Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 4 May 2023
9. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Minister for Transport if he can clarify any plans to remove or penalise workers who avail of car-parking spaces in their workplace; how any scheme aimed at removing or charging for such places might affect front-line workers or those with no viable public transport option due to their shift patterns and workplace location; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20771/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis question relates to a clarification on any plans either to penalise workers who avail of car-parking spaces in their workplaces or to remove those spaces.
The Government’s position on parking, including workplace parking, is largely reflected in the recent climate action plan. Broadly speaking, the plan recognises the role of car parking, and the availability and price thereof, in people’s choice to use a car, and the associated impacts this can have on climate emissions as well as on traffic congestion and the efficient operation of our urban areas.
Within the context of managing traffic and transport demand, the plan also includes a commitment to develop a new national demand management strategy. For clarity, transport demand management is a term that is used to describe mechanisms for increasing efficiency in the transport system by reducing travel demand rather than increasing capacity. As part of the process to develop this strategy, consideration will be given to a range of measures to support such efficiency. Some of these will be parking related and will be considered and informed by the five cities demand management study, which was published in 2021, and the modelling analysis undertaken by the NTA to inform the transport input to the climate action plan. The removal of free workplace parking was highlighted as one of many potential measures for consideration. However, I want to be clear that there are no plans at this stage to remove workplace car parking for those with no viable public transport options.
The Government fully recognises that any demand management measures, including possible measures related to workplace parking, can only be effective and equitable when alternative and more sustainable public transport and active travel options are readily available. The Government also understands that significant cohorts of the population are locked into their car dependency by virtue of location or work-related shift patterns.
The Government will continue to invest in active travel infrastructure and public transport services to support greater travel options for all workers, including front-line workers, with a particular focus on large public sector hubs such as hospitals, ensuring those who have no other options are not unfairly penalised. In this regard, the climate action plan encourages public sector bodies to lead by example and specifically encourages them to support their staff, service users and visitors by promoting the use of bicycles and shared mobility options as an alternative to car use by creating and maintaining complementary facilities, including secure and accessible parking, shared mobility parking and charging stations, as appropriate.
I thank the Minister. The Climate Change Advisory Council has called on the Government to implement a levy on workers who get free parking in urban areas. The idea behind that is to change individual behaviour. However, as the Minister has stated, I am sure people do not want to be in their cars for hours on end. It is the last thing they want on their way to work. However, there are cases where there are no alternatives, particularly public transport alternatives. More than ever, people are cycling, availing of a car pool, or walking or running to work. That is very good. However, if there are no alternatives to the use of a car, particularly public transport alternatives, I do not see how the Government could take this provision away from ordinary workers, particularly front-line workers who have no alternatives to their cars. If public transport links around the country were better, people would avail of them rather than being stuck in their cars.
I think such a levy goes back to the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.
It is in legislation from 2008.
It must have been updated further. Either way, the point is that we have been talking about this for a long time. It is not an easy one. It is very sensitive. In many cases, people were locked into certain transport systems because of 50 or 60 years of car-dependent planning. We need that to change. It is about a combination of measures and not any one. We want to avoid punitive measures, pointing fingers, blaming people or pricing them out of things. It is about reallocating space, including car-parking space and road space, so that the alternatives become cheaper, quicker and preferable. We need to get into a virtuous circle rather than where we have gone in the past 40 or 50 years whereby, because everything was designed around people having and driving cars, there is gridlock that will not work for anyone. We saw during the pandemic that we could change things. We showed that work patterns can change. Having promised something for 20 years, this is the opportunity to do it.
The Minister will not be signing off on the measure. There is a provision in the Finance Bill 2008 that can be signed by the Minister to introduce a levy on workers. It is good that he will not be signing that. There is a lot of corporate greenwashing going on. I will give the Minister an example. Liffey Valley Shopping Centre introduced staff car-parking charges in October 2022. The average workers, who may not have an alternative to the use of a car, will pay €600 per year to park their cars to go to work. That is the equivalent of a pay cut for workers who are on an average wage. The shopping centre has introduced sustainable travel between cycling and public transport but the public transport links were not there when that decision was made. This is corporate greenwashing at its worst because it penalises ordinary workers just to come to work.
In the first instance, I believe it is the Minister for Finance who has the signing order on any such measures and he or she would have a key role in anything.
I go back to the point I made already that we cannot do this as a punitive thing where certain workers are forced into a workforce transport mode and then have the conditions change from under their feet, as it were.
This speaks to a wider issue. We have seen in this city the real cost to everyone from the way in which we saw the rezoning of the outer city, often involving corrupt planning, and even the design of that motorway which was, by definition, going to be unsustainable and very expensive for people in respect of time, fuel costs, and so on. That is the real problem we have; it is that cost. It is the hours stuck in traffic that is costing people as well as the car parking, which is a real problem.
That is all history now and goes back 30 years-plus but what do we do now? We create the alternatives. The bus is super-fast, super-quick and super-cheap. That gives and allows people an option. We must look at the whole transport system in this city, in particular - the same applies in other cities - to see if we can retrofit more sustainable practices to something that, by definition, was not.
