Make WFH the default, require employers justify why they require their employees to pollute daily.
Improve public transport / require employers to provide transport to work if WFH is not allowed.
Imagine celebrating your graduation and getting ready to join the workforce. You find a job in a city, it pays well enough.
You can’t find anywhere nearby to rent, so you’re commited to travelling over an hour to work. First you find a tiny place thats €x000 to rent, becayse what else are you going to do. Now you pay €5000 for the cheapest car you can insure. Next you pay €5000 for your first year of insurance. A few months in and you’re finding electric and food bills are sky high, but you’re surviving. Then, you find out you need to pay another bawk of money just to enter the city and do work. You can’t take a bus or train because there aren’t any.
You come home after an hour of driving, tired from the journey, exhaused from the work and what you got let to show for it? Should you just give up and go on the dole, or move back in with the parents?
If we keep using the stick instead of the carrot, you’re going to end up with a country full of retirees and dole children.
Public transport needs to be better! Park and ride options should be available for those who need to drive to Dublin.
I live in north Roscommon. I’ve no option but to drive in when I visit Dublin. Public transport sucks. It would take me 3/3.5hrs vs 2.5 hrs of driving. I’m at least driving an EV so no emissions.
The same government that keeps putting off the Dublin Metro every few years. Great idea. Let’s introduce charges. That’s almost no effort on our part but we can say we did something.
I presume they’ll be starting by leading the way and getting rid of the car park in Leinster house?….
I am so sick of Eamon Ryan and the green party. He is in a position where he could provide road space and more public transport. He could also start the process of building a proper rail system. But no, their best idea is another tax. Useless shower of idiots in that party.
Improving public transport to the point you think, bugger that’s bus, luas train would be quicker.
This approach only forces people to pay more for being forced I to an office. Another solution would be mandated WFH
Why is it always cart before the horse with this lot (not just the Greens – all our politicians). You cannot fix the problem with taxes/charges without first providing a viable alternative. It is just insanity and they keep doing it (yes, I know – that’s the definition of insanity). Fix public transport, make it easier to access with satellite parking areas to let people get to trains (parking fees that aren’t stupidly high would help) and people will use public transport.
All we ever seem to get is the promise that the new tax will be used to fund the improvements needed and then nothing ever changes except it gets more expensive to go to bloody work.
Better still – stop this obsession with people having to work in offices and let people WFH.
Green Party trying to introduce more taxes again, time to vote them out
I live way out in mayo, you require a car but i just cant wrap my head around how expensive insurance is, only in ireland do you have to struggle to get a vehicle.
If they want congestion charges, take the M50, and all other toll roads for that matter, back into public hands first. In the case of the M50, it makes no sense to tax someone for going around /avoiding a city, and yet let them idle for free in streams of traffic in the centre of it.
Make public transport that is safe, runs on time and affordable would be a start
Problem: *exists*
Irish government: tax it
What fucking planet are these clowns living on? If you don’t live in Dublin and don’t have a car, you’re fucked. Public transport simply isn’t an option for most places.
Without providing an alternative, that’s just a tax.
Need alternative transport options in place first, and you need to encourage employers to support Work From Home as the default option
ALL the council’s provide a sufficient number of potholes to discourage private vehicle usage
Congestion charges won’t stop people driving, they’ll just stop people going into the centre altogether.
I swear to God these people are braindead, public transport must come first
Public transport ye fuckin donuts, it’s shit
I’m totally okay with the idea of congestion charges in places that have good public transport. But trying to bring in congestion charges in circumstances where a place has absolutely fucking shit public transport is just punishing people for no good reason.
If the public transport system does not have the flexibility, convenience, reach or safety of private transport, or even anything close to it, people are never going to use it.
No problem. Now explain how people will get from one side of Cork to another that is not through the city.
90% of traffic is in cork city only because there is no NDR or NRR.
Build that and charge the hell out of people tring to go through the city!
fuuuuuuuuck off
greens are literally the biggest twats on the planet
‘We need to change’…
Yes yes yes finally!
“By taxing cars….”
oh ffs…..
Eamon Ryan wants to levy a new tax on the general public? I am shocked. Shocked i tell you.
Fucking twat. OUT.
This is genius. They’ve put the cart before the horse as usual by increasing the amount of bus lanes and bicycle lanes without improving the public transport infrastructure. This has led to increased traffic congestion for people who have to use their cars, shift workers or people who don’t have a viable public transport route to get to work. Then they hit you with a congestion charge, wankers.
Journey to town shouldn’t put any charge on you. Public transport should be so good and affordable that going there with car will make no sense. Every other attempt put extra charges is another attempt to sort problems bad way.
‘We need to change, I 100% agree…We need to make sure the Greens never have a say in the governance of this country ever again.
The Greens don’t care about poor people. Why should someone who pays more get to park?
They need to improve public transport. Last week I was working in the office for three days, and my bus home was cancelled for two of them. It’s an hour’s journey and there’s a 30 minute wait for the next bus, at rush hour. I live a 20 minute drive away. Finishing work and not getting home until 90 minutes later when driving would get me home in 20 minutes is not encouraging use of public transport. The new bus connects scheme will require me to take 3 different buses to get to the city centre, if there are cancellations as frequently as there are now, it will take hours to get anywhere.
Mandate working from home.
Tax, colour me shocked.
The Greens can fuck right off at the next election too.
It would have been nice if we’d built a metro in Dublin, put a tramway system in Cork and other cities, had planned properly, but we didn’t and here we are.
The solution here is going to be heavily reliant on EVs, despite some people’s utter distain for any kind of car there aren’t really adequate alternatives and there’s still an utter unwillingness to rollout adequate public transport in the places that we CAN actually do good public transit and where we can do active transport. We are still doing those basic things really poorly – Always too small. Always penny pinching. Always reactive rather than proactive and almost always badly designed, without any lessons learned from places that do it right.
Taxing the hell out of motorists will just result in loss of electoral support. That’s the reality of it as people just do not have adequate alternatives.
Can someone give Eamon a Dougal-level ‘Carott vs. Stick’ class?
He needs to step down, drop out, tune in, and sod off.
Why not encourage WFH?
Stealth tax.
One of the big challenges with implementation is the amount of free and subsided parking that is made available to public servants in the centre of the city. For this to be an effective and equitable policy we will have to start unwinding free parking and that will cause uproar with the various unions and vested interests (including TDs themselves).
The Greens being consistent to their core philosophy: If it moves, tax it
Won’t change my driving habits. I did public transport for 20 years while in education and my early working life and hated it!
I’m never doing it again! The services are subpar. I’ve been harassed multiple times and have been left waiting at bus stops for hours in the rain….
Oh wow more bloody taxes..
What would happen if 25% of car users that commute every day attempt availing of public transport?
Imagine let’s say extra 500 people trying to board 39A at 5:30pm
Imagine living in Co Kikdare and going to Dublin docklands cos your employer insists you sending work emails from the office so he can build a relationship with you.
Congestion exist become there’s no real alternatives. No infrastructure. No metro. Two poxi tram lines.
I agree with the minister. We need to change. Let’s start from changing the access to modern infrastructure and real public transport.
Well at least this is one headline where hundreds of comments won’t be banging on about the greens “attacking rural Ireland”
London has congestion charges but it also has a functioning bus network and an underground. It also induced the charges because of air quality and not climate change.
If we all switched to public transport in Dublin it would collapse on the first day.
The biggest achievement of the greens was the Co2 tax which did nothing except give young children asthma. Congestion charge in Dublin is deluded. Fuck Eamon Ryan and fuck his stupid Green Party.
I know nurses who will get screwed by this without a car they would 2-3 hour commutes onto their day. Bringing older people for hospital check ups. There are a lot of hospitals in the city centre region. Construction in cities gets more expensive. And I generally support the idea of a congestion charge but it will make little difference, I saw Tesla’s parked on the street all day every in dublin 2, if they can afford the parking they can afford the congestion charge.
What is needed was some foresight and planning around urban design at national and council level years ago, but since our state bodies are only capable of the most basic form of it. Our civil servants and politicians need to make sone tough decisions very soon.
Also since the congestion charge would be the stick where is the carrot part of equation, changes in behaviour require both parts to take affect. I would be annoyed at the lack of effective and imaginative thinking but this is Ryan we are talking about.
Oh look another Green tax to discourage car use and no schemes to replace it
Hammer the taxpayer with sticks, offer absolutely no carrots
Absolute nonsense – you cannot only use a stick to make these changes, you need to provide a carrot as well. You cannot beat people into not using their cars, **when you don’t provide a viable alternative in public transport**. **It is your fault as a government that so many people have to use cars**.
Provide a European-class public transport service first, then consider congestion charges – but a very solid 10-15 years of high investment in public transport is needed first. For Dublin alone, the bare minimum to bring us close to European standards for medium-sized major cities (Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, etc.) and to justify congestion charges would be the below:
– **2 new Luas lines.**
For example – a new line from Ballyboden to city centre via Terenure and Kimmage, and a new line from Lucan to city centre, via northwest Dublin. Also, complete the extension of Luas X to Finglas, and Luas green line to Bray. Night Luas to run on weekends at least. Excluding night services, they would need to run every 5 mins at peak times, and no less than every 10 mins off-peak.
– **Complete proposed Dart expansion** to Drogheda, Maynooth, and Celbridge, including underground section from Stephen’s Green to Heuston. Line 1, Greystones to Maynooth, via northern inner-city/northwest Dublin. Line 2, Drogheda to Celbridge, via south inner-city/southwest Dublin. Services no less than every 10 mins as is the norm now for much of weekdays.
– **Metro** from Swords to Sandyford (not Charlemont as the current version of the plan prefers), via airport. Runs 24/7, ever 2-5 mins for most of the day, as promised.
– **Night buses** and/or further 24-hr routes every 30 mins, 7 nights/week.
​
None of the above is exceptional, and for a city of Dublin’s size, is merely what we should expect as a minimum in a developed European city.
49 comments
Improve public transport first
A series of micro taxes what a surprise
Make WFH the default, require employers justify why they require their employees to pollute daily.
Improve public transport / require employers to provide transport to work if WFH is not allowed.
Imagine celebrating your graduation and getting ready to join the workforce. You find a job in a city, it pays well enough.
You can’t find anywhere nearby to rent, so you’re commited to travelling over an hour to work. First you find a tiny place thats €x000 to rent, becayse what else are you going to do. Now you pay €5000 for the cheapest car you can insure. Next you pay €5000 for your first year of insurance. A few months in and you’re finding electric and food bills are sky high, but you’re surviving. Then, you find out you need to pay another bawk of money just to enter the city and do work. You can’t take a bus or train because there aren’t any.
You come home after an hour of driving, tired from the journey, exhaused from the work and what you got let to show for it? Should you just give up and go on the dole, or move back in with the parents?
If we keep using the stick instead of the carrot, you’re going to end up with a country full of retirees and dole children.
Public transport needs to be better! Park and ride options should be available for those who need to drive to Dublin.
I live in north Roscommon. I’ve no option but to drive in when I visit Dublin. Public transport sucks. It would take me 3/3.5hrs vs 2.5 hrs of driving. I’m at least driving an EV so no emissions.
The same government that keeps putting off the Dublin Metro every few years. Great idea. Let’s introduce charges. That’s almost no effort on our part but we can say we did something.
I presume they’ll be starting by leading the way and getting rid of the car park in Leinster house?….
I am so sick of Eamon Ryan and the green party. He is in a position where he could provide road space and more public transport. He could also start the process of building a proper rail system. But no, their best idea is another tax. Useless shower of idiots in that party.
Improving public transport to the point you think, bugger that’s bus, luas train would be quicker.
This approach only forces people to pay more for being forced I to an office. Another solution would be mandated WFH
Why is it always cart before the horse with this lot (not just the Greens – all our politicians). You cannot fix the problem with taxes/charges without first providing a viable alternative. It is just insanity and they keep doing it (yes, I know – that’s the definition of insanity). Fix public transport, make it easier to access with satellite parking areas to let people get to trains (parking fees that aren’t stupidly high would help) and people will use public transport.
All we ever seem to get is the promise that the new tax will be used to fund the improvements needed and then nothing ever changes except it gets more expensive to go to bloody work.
Better still – stop this obsession with people having to work in offices and let people WFH.
Green Party trying to introduce more taxes again, time to vote them out
I live way out in mayo, you require a car but i just cant wrap my head around how expensive insurance is, only in ireland do you have to struggle to get a vehicle.
If they want congestion charges, take the M50, and all other toll roads for that matter, back into public hands first. In the case of the M50, it makes no sense to tax someone for going around /avoiding a city, and yet let them idle for free in streams of traffic in the centre of it.
Make public transport that is safe, runs on time and affordable would be a start
Problem: *exists*
Irish government: tax it
What fucking planet are these clowns living on? If you don’t live in Dublin and don’t have a car, you’re fucked. Public transport simply isn’t an option for most places.
Without providing an alternative, that’s just a tax.
Need alternative transport options in place first, and you need to encourage employers to support Work From Home as the default option
ALL the council’s provide a sufficient number of potholes to discourage private vehicle usage
Congestion charges won’t stop people driving, they’ll just stop people going into the centre altogether.
I swear to God these people are braindead, public transport must come first
Public transport ye fuckin donuts, it’s shit
I’m totally okay with the idea of congestion charges in places that have good public transport. But trying to bring in congestion charges in circumstances where a place has absolutely fucking shit public transport is just punishing people for no good reason.
If the public transport system does not have the flexibility, convenience, reach or safety of private transport, or even anything close to it, people are never going to use it.
No problem. Now explain how people will get from one side of Cork to another that is not through the city.
90% of traffic is in cork city only because there is no NDR or NRR.
Build that and charge the hell out of people tring to go through the city!
fuuuuuuuuck off
greens are literally the biggest twats on the planet
‘We need to change’…
Yes yes yes finally!
“By taxing cars….”
oh ffs…..
Eamon Ryan wants to levy a new tax on the general public? I am shocked. Shocked i tell you.
Fucking twat. OUT.
This is genius. They’ve put the cart before the horse as usual by increasing the amount of bus lanes and bicycle lanes without improving the public transport infrastructure. This has led to increased traffic congestion for people who have to use their cars, shift workers or people who don’t have a viable public transport route to get to work. Then they hit you with a congestion charge, wankers.
Journey to town shouldn’t put any charge on you. Public transport should be so good and affordable that going there with car will make no sense. Every other attempt put extra charges is another attempt to sort problems bad way.
‘We need to change, I 100% agree…We need to make sure the Greens never have a say in the governance of this country ever again.
The Greens don’t care about poor people. Why should someone who pays more get to park?
They need to improve public transport. Last week I was working in the office for three days, and my bus home was cancelled for two of them. It’s an hour’s journey and there’s a 30 minute wait for the next bus, at rush hour. I live a 20 minute drive away. Finishing work and not getting home until 90 minutes later when driving would get me home in 20 minutes is not encouraging use of public transport. The new bus connects scheme will require me to take 3 different buses to get to the city centre, if there are cancellations as frequently as there are now, it will take hours to get anywhere.
Mandate working from home.
Tax, colour me shocked.
The Greens can fuck right off at the next election too.
It would have been nice if we’d built a metro in Dublin, put a tramway system in Cork and other cities, had planned properly, but we didn’t and here we are.
The solution here is going to be heavily reliant on EVs, despite some people’s utter distain for any kind of car there aren’t really adequate alternatives and there’s still an utter unwillingness to rollout adequate public transport in the places that we CAN actually do good public transit and where we can do active transport. We are still doing those basic things really poorly – Always too small. Always penny pinching. Always reactive rather than proactive and almost always badly designed, without any lessons learned from places that do it right.
Taxing the hell out of motorists will just result in loss of electoral support. That’s the reality of it as people just do not have adequate alternatives.
Can someone give Eamon a Dougal-level ‘Carott vs. Stick’ class?
Eamon Ryan, a quick snippet: https://youtu.be/dnfSCFzaIDs?t=118
He needs to step down, drop out, tune in, and sod off.
Why not encourage WFH?
Stealth tax.
One of the big challenges with implementation is the amount of free and subsided parking that is made available to public servants in the centre of the city. For this to be an effective and equitable policy we will have to start unwinding free parking and that will cause uproar with the various unions and vested interests (including TDs themselves).
The Greens being consistent to their core philosophy: If it moves, tax it
Won’t change my driving habits. I did public transport for 20 years while in education and my early working life and hated it!
I’m never doing it again! The services are subpar. I’ve been harassed multiple times and have been left waiting at bus stops for hours in the rain….
Oh wow more bloody taxes..
What would happen if 25% of car users that commute every day attempt availing of public transport?
Imagine let’s say extra 500 people trying to board 39A at 5:30pm
Imagine living in Co Kikdare and going to Dublin docklands cos your employer insists you sending work emails from the office so he can build a relationship with you.
Congestion exist become there’s no real alternatives. No infrastructure. No metro. Two poxi tram lines.
I agree with the minister. We need to change. Let’s start from changing the access to modern infrastructure and real public transport.
Well at least this is one headline where hundreds of comments won’t be banging on about the greens “attacking rural Ireland”
London has congestion charges but it also has a functioning bus network and an underground. It also induced the charges because of air quality and not climate change.
If we all switched to public transport in Dublin it would collapse on the first day.
The biggest achievement of the greens was the Co2 tax which did nothing except give young children asthma. Congestion charge in Dublin is deluded. Fuck Eamon Ryan and fuck his stupid Green Party.
I know nurses who will get screwed by this without a car they would 2-3 hour commutes onto their day. Bringing older people for hospital check ups. There are a lot of hospitals in the city centre region. Construction in cities gets more expensive. And I generally support the idea of a congestion charge but it will make little difference, I saw Tesla’s parked on the street all day every in dublin 2, if they can afford the parking they can afford the congestion charge.
What is needed was some foresight and planning around urban design at national and council level years ago, but since our state bodies are only capable of the most basic form of it. Our civil servants and politicians need to make sone tough decisions very soon.
Also since the congestion charge would be the stick where is the carrot part of equation, changes in behaviour require both parts to take affect. I would be annoyed at the lack of effective and imaginative thinking but this is Ryan we are talking about.
Oh look another Green tax to discourage car use and no schemes to replace it
Hammer the taxpayer with sticks, offer absolutely no carrots
Absolute nonsense – you cannot only use a stick to make these changes, you need to provide a carrot as well. You cannot beat people into not using their cars, **when you don’t provide a viable alternative in public transport**. **It is your fault as a government that so many people have to use cars**.
Provide a European-class public transport service first, then consider congestion charges – but a very solid 10-15 years of high investment in public transport is needed first. For Dublin alone, the bare minimum to bring us close to European standards for medium-sized major cities (Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, etc.) and to justify congestion charges would be the below:
– **2 new Luas lines.**
For example – a new line from Ballyboden to city centre via Terenure and Kimmage, and a new line from Lucan to city centre, via northwest Dublin. Also, complete the extension of Luas X to Finglas, and Luas green line to Bray. Night Luas to run on weekends at least. Excluding night services, they would need to run every 5 mins at peak times, and no less than every 10 mins off-peak.
– **Complete proposed Dart expansion** to Drogheda, Maynooth, and Celbridge, including underground section from Stephen’s Green to Heuston. Line 1, Greystones to Maynooth, via northern inner-city/northwest Dublin. Line 2, Drogheda to Celbridge, via south inner-city/southwest Dublin. Services no less than every 10 mins as is the norm now for much of weekdays.
– **Metro** from Swords to Sandyford (not Charlemont as the current version of the plan prefers), via airport. Runs 24/7, ever 2-5 mins for most of the day, as promised.
– **Night buses** and/or further 24-hr routes every 30 mins, 7 nights/week.
​
None of the above is exceptional, and for a city of Dublin’s size, is merely what we should expect as a minimum in a developed European city.
​
I won’t hold my breath.