART+ and MetroLink have all progressed through major milestones in our consultative and planning systems.

The ten delayed actions will be considered for legacy reporting or carried forward under revised actions in Climate Action Plan 2024. I am satisfied the majority of these outstanding actions are subject to short-term delays owing to planning, legislative and consultation processes among other issues, and they will not impact on our emissions reduction targets in the medium-term. Ultimately, however, good progress is being made and the public, I believe, is with us in making the shift. Over 308 million public transport passenger journeys were made in 2023, which is a jump of nearly 25% over 2022. Local Link services saw a 78% increase in passenger numbers between 2022 and 2023, and a sevenfold increase since 2018. Last year, 60 new bus routes were launched across rural Ireland, adding 2.3 million annual kilometres to the public transport network. Over the past two years there has been a new or enhanced bus route every week. Electric vehicle adoption is surging, with a total of 114,000 EVs now on Irish roads, of which almost 65,000 are pure battery electric. We are on track to meet the 2025 target of 195,000 EVs.

The Government has cut public transport fares for adults by 20% and by an additional 50% for young adults up to the age of 26. It has also delivered almost 190 km of walking and cycling infrastructure, 54 km of greenways and four new pedestrian and cycle bridges last year.

Progress is being made in the delivery of public transport infrastructure. Just this week, MetroLink has moved into a critical phase with the commencement of An Bord Pleanála's oral hearing for the project.

The transition to E10 in petrol and the publication of an ambitious policy trajectory for renewables fuels for transport have proven to comprise one of the key impactful measures in the decarbonisation of transport to date. However, we must continue to do more and accelerate our action. While the transport chapter of CAP24 reflects progress being made, it also highlights the risks to delivery that we must work hard to overcome across all areas of government. These risks are well known, whether they relate to inflationary impacts, market constraints or planning and other systems bottlenecks. Mitigating these is difficult. Our approach in transport, as in other sectors, must be to work collaboratively with all the relevant stakeholders to seek solutions and maintain our focus on the ultimate prize, namely a transport system that is integrated, resilient and decarbonised.

Furthermore, CAP24 highlights new actions in specific policy areas where we need to find further abatement potential. These include, for example, reviewing the national ports policy to include the consideration of key recommendations of the draft all-island strategic rail review with regard to enhanced rail connectivity to our ports in order to improve and encourage greater integration of rail freight and rail passenger transport with our seaports. I have also asked my Department to reassess the policy pathways and models to identify any additional measures that can further accelerate the decarbonisation of the sector. This will not be easy, particularly as I believe we have identified all the correct policies and strategies to decarbonise transport.

The final policy component in the avoid–shift–improve approach will be a national demand management strategy, which I intend to submit to the Government in the coming weeks. The implementation of policy measures at pace is a priority now, and I look forward to discussing with this committee how we can collectively drive that implementation. We must do everything we can to engage the public, our communities, the public sector and our businesses so they will play their part in helping to cut transport emissions.

I am aware that, just this week, the Climate Change Advisory Council expressed concern that Ireland may not meet the first carbon budget target. This echoes a recent report from the EPA - Irish Climate Change Assessment - which showed that Ireland used almost half its carbon budget for 2021-2025 in the first two years. However, I believe good progress is being made in the transport sector. Our emissions have peaked and the ship is turning, but now is the time for accelerated action, with support from all sectors of government, and not the time for complacency.

I thank the Chair for the time. I am happy to take any questions members may have.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister for his opening statement. I ask members to indicate their desire to ask questions. I will lead off.

There was a lot in the Minister's statement that was very positive. I heard him use the term Limerick–Shannon. I have never heard that axis expressed by a Minister before. It is good because Limerick and Shannon are the two poles of a really important economic axis for the country, but they are also fundamental to the sustainable development of the country. As we move towards 2030 and 2040 and expect our population to grow, we must decouple emissions from population growth and economic growth. As I have done many times already, I make the case for the Limerick–Shannon axis in this regard. The strategy developed by the NTA for the region is very ambitious. A key aspect for the region, which is coupled with the growth aspect, is the opportunity to connect Shannon to the national rail network. That is in the draft strategic rail review and it is costed at between €100 million and €200 million, based on 2021 prices. As the Minister knows, there is a corridor preserved for the project. It should be accelerated, although it will be carried out eventually. If we are thinking about the decarbonisation of our island and balancing our economy on the island, it is critical.

You would not build it based on the current demand; you would build it based on demands you would like to see in the future, which means the sustainable demand for mobility in the region and, indeed, the growth of the region. I would like to hear the Minister's views on that possibility.

I want to commend the Minister on the progress that has been made on rural bus services. Again, my own part of the country has benefited hugely in the last few years, as I think all parts of the country have done. The Connecting Ireland programme is so exciting because it is no longer just a matter of providing transport in rural Ireland to people who do not have access to a car; it actually provides a level of service to people who do have access to a car, but the service is so good that it is better for them to take the bus for many journeys. In the last few years, there have been enhancements on various routes, such as Scariff-Killaloe-Clonlara into Limerick, Ballybunion-Askeaton into Limerick, Mitchelstown to Hospital, and Caherconlish into Limerick city. That is just a flavour of the new and enhanced routes that have been provided.

Regarding the feedback I get, I get more feedback about these bus routes than almost any other aspect of Government delivery. We need to do more of it. We need to move towards what the Swiss call the "every village, every hour" type of model, and we are well on the way to doing that. Fundamentally, if we want to displace car journeys, particularly across rural Ireland, this is the way to do it.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I will start, as the Chair has done, by recognising the tragic loss of two young people near Askeaton the night before last. Our first thoughts when it comes to the Limerick, Shannon and Clare region are about the horrible consequences of those road fatalities and injuries for the families of the people who we have lost. We must focus on that in everything we do.

The Chair is right that we need to recognise that the national planning framework, NPF, shows us the right direction because it is about balanced regional development, compact development and, critically, decarbonised development. The national planning framework was very well written in setting some of those key priorities. Limerick and the mid-west region, and particularly Limerick city, need to significantly expand if this is not just to serve the people of the mid-west but the whole country. We will all benefit from better balanced regional development and transport has a key role in that regard.

What the Chair said about the Connecting Ireland bus services is absolutely true. It is not just about the city, but also about the towns and villages. I was only speaking with someone recently who told me about the service in Kilmallock-Askeaton-Cappamore and in that area, which has seen a dramatic increase. The overall numbers in the TFI Local Link services in the Limerick-Clare region have gone up from approximately 28,000. The best base year to compare with is 2019, because the Covid-19 pandemic is taken out of it. It has gone up from 28,000 to 178,000. That is a fivefold increase and that is happening right across the country where we have introduced new services. It shows there is an underlying public demand for public transport. When we provide it, it exceeds the expectations that are shown in the modelling, because there has been an under-provision. We need to continue to see that.

In terms of meeting our climate targets, we must focus on those sorts of journeys that are over longer distances, where there is a relatively higher carbon content because of the distance travelled. If they can switch - and we can compare this to an urban journey, which is typically shorter - that would have a real potential benefit for decarbonising.

As the Chair knows, and I agree with him, the development in Limerick has to be around the existing rail network. In the Department of Transport, we have a very good investment framework, which is called the national investment framework for transport in Ireland, NIFTI. It highlights the need to use existing assets. It would be very expensive to build a new rail line. We can look at what is happening in the UK with the High Speed 2, HS2, which is a new rail line from London to Manchester and Birmingham. It is really expensive and difficult when you are building new rail lines.

When you have existing rail lines that you can bring back to life or on which you can increase the frequency of services, you can do that much quicker, and it is much cheaper and more effective. That is what we need to do in Limerick, and it is about all four approaches to Limerick. It is about looking at that Ennis line and including a rail link to Shannon but more immediately, urgently and definitely, to build a station in Moyross so that you see compact development in the Moyross area. This is close to Thomond Park and the university of the Atlantic, or the university of Munster - I can never get all of my new university names right.

An Cathaoirleach

It is the Technological University of the Shannon, which is linked with Athlone by the Shannon.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The Technological University of the Shannon. I am sorry. Similarly, on the eastern side of the city, there is the likes of a region such as Ballysimon, which is close to the centre, where we could put significant new development in. Similarly, on the reopening of the rail line to Foynes, if you look at the Dooradoyle region and Raheen, again it is a matter of reopening. It is not expensive to put new stations if the line is in operation. We have some examples. It might cost between €10 million and €20 million, which is a lot, but relative to the development benefit and the transport-led development, that is where we need to go.

Similarly, we have been investing in the fourth of these legs leading into Limerick on the Ballybrophy line. There is the potential for commuting from Nenagh, with stations in the likes of Castleconnell and all of that industrial area to the north-east of Limerick. That is where I see the future development of the city and through that, the region. That, I think, has to be one of our first priorities. That is one of the reasons the Moyross station is a pathfinder project to make sure we deliver it by 2025. Similarly, that is why we are reopening the Shannon-Foynes line as a freight service but also to help the likes of Askeaton and some of the towns I mentioned earlier.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I thank the Minister for his presentation. When we are looking at transport and policy shifts within Government, one of the major approaches and key shifts that was taken at the start of this Government was a commitment to spending twice as much on public transport and active travel than on road construction. Looking at it from a climate perspective, that was a key decision that was made by the Minister and his Department.

Yet, this week we saw €800 million in funding from the Government for Northern Ireland, €600 million of which was for the upgrade of a road. I just cannot square those two decisions. There was €600 million towards the upgrade of a road, while at the same time only providing €12.5 million of that €800 million for public transport. Some 1.5% of the funding that Ireland has given as part of that all-island funding is for public transport, and €600 million of it is for road building. I wonder how and why that decision was made. Obviously, the Minister, as Minister for Transport, would have signed off on that at Cabinet. Does that not completely fly in the face of the Minister's commitment to 2:1 funding?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The Deputy is right in that it is a very significant amount of money for a single road project, although I would argue in this case that it should not be seen just as that road project. I have had the great privilege of being able to go round the counties. The next county I will visit tomorrow will be County Meath. I sat down with each council for several hours to get an understanding of how they delivered their part of the climate action plan. Anyone who has good knowledge of Donegal - I do not know if the Deputy has been up in the north west a lot - would recognise that current connectivity to Donegal is severely restricted and very unsafe. There are a number of road projects we are looking at in Donegal but take the road from Lifford to Letterkenny. It is not fit for purpose, safe or adequate at all, so we have to upgrade that, which we aim to do.

Similarly, anyone who drives on the A5 from Strabane to Aughnacloy and then connecting to Emyvale on a regular basis knows that it is not safe. There is a very high volume of traffic relative to the capacity of the road. I think ten people were killed on the A5 in one year alone. Going back to what I said at the start, we have to invest in safety measures as well as climate measures. The investment in the road has not been determined yet; it is just a flag. I referred to this at the press conference yesterday when it was being announced. It still has to go through the planning process in the North. There may be difficulties in that regard. I understand it may not get the full permission. That will be a matter for the planning authorities in the North. We recognise that is their purview. The level of allocation will depend on what the planning decision is there.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

The Minister has signed off on €600 million. Is that correct?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Yes. As I said, that was originally signed off in 2005. We do not reverse decisions. As a State, we tend to prefer to keep to our word. That was appropriate in this case.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

It is disappointing that so little was allocated for public transport as part of the package. From a climate perspective, that would have been a much better use of money. I recognise that when it comes to road building, safety has to be component. I want to raise the issue of the N11-M11 project, which the Minister's Department has not funded, primarily because of his commitment to spend twice as much money on public transport and to have a reduction in road building. The Department has not funded the whole project, yet the N11 is also an unsafe road. I believe it is the oldest road in the country and it does not meet any geometry or safety standards that apply to roads. There is an obvious need, from a safety perspective, to upgrade it.

The proposal for the upgrade was not just from a safety perspective but it was also to facilitate bus priority schemes and many active travel measures were also built into the proposal. The plans for the N11-M11 have been on the cards for years. Millions of euro have been spent on report after report and restarting consultations and all of that. There is a group of people who cannot upgrade or do any work on their homes because they are caught in a limboland of whether or not this programme will start.

When it comes to Northern Ireland and the fact that decisions will not be reversed, why has this not applied to the N11-M11? Part of the bus priority scheme has to do with the junctions. Will the funding for this be made available?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I was at this committee previously with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and I was very critical of the strategy that was in place. That has changed with the Green Party coming into Government. The previous strategy was to expand capacity on private cars.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

This project was not for expansion.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

If I could be permitted to answer the question, pretty much all of the approach roads to the M50, including the N11, were due for major expansion. As I saw it, the previous plans for the N11 were major expansions in road capacity. They included all sorts of new construction, including going up over the Glen of the Downs. Some of the options were incredible, to my mind. In an effort to provide additional road car carrying capacity, it would get to gridlock at the M50. This is absolutely certain because we know the section of the M50 from Shankill to Carrickmines and beyond towards Stillorgan, would be completely congested. What was planned previously was a major expansion in the number of cars going into a gridlocked section of the M50. There were similar plans for the N3, N4, N7 and various other approach roads to the M50. In no way do I apologise for changing the policy. It was absolutely right to recognise that this strategy would not work.

We need transport systems that work and there will be various elements to this. We are proceeding with improving the N11. We will provide a significant sum of money to provide bus priority that gives an option for all those households in Wexford and Wicklow who need to get in and out quickly. The new design provides the bus priority and will be a big benefit to everyone because it will encourage people to get out of their cars and into buses, reducing the congestion on the road, on the M50 and the nearer approaches to the N11.

I think that is absolutely the right approach. It is subject still to much local opposition because people are concerned about some of the aspects of the measures. However, I believe the approach TII is taking in this case is the right one. We will absolutely fund it and deliver it support with great urgency.

I wish to add one more point though. That, on its own, will not be enough. I would like members’ support for us to extend the DART system to Wicklow. It could be done at relatively low cost with the installation of a charging point near Wicklow Station, which would allow us to run new contracted battery electric trains. We would also upgrade and do needed works on the section between Greystones and Bray, which will similarly be able to enhance the services not just to Greystones but also Wicklow town. That is as important in solving the problem we have with the N11 because it will provide much higher frequency for those who are currently commuting by car from Wicklow into Dublin. Having the DART alternative would take the traffic off the N11 and start going in a sustainable direction. That will all be delivered thanks to the policy – I do not mean to be party political – to move away from more road capacity, ever-expanding road junctions, ever-bigger carriageways and a car-dominated system that could not work. That has changed for certain.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I agree with that. I think that is the approach we need to take but I find it interesting that the approach the Minister is taking in the Republic was not reflected in the funding in Northern Ireland when it came to that road. Some €600 million versus €12.5 million for public transport is involved. I just wanted to highlight that discrepancy in the different approaches.

I welcome the fact the Minister is raising the Wicklow town DART. Can I come back in again on that?

An Cathaoirleach

Yes. Other colleagues are waiting.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

Yes. Fair enough.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I congratulate the Minister on the progress he has made. I recall when I had the climate brief back in whenever it was - 2019 - and the outlook of the transport Department was much different from what it is today in terms of trying to achieve change. That said, it is disappointing, as the Minister admitted in his statement, that there is no guarantee that the transport targets will be hit within the carbon budget.

I was trying to think of how we drive greater performance. I believe vehicle sharing, as opposed to ownership, has potential. I was disappointed to visit the mobility hub in Finglas, as I know the Minister was there. I do not think the location is great and I do not think it is being driven in a way that it could transform people’s thinking about transport in that area. If we were to proceed with these mobility hubs, which I greatly support, we have to think much more about the location, how we get people on board with it, how we give people confidence and how the council promotes it. It looks to me as if it has been dropped there and a box ticked. It is not enough.

The performance on EV charging by the local authority has been appalling. If I am not wrong, grants were made available for EV charging five years ago and the take-up remains pathetic. I am not sure if the Dublin authorities have even had a procurement for theirs. It is a genuine hold-up. There are local authority social homes where people cannot get charging and there does not seem to be anyone answerable for delivering EV charging to local authority homeowners who want an EV car and do not have the space allocated to them or whatever. We need to get our finger out on that.

On the wider issue, vehicle size remains an annoyance, I think to everyone. I wish to get the Minister's view on the escalation of vehicle size, even at a time when we are trying to reduce carbon emissions. Would he consider a circular economy initiative to try to drive change in transport? What I am thinking of is trying to put an onus on enterprises to have carbon reduction for their workers and their logistics, for example, on schools, shopping or leisure centres to consider how they can facilitate lower carbon emission in their operations.

For public transport, it is looking at low occupancy, times and how they can facilitate use of vehicles at low-occupancy times to stop the single-person car going on the road for a very short run. Can we create more vehicle-sharing networks and infrastructure for moving away from everyone owning one car per apartment to multiple apartments being served by a pool of cars? There is an opportunity to lift the thinking out of where it is but it will need something more than what is happening at the moment. I would be interested to hear what we might do. There is a willingness and an awareness but we probably have not joined the dots and given people enough ways to start the journey.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I appreciate the Deputy's kind words at the start. It is important that we do not give people a sense that it is not possible; real change is possible on decarbonising. While we do not yet have the final figures my estimate is that we will see at least a 5% reduction in emissions last year, which is what we were planning for. It is slightly ahead of what the Climate Advisory Council set so it is not impossible. It has not been the experience in transport, where we expect that there will possibly be a 1% or 2% increase. Other sectors are reducing more so that is why there is an overall reduction of 5%, we think. The final figures are yet to come out but there is real change happening. We will meet our target of 195,000 for the number of electric vehicles by 2025. We are delivering on the switch to biofuels as another measure to reduce emissions. A 25% reduction in public transport fares last year is not insignificant. That is huge and unprecedented. Our planning system has been particularly slow in approving projects but we are starting to see things like BusConnects projects being about to be delivered and the active travel teams across the country starting to work. We can change; the ship is turning.

On the EV charging infrastructure, I agree with the Deputy that the local authority scheme we had was not working. It was insufficient. It was not generous enough to get the local authorities over the line to make the investments. I am disappointed to hear about that charging station in Finglas. It may be that Dublin City Council does not seem to be putting its shoulder to the wheel on it which it needs to. That may be resolved because we are going to go bigger on that. The Deputy's fundamental premise is one I agree with. It is not just about replacing one fleet of 1.5 million cars, or whatever we have, with EVs. It does have to move towards a much more efficient car-sharing system as well as car ownership. The benefits of that are reduced parking needs, significant savings for households and the ability to put in charging infrastructure in locations where that might be difficult by using a car-sharing model. There is also the environmental benefit. The environmental costs of production of the car are very significant for it to lie idle 95% of the time so there is a huge shift. We will have public consultation on shared mobility strategy next month. I hope that in the next few weeks I will be able to approve or to start the process of taking the example in Finglas and going far larger. We are looking at 200 shared mobility hubs. We are likely looking at two of the cities and one large town as the first places to roll them out. It is a combination of e-bike and e-car sharing.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Are new partners needed? Look at all the supermarkets. Look at all the locations that are providing business. That location is near the Garda station and not much else, as far as I could see. A mobility hub ought to be in a place where there are a whole lot of partners sharing the promotion of this as a concept.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I agree and that is why we are going to fund, through the climate action fund, the incentives to make that happen. The key partnership is with the grid. It is where you have sufficient power supply. I agree with the Deputy and we will work with local authorities to make that work.

Similarly, I agree on vehicle size. We are working with the Department of Finance which has a remit in this area to see what we can do in our tax system to try to discourage this trend towards ever-larger vehicles which create real difficulties in parking, road safety, environmental impact and also expense.

It goes in the wrong direction in so many different ways. There is a slight race to the bottom. If you feel that everyone else is in a massive car and you will be in an impact with that, you might think that you had better have a vehicle of similar size to protect yourself. That is not the way we want to go. The demand management strategy with which we are due to go to Government in the next few weeks will be key in a variety of these areas, including promoting shared mobility, looking at how we manage parking and examining other demand management measures.

The smarter travel mark is one of the pathfinder projects where we go to employers to see can we change the way, particularly at this time of change with remote working, and reconfigure how we travel to work. I would cite my own Department, the Department of Transport, in that regard. It was one of the first to get that gold mark in smarter travel. We have reduced our car parking in the Department from approximately 120 vehicles to 40. We are leading by example. It is not impossible. When you start to have those sort of changes, that is material. If we did that in every office, it would start to have a significant change. Another example is Trinity College Dublin, which is right in the centre of the city. Only 2% of its staff and-or students commute by car to the college.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Finally, because I am probably abusing the clock, the merit of a circular economy strategy is that you get a lot of those players into the same room and you start to put pressure on more employers to take up the smarter travel mark or more supermarkets to start to engage with the location of mobility hubs so they can be seen to be part of the strategy. It is the partnership piece. It is all very well having the strategies but if you do not have the partners on board, they will die a death. It involves a bit more direct pressure on key players to move.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I agree with Deputy Bruton. One of the mechanisms we are using to deliver on sustainable mobility plans as part of the overall delivery of the climate action plan is the establishment of task forces which are designed to get us out of silos and to bring in outside agencies. Often, it is Departments that do not talk to each other, never mind other organisations, and we have deliberately designed our sustainability mobility task force to follow that partnership approach.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I thank the Minister for being here. I will pick up on a comment in the first instances in respect of the A5. I welcome the Government's commitment to it, which predates this Government and dates back to the St. Andrews Agreement. Having met with residents and families of victims, I know that there have been in the region of 50 deaths on it since 2006. There is a real safety issue with the road. As the Minister said, it has to go through the optioning and planning process in terms of environmental and other considerations, which is appropriate, but it is a really important piece of infrastructure for safety reasons. I welcome the funding and commend those who have campaigned in relation to the project for so long. I merely make that point.

The Minister references that he has instructed the Department to reassess policy pathways. A significant part of what we are here to do is to look at progress, but also to listen to corrective actions that are being proposed or undertaken. Can the Minister give us a sense of the Department's approach to that matter?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I do not quite understand. By corrective actions, does the Deputy mean in terms of adjusting to be more ambitious?

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

Yes, exactly. I guess the purpose of these sessions, from our perspective, is to hear from the Minister in terms of progress to date, what is going right, what is not going as well and the types of measures. Earlier, he specifically stated that he has asked his Department to reassess the policy pathways. I presume the latter is the process of looking at where we can go further, faster or add to what we are already doing.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I will give three examples to the Deputy. First, the most critical point is that we have to do much more on transport. We have to turn those figures around and to have more impact. The measures we have in place are working but the law tells us that we have to do more and it is correct. What might that mean? It is an emphasis on road space reallocation and making quick decisions around transport and traffic management to ensure our bus and active travel systems work. An example would be the Dublin city centre traffic management system which we are looking to put in this summer. This is where we can act fast, can put a left turn ban at the bottom of Westland Row, can introduce bus gates on Aston Quay and on Bachelors Walk and can reconfigure Gardner Street. I could go on. Those sort of measures, which do not cost a great deal, can be done quickly but that requires political courage by the council in this case, but also by ourselves in the Department in a supporting role. It is one of the things we need to do more of.

We need to go around to our other towns and cities to look for examples of that. Part of the whole purpose of the pathfinder projects was to show the ability to act fast and to deliver sustainable mobility, particularly via the local authorities. That is the real challenge.

I will give the Deputy an example of where it is not working. Some of the pathfinder projects which have not got through are in Kildare County Council and Naas town, where there was a very deliverable project taking through traffic out of the centre of Naas town. I will be honest and say the council was not progressing with it in a way to show that we could act fast.

That is the first policy intervention. In those circumstances, we can say we will take the money from Kildare and we will give it to the councils which are willing to do it. Limerick has done better than Cork, to be honest. I do not want to point to any one city but Cork came with pathfinder projects which did not include that level of ambition and, as a result, if one looks at the allocations to Cork, or Galway, which is probably something similar, it is not as high as it would be in counties which were more willing. The Dublin counties have been more willing and, therefore, they will get more of the funding. That is the first policy correction. That is to very much support speed and ambition in making the sustainable mobile switch.

Second, I would argue with regard to what is new, additional and what we really need to scale up, which is the promotion of rail freight. People will know I am in a fairly open discussion with Dublin Port. I disagree with its approach which seems to be the adding of another 2.5 million trucks each year onto a congested M 50, the ignoring of the climate impact of the Dublin expansion on the existing model, and the failure to really think strategically and long term about rail freight in that development at Dublin Port. I think we can change that and that we will. It is not just Dublin Port but we need marshalling yards in various parts of the country to make rail freight start to work. We started in Waterford Port purchasing new wagons, which I expect will do this year, to service rail freight.

We will go to Limerick-Shannon-Foynes next as we reopen the line there. We will also look at Rosslare with regard to developing the port there for rail freight and not just for offshore renewables.

There is a second example of correction or policy change, which is to stop the five or six decade shutting down of rail freight that has taken place, the pricing of it out of the market and the cutting of the backup facilities.

The third example I would argue, and this is something to which the members of this committee and the housing and local government committee will be key, is to change our planning system. Our biggest problem is that everything takes so long in planning. Most of our BusConnects projects have been in planning for about two years now. Even when one gets out of planning, one can then go into judicial review or into a legal process, which is very protracted and hugely expensive.

I can give an example of that. It is going on at the moment, so I have to be careful. The metro project opened for planning. I believe we should be able to get the metro planning this year. We have been thinking about it for 25 years.

Are there 12,000 pages of documentation with the application? It has been modelled to death. I do not see why we should not get a planning decision on that this year and, subject to judicial review, go to construction quicker than the 2035 timeline that was mentioned at the oral hearing. We can and should deliver faster than that. We are not serving our people if we set such long timelines. Our planning and legal systems are not serving our people. This is because it is a core part of the problem that everything takes so long to get through planning and through a legal process that is protracted and expensive, and not necessarily fair for everyone as a result. Those are three changes I would make, and that we are making.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I thank the Minister. He will be in County Meath tomorrow and I will meet him there.

We discussed the climate action plan, and there has been significant progress on many strands. One issue I have raised with the Minister previously relates to a number of the points he made. There is traffic congestion every day at Kilmoon Cross on the N2. It is reported every morning and evening as sure as night follows day. Representatives from Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, appeared before the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications last week. The project is not funded, which is a huge frustration for people. When I speak to local engineers, they say they are working within the parameters they have to work with. The solution they have come to, which they believe is the only solution, is an extension of the motorway. Some people will advocate for the extension of the motorway. In this space, we have a vacuum and an impasse. TII and the Department are saying the funding is not there. The council is saying that it is the only project. What I am saying to the Minister is that he and I may believe the policy is something different from building new roads for roads problems.

My understanding of policy is that it is now about park-and-ride facilities, improved public transport, nodal shift and limited active travel. I am putting this to the Minister as a challenge. He has a perfect pilot test bed here. I believe he has a willing audience in the community because people want solutions. It is up to him to show that it can be done. I will leave that with him.

There is an opportunity either in terms of the existing alignment of the road or improving signalling, layout, public transport connections and park-and-ride facilities. Ultimately, however, there is congestion there that has been frustrating people for years at this stage and there is not a solution on the horizon.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The Deputy is right. The solution cannot be more road capacity because, effectively, it is leading to the M50, which is at full capacity. Even then, we are rightly going to allocate space on the M50 for BusConnects. Therefore, we would be bringing traffic to a complete bottleneck. That would serve no one. The Deputy is right; there has to be alternative. There has to be investment in rail. It has to be demand management, car sharing and all the other measures we mentioned earlier. Park-and-ride facilities will have a role to play.

The key issue will be budget allocation because, and I keep going back to this, we have €35 billion in the national development plan, NDP. There is €100 billion worth of projects. To make that work, we have to prioritise the likes of the DART+ project, which will triple the DART capacity. Critically, that is not just an issue for County Dublin. It also affects the surrounding counties of Meath, Wicklow, Kildare and Louth. It is not just the DART+. The new intercity railcars, ICRs, are putting on some of those commuter rail routes. What we also need to do is align the development plans with the rail lines in the review of the national planning review that is happening at the moment. If there is to be an expansion of the population goals and targets and so on in the surrounding counties around Dublin, in my mind, that has to be in locations that are within walking, cycling and bus connection distance of railway stations to get people in and out of the city, if that is part of their commuting pattern. It is about investing in those rail and bus solutions and park and ride. It is about getting the planning connections so that those new houses are close to those services. That is the only way it is going to work.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I thank the Minister. He mentioned biofuels. I want to ask about that because it is Government policy. The promotion of biofuels is in the draft climate action plan. On the use of hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO, a recent study revealed that, between them, Ireland and Britain imported 151 million l of used cooking oil from Malaysia in 2020. However, a separate study concluded that only 70 million l of used cooking oil were collected in Malaysia. This indicates a significant problem that may be explained by the mislabelling of palm oil, which is not a sustainable fuel whatsoever. It was reported that the Department has established a working group to determine Ireland's vulnerability to fraud in the biofuels industry. Will the Minister provide an update on that and whether the promotion of HVO will be paused while the group is doing its work in order to ensure that we are not unwittingly importing palm oil and having negative environmental impacts by doing so?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I absolutely agree with the Deputy and share his concern that some of the cooking oils or biofuels that are imported into Europe and claimed to be waste cooking oil may come from other sources. That is something we have to stamp out. That has to be done at European level because Europe has the competence and scale when it comes to the monitoring and enforcement of that. In addition, it is a European market it is coming into. It typically comes into Rotterdam; it does not come into Dublin. It comes in and is, so we are not the first point of contact. I agree that it is something we have to stop. That does not mean we do not use a volume of biofuels. There are real benefits. There is a benefit in terms of us converting waste products, such as tallow and other materials, here. These are being refined at, for example, Whitegate refinery, which, I think, is sustainable and beneficial. I will go back to it but it is a circular economy model. Turning waste into a useful energy resource makes a lot of sense. There will be some availability from bioethanol and from plant crops that do not have an impact on biodiversity-rich habitats. There will also be other sources such as biodiesel, rapeseed oil and so on. However, the volume will be limited.

To answer the Deputy's question directly, we are working with the European Commission on this. My understanding is that the original complaint was raised by the European Biofuel Board. Although the complaint may have been withdrawn, there are still investigations taking place. In particular, the European Commission is investigating instances where EU duties relating to biofuels from Indonesia are being circumvented as a result of those products being transported through China and Britain. This goes back to the point about there being different routes to market here.

I will make a broader point. Using biofuels for transport is better than using them for heating We have alternatives in heating but we do not have many alternatives in the area of transport, particularly the HGV sector. We should prioritise the biofuels we do have for the hard-to-reach and hard-to-abate sectors in transport. The ones that will be the most significant, difficult and challenging but most important will be in aviation and maritime which are at much earlier stages. The earlier stages in aviation will also be biofuels but again, because of the concerns raised by the Deputy and others, that is limited in capacity. The real strategic leap we have to make is towards synthetic biofuels and synthetic e-fuels, such as e-kerosene and other products. That is not impossible. It is technologically a combination of hydrogen and carbon so we could see where the source materials would come from.

We need to start thinking. What we can do is to convert our renewable surplus capability into some of those synthetic fuels to provide an alternative to biofuels. That will be much more sustainable long-term option.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Yes, but that implies that there is a surplus. We do not have a surplus now and we will not have one for quite a while.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

We will have it shortly.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I am talking about a real surplus such that we will be able to cover all our electricity demand and the new demand for renewables. In order to do that at a significant scale, there would need to be a significant surplus. It takes a lot of energy to produce any of these e-fuels.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That is true, but we expect to have approximately 13 terawatt hours, TWh, of electricity surplus from renewables by the end of the decade. That is not a small amount. If we wait it out, the offshore wind and onshore wind and solar, we can build.

Deputy Paul Murphy

The Minister is saying that by 2030 we will not be using any fossil fuels whatsoever for electricity production.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

No, but there will be times, particularly when it is windy, when there will be surplus energy. How we use that will be key.

Deputy Paul Murphy

That may be so, but I understand it is better to select a particular wind farm to be used for hydrogen or whatever, rather than saying the surplus of the whole grid. For technical reasons, it is problematic. It is not like diverting it to someone’s hot water tank or whatever. It is far more complicated than that.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

We will be looking for solutions. Solutions will start to arise, including in our offshore programme. We will designate approximately 2 GW of offshore renewables that we want to convert into molecules or power-to-X solutions. Out of that, we will start to seek models. It is not too distant. We will start to see hydrogen programmes and projects, initially at test phase, in the coming years.

Deputy Paul Murphy

One of the targets in Climate Action Plan 2024 is to reduce by 20% the number of kilometres travelled by vehicles. Where are we in the context of that target? Has there been a reduction? On a related matter, the Minister stated that we need to stop fossil fuel cars. Last year, more fossil fuel cars were sold than EVs. That is not compatible with meeting the targets. We should not be putting more fossil fuel cars on the road right now. They are going to become stranded assets. How can we achieve that target? For example, does the Minister consider, as I do, that there should be a ban on advertising of all cars, including EVs? We need to get people out of using private cars. Even a ban in terms of fossil fuel cars would be of benefit. Should we be sending a signal that people will not be able to use international combustion engine, ICE, cars in cities after a certain date? How does one signal to people that there should be no more fossil fuel cars?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

We need to take out Covid because it distorts the figures. One of the reasons there was a large percentage increase last year is that it was coming up from a Covid base. If one looks from 2019 to 2023, however, although there was significant population growth and, similarly, the economy grew by 15% or 20% or something in that region, there were approximately 45 billion km driven in 2019 and the figure for 2023 was roughly similar. We have stopped the growth. We have decoupled some of the growth in kilometres. Now, as the Deputy stated, we need to reduce it by 20%. The question is how to do that. Some of the modelling that was done in the climate plan stated that to try to achieve that with tax measures might require something like a 600% increase in tax rates on travel and transport. I do not think we will introduce a 600% increase in tax rates. I do not think anyone in the Dáil would be supportive of that. We have to look at alternatives. That is not to say we will not have to reconfigure our road tax system down the line. If it is all on excise on fuel and that disappears, which it will as people switch to EVs, we will need to have an alternative funding model. Transport provides approximately 6% of the tax base. Some sort of switch will be needed in that regard. I do not believe that we can price people off the road, however. That would not be socially just and it would not be effective. As there is such inelasticity in transport, it would not work. What are the mechanisms?

Let us take the example of Tallaght in Dublin 24, which is the location of one of the pathfinder projects. I would be interested to hear the views of the Deputy on this issue.

Some people say that they do not like the fact that we have taken road space in order to make it safer to cycle. The turning curve is much tighter now, and people have to reduce speed. That does not reflect those big roads, like American highways, were designed whereby there was an assumption that people drive at 50 mph. That is the first change. You make it safe for people to do the alternative. That is politically difficult, however, because some people vote against it and do not want it. I am of the view that we should do it more.

On demand management, the report is due to go to Government in the next two to three weeks. Parking policy is another element of that. It is not that you just price people out of the road but, going back to what Deputy Bruton said earlier, it is about switching to car sharing and so on. If each car is parked 95% of the time, if you switch to a car-sharing model where one car is on the road most of the time, there is a dramatic reduction in the amount of car parking you have to provide. That is another example. The report is 240 or 250 pages long. It was compiled on foot of a process of deep engagement with stakeholders. It has been through various working groups. We are working with trade unions, employers, retail industry associations and so on. When that is published, it will give more detail and examples. There is no silver bullet. It is a philosophical change as much as anything else. This not anti-car, it just that if everyone is in a car, it does not work for anyone. Creating better alternatives does work for everyone.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Thank you.

An Cathaoirleach

We will go to the second round now because we have time. I might just ask about the strategic rail review. I know it is only at draft stage; hopefully it will be published soon now that the Northern Ireland Executive is up and running. On its backing with the national development plan, there are discussions around the more near-term infrastructural projects in the NDP. That spending envelope seems to be a major constraint on accelerating the roll-out of the strategic rail review. It is a plan that will take us to the middle of the century but if we really want to decarbonise, we should front load a lot of those projects, notwithstanding the costs and the challenges. I would be interested to hear the Minister's views.

Included in the strategic rail review are much higher frequency and faster trains between our cities, picking up a lot of settlements between our larger cities also. In the absence of Senator Pauline O'Reilly, who sends her apologies, she would be one of the stronger advocates for a western rail corridor right up the western seaboard. I know that is not fully supported by the strategic rail review. It is supported as far as Claremorris. If we are to have ambition as a nation, we need to be thinking about that scale of project because this infrastructure will last centuries. In that regard, your support for the western rail corridor as far as Claremorris is welcomed widely. It could be a key part to the resolution of a lot of Galway's transport woes, together with twin-tracking the line between Galway, Oranmore and Athenry and installing passing loops where appropriate as well. In the context of the national development plan and the funding envelope to really drive the strategic rail review, can you outline how you think that needs to change?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Yes, I can. First, I am very glad that we have the restoration of the assembly and the Executive up North. I note that we do not yet have the timeline around some of the North-South ministerial meetings. That is needed to co-ordinate, and I am really looking forward to it.

We need to get down to business quickly, but we have to await the timelines around that.

I have couple of points to make on this. First of all, we must remember what the strategic rail review is and is not. It does not include a lot of the metropolitan plans. It was about intercity. We broadened the remit quite a bit over the lifetime of the study, but it is not about DART+, Luas, Cork metropolitan rail or even, I would argue, Limerick metropolitan rail. It must connect with these. If we are building Limerick metropolitan rail and we are twin-tracking and we put a new station in Ballysimon, then that impacts Dublin to Limerick rail times and so on. It is the same if we do a passing loop in Oranmore. It benefits Oranmore as a community, but it also benefits intercity.

The review did not include all the metropolitan plans. It is still a massive plan. It is a €30 billion plan to 2050. I would love to front-load everything, but in truth we have so many big projects, including the likes of Cork metropolitan rail, the Shannon-Foynes line and DART+. They are, touch wood, coming out of planning this year and Cork is already out of planning, so they are the ones that must be front-loaded. We also need to learn by example. Consider the NRA in the period from the mid-1990s to the late 2010s as an example of an agency that delivered major transport infrastructure projects in a cost-effective way. It delivered much of the motorway network on time and on cost with very good quality and we now need to do that for public transport. The lessons to learn from the roll-out of the motorway network are that it was about modular, standardised, steady investment every year. We need to be spending €1 billion per year every year, and particularly with Irish Rail. What is the capability of Irish Rail to scale up from having €200 million or €300 million per year for capital investment to having €1 billion per year for that? That is not all about front-loading, but about ensuring we have a stream of projects for the next 15 to 20 years so all the signal engineers and planning engineers know they have a career doing this for the next 20 or 30 years and that it will not just be boom-bust and stop-start. That is probably the most important thing. We are going to work with the EIB and the Department to look at this.

The first response to the strategic rail review is to go to Government before the summer with what it means, maybe even for the next 15 to 20 years. That will lay out the sort of priorities and project timelines we have, some of which are not in any existing NDP, such as the rail freight projects, for example. Included in that is the western rail corridor, which will be to Claremorris, not to Collooney. I am being upfront and honest here. I would love to preserve the line, but the idea we will be able to fund absolutely everything would not be fair or honest, but it is important we do the Claremorris to Athenry piece. The first action is to set out the rough list of projects we know are coming out of this and here are rough timelines. It is giving that 15- or 20-year sweep of funding implications beyond existing NDPs. I mention Irish Rail because it is the key agency in the case of the intercity routes. How does it need to be configured to deliver that regular, routine investment delivery? That is going to be the secret of success.

An Cathaoirleach

In that vein, I make the case again for connecting Shannon Airport to the national railway network. It is quite a short run. It is costed in the strategic rail review at between €100 million and €200 million. There will be institutional resistance to a project like that because of the current demand profile, but it is about growth as well as decarbonisation. It is about the future Ireland.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

My response to that is the same as I would for Dublin, namely, the metro is not just for Dublin Airport, but for all the institutions. Similarly, a Shannon rail connection would not just benefit the airport.

There is a very successful industrial estate and a very large town that would benefit, so it is not just about the airport.

An Cathaoirleach

The region would really accelerate. It would change how we view Shannon Airport and how the mid west is viewed nationally and internationally and would lead to a lot of investment. I note the chief executive of Irish Rail, and Irish Rail generally, would not be part of the institutional resistance. It is very supportive. Mr. Meade was before the transport committee just a few weeks ago and said it can be done for that cost of €100 million to €200 million, the corridors preserved and in five years. Whatever about the arguments for various projects, this should be a high-priority one.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I come back to the Minister to have that discussion about the more Wicklow-related transport. One of the Minister's statements in his submission was that he believed emissions have peaked and the ship is turning. On what evidence is he basing that statement? I acknowledge there have been improvements, and as I have repeatedly said, Local Link is an incredible service and I would love to see it in every town and village running every half an hour or 15 minutes doing loops of all these areas. It is just incredible and I would love to see major investment in that. However, I worry that there is a big gap between what the Minister believes, that is, that the ship is turning, and what is being seen on the ground. I will use Wicklow as an example because, being my constituency, it is the one with which I most familiar.

In Wicklow, there are 58,715 people travelling to work in the county every day. The majority of them drive to work. Some 37,311 people drive to work by car, 2,568 go by bus, and 2,717 go by train. Therefore, we can see there is an enormous number of people who are still using private cars to get to work. That is not because they necessarily want to use a private car to get to work. The issue is not with demand but with supply. With any issues raised with me when it comes to transport in Wicklow, it is always the case that people are screaming for better, more reliable, and more frequent services and it is not being provided at a pace quick enough, not only to meet our climate objectives but even to meet the increase in population in the county. There is major potential for improvements there.

I will specifically talk about buses. The BusConnects plan for Bray and Greystones was first mooted in 2018. I have recently received information from the NTA that this would be put in place by the end of quarter 2 this year, which is fantastic and will make a huge difference, but that is an incredibly long time to wait, essentially for a number of Local Link loop buses and a couple of other improvements. The pace just is not there. We repeatedly have issues with the 133, the 131, and the 84 bus services. There is not enough capacity on all the bus services we have. We have instances of them driving by people standing at the bus stops. We are always seeing these problems and until that is resolved we are not going to encourage people into buses and out of their cars. That is the context when it comes to buses.

An Cathaoirleach

I am mindful of the time. I want to ask Deputy Bruton if he wants to come in for a second round. We have just a few minutes.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I have just a brief question.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I will speed it up. If you look at west Wicklow, because essentially I was talking about the east coast, the 65 bus route is pretty much the same now as it was 23 years ago. In 2000, there were 15 buses and now there are 16. We are not seeing the increases we need to see. Regarding the Wicklow DART, the Minister asked me earlier on if I would support extending that electric DART to Wicklow town and he said it could be done. I absolutely support it. It is imperative that this is delivered.

What I would say though is that the impression being given by Government TDs in the constituency is that it is a done deal. I have spoken to the NTA, which has stated that no funding has been ring-fenced for it and no electric DART carriages have been allocated. Will the Minister indicated whether it will happen and when it will happen, because it is imperative that it happens? As I said, the impression has been given that it is a done deal. I just want to find out if that is the case. Could the Minister confirm the position for me?

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Deputy Whitmore. I am going to go to Deputy Bruton and then we will go back to the Minister.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I am interested in the Minister's point about building capacity for some of the bigger shifts we need to make. I absolutely agree with that, but I am interested to hear his view on his understanding of the planning bottlenecks that remain. They do seem to be the key issue in the context of BusConnects and renewable energy. Time and again, that is where the capacity constraint is now located. Is it that we cannot compete to get the human resources to carry out the planning assessments? Is there a bottleneck that we can break in that regard? As the Minister is aware, 2030 is looming and we have a lot of projects, like BusConnects, that we feel are going on for ever given how long it is since it was first mooted. There is a great deal of frustration regarding renewables. The recent auctions have not been as good as they might have been, and all the rest of it. What is the Minister's understanding of how we can crack that?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

With regard to Wicklow, similar to other projects, it was not in any plan or in the NDP, but I am absolutely convinced that we can and will deliver it.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

When?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The timeframe would be in the next two to three years. The challenge with all of these projects is getting the grid connection and power, because we need a very high power capability when there is a battery electric train running off the wires, which would be the case in Wicklow. That project would take longer if we were to electrify all the way to Wicklow. My understanding is that is not impossible in Wicklow Station. Therefore, my answer is "Yes".

In terms of the allocation of the DART battery electric carriages, extending to Wicklow would be one of the best benefits. I do not have my exact project timeline, but we would also have to invest in an upgrade on the line between Greystones and Bray. That is not to mention the coastal issues south of it. As part of that, we should consider looking at the Wexford train in terms of whether we would shuttle it from Wicklow to Wexford as a way of getting more frequency and improving the service. That is something we would consider doing at the same time. That might be controversial, but it would be the right approach. In addition, it could be done in the same sort of timeframe.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

The difficulty is that the NTA is saying it has not decided on where the allocation of those carriages will go and it does not have funding for it, but the Minister is saying he sees it happening in two to three years' time.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

We have to work with the NTA. The political direction that I would give to it is that we want to extend the service to Bray. It is doable, so the answer is "Yes".

If I can, I will just make a point on Local Link. I got some figures that will give the scale of it. Deputy Whitmore said that things have not changed that much. I only have aggregated figures for Carlow, Kilkenny and Wicklow.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

Yes, but to be honest-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Carlow and Wicklow are adjoining counties and they are similar. In 2019, before Covid, there were about 12,700 Local Link services in those three counties. Last year there were 132,900. That is a fifteenfold increase.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

Yes, but to be honest, I do think-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

There has been a 1,500 % increase in patronage.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

That is fantastic, but I do not think Wicklow has seen the same increase. Last year, there were only 12 km of extra line added. We have had a couple of fantastic routes put in, but we are not seeing the speed of it and that needs to be increased and we need to get more investment. I acknowledge that work is being done.

An Cathaoirleach

We do not have the time to get into the detail.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I am sorry. I thank the Minister. I have to run to the Chamber.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

If I can, I will respond to Deputy Bruton's point. Many of the reasons for the slow progress are on the planning side; it is not just in transport. Deputy Bruton mentioned renewable energy. There had not been a renewable energy farm passed for two or three years, partly because An Bord Pleanála was in real difficulty and did not have enough resources. That has been addressed and it has had a significant increase in staff. It is very welcome that over the past four or five months a whole series of wind projects have come through the planning system.

Every single one of them is being judicially reviewed, which could mean anything in terms of further delay.

I will give another example outside the transport area. As I said, I was in Fingal last week. Maybe the Deputy can tell me where we are on the new wastewater treatment plant there. Was it at Clonshaugh?

Deputy Richard Bruton

The original location was Clonshaugh but it died a death.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Has it? I thought it was in planning or it was-----

Deputy Richard Bruton

No.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That is an example. We would want to tell the people of Ringsend that project has died a death. Will Ringsend take the entire sewerage system for Dublin?

Deputy Richard Bruton

Do not take me as an authority. I have not heard-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

My understanding of the Clonshaugh project was that it was in some planning limbo.

Deputy Richard Bruton

That is my understanding. A planning limbo is-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Planning limbo is where a lot of projects are because of an incredibly complicated process. We need to pass the planning Bill. It is controversial. It is the subject of 1,500 amendments at the housing committee, but every place I look I see that our biggest challenge is how long it takes. We want to keep the right of appeal and set the highest standards in everything, but it is not serving anyone when we have such an expensive protracted system. That has to change.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I agree. We are doing the legislation, which we have beefed up, but as the Minister rightly said, the issue is judicial review. The case was made by the climate council that in other countries these projects would be done. These are not countries that are autocracies. I am wondering-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I will give another example from personal experience. This is why I am so passionate about the issue. When we were previously in government, I was really pushing metro north. I was involved in that in the nineties and saw the sense of it. In the period from 2007 to 2009, with a lot of resistance from the Department of public expenditure and reform, I was saying we had to build it. It was in the planning system for two years regarding some archaeological issue, which delayed it for two years. Due to that delay, we missed the window and did not build it. We had European Investment Bank, EIB, funding, it was in the four-year plan and it was ready to go. We would have done it in the middle of a downturn, which would have been countercyclical, and we would have done it for a fraction of the cost we will spend in the end. I look back on that time and ask why we did not build it. The main reason was it was in planning due to issues around an archaeological assessment. We have to do archaeological assessments, but my recall is that it was an incredibly drawn out and protracted delay.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Do we need some sort of critical path analysis that could be done by a whole-of-government team to look at why so many of these things fall off the radar for whatever reason? This is so we get down to a few net changes we could make to the process. We all say renewables are the great white hope for the country, but we then all wring our hands every other week because something is not moving forward. Would it repay some group within the Government - maybe that is what the Attorney General did before this planning legislation-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That is the process. I will give some hope. It is not all hopeless. While all those wind projects are now being judicially reviewed, last year for a good year for renewables. We went up to approximately 45% renewables, which-----

Deputy Richard Bruton

I know.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

-----beat the previous record, and it will not stop. It is just that delay costs money and costs us in emissions reduction because, especially in transport, the biggest obstacle to us advancing is the length of time. It takes at least ten years to get a bus lane from idea to implementation. That is too slow. It is not good enough. We have to speed up.

An Cathaoirleach

I am conscious of the Minister's time and my time because, ironically, I have to catch a train. Deputy Devlin has joined us. I want to give him an opportunity.

Deputy Cormac Devlin

I thank the Chair. I do not want him to miss his train because I do not know when the next one is.

An Cathaoirleach

Every hour.

Deputy Cormac Devlin

We have the right people in the room to tell us it will be on time. I apologise to the Chair for my delay. I was also at the public accounts committee meeting.

The Minister mentioned the BusConnects plan. It is being rolled out in various phases. We know that. Reference was also made to the N11-M11 junction. I heard the Minister's response to that.

That is the Minister's view and I can appreciate that. Regarding that spine, as it would be called under the BusConnects proposals, the removal of all those slip lanes off the N11 has benefits for public transport and active travel but it will cause congestion for the vehicles for which the road was primarily built. This is guaranteed in my view. It is a flaw in the design. We are talking about quite a sizeable number of slip roads off a national route. We may agree to disagree about the need for N11-M11 but I am very concerned about a national road, such as the N11 being redesigned in the manner that is proposed. We must find a more sensible solution to accommodating the various junctions that exist along that road.

Great strides have been made in accessible transport. Deputy Bruton mentioned the pilot rolled out recently. Campaigners are still saying that this is still inadequate. We need to put additional emphasis on ensuring there is greater accessibility for all users of public transport.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I very much agree with the Deputy about the latter point but I disagree with him about the former.

Deputy Cormac Devlin

I knew the Minister would.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I remember how the original introduction of a bus corridor or bus lane on the N11 was the subject of deep scepticism and there were predictions of dire consequences and arguments that nothing would work. Lo and behold, when we put in a high-quality and high-frequency public transport system, the public flocked to it in the same way it is doing with regard to Local Link services around the country according to the statistics I mentioned earlier. It increased the capacity and reduced congestion because there were fewer cars and it started to work. It is similar with BusConnects. First of all, we have to make it better quality in terms of a better cycling and walking experience and we have to improve the quality of the bus corridors. I am convinced that this is the only viable way. I live near the N11. The level of congestion we are seeing at the moment is beyond anything I have seen previously. We are seeing a really dramatic return to gridlock not just at rush hour as it is probably even worse at other times of the day and at weekends. South Dublin, including Dún Laoghaire, will not work if everyone is driving. It physically and mathematically cannot work. To make the alternative work, we have to give it space and priority. This can be difficult as we change. I understand concerns but the only way to tackle congestion is for us to switch to more sustainable modes at scale and at speed.

Deputy Cormac Devlin

With regard to those slip lanes, I presume the Minister and his officials are aware of that. You will have a cycle lane, a bus lane, what would be traditionally known as the slow lane and the faster lane on the outer side. That slow lane becomes a turning lane and, therefore, a national road goes down to one lane moving-ish. This is the result of the BusConnects proposal. I have made my observations known to the NTA. I know we were discussing climate targets and for a while, I thought it was a Green Party conference given some of the comments the Minister made. I think we must be very cognisant of the long-term impact of this plan. The Minister and I may disagree about the N11-M11 junction. I know the Minister's preference is everybody on a bicycle but the reality is that we must also accommodate some level of motor vehicle and transport, including public transport. I am alerting the Minister and his officials that the proposed design is the wrong proposal for that national route.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister and his officials for coming before the committee. I note that it is the second time because wearing his other hat as Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, he appeared before us before Christmas, so I thank him for his engagement.

We hope to really bed in the process set out in the climate Act whereby this committee holds the relevant Ministers accountable for the delivery of the climate action plans as well as the additional piece mentioned by Deputy O'Rourke of getting the plans back on track if we are off track. In that regard, we will probably look to have Ministers in just after the summer break, after the EPA and Climate Change Advisory Council publish their reports. That will be a little sooner than we had Ministers in in 2023. That is the plan as of now. I thank the Minister and his officials again.

The joint committee adjourned at 3.11 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 27 February 2024.