Taking Bus Connects in Dublin as an example, Ryan said eight new routes are now through planning while four were currently under judicial review.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were planning, and we had the agreement that we would be building them four at a time. What\u2019s this government doing? Building them two at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll take us another 10\u201315 years to deliver a bus service that was started 20 years ago. It\u2019s the same in Cork, and it\u2019s the same in Galway.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his Green Party was met with \u201chuge opposition\u201d when it went into government \u201cbecause we were saying \u2018no, we\u2019re not going to build roads as much as we used to, we\u2019re going in favour public transport\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThat is what has changed. It\u2019s a political choice against public transport in favour of a car-dominated system that does never work because it only gets caught in gridlock.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bad for our emissions. It\u2019s bad for good quality development of life, so that you can get from A to B without being stuck in traffic the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carbon tax<\/p>\n
Ryan was also asked about reports\u00a0that the government could delay the annual increase in carbon tax expected in Budget 2027 to beyond 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Ireland was one of the most fossil fuel dependent countries in the world and that the tax is \u201cthe most progressive measure we have to protect our people\u201d against fossil fuel increases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBy stop-starting or deferring \u2013 or as it seems that T\u00e1naiste of Simon Harris wants to do now, kind of putting it off because it\u2019s not popular \u2013 that is the worst thing for the Irish public because it sends a message to the whole business community: we\u2019re not really serious about climate.\u201d<\/p>\n
He accepted that the tax was unpopular, but said the ringfenced income from the tax\u00a0income \u201chelps to go to small farmers, social welfare increases and particularly those in poorest homes that are badly served\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked whether the public gave his former party its answer in the last election when they lost all but one D\u00e1il seat, Ryan said: \u201cThat may well be the case, but sometimes you stand up for what\u2019s right, even if it\u2019s not politically popular.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said former finance minister and Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohue understood that the tax was \u201cthe best way to protect people\u201d and stuck with it despite it being unpopular.<\/p>\n
He concluded by saying that he could see the government actually deferring it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though all the political pundits are saying it\u2019s gone, it\u2019s done, I think that would be an impossible decision for a Fine Gael minister. I think they would not have an answer to the question \u2018are you abandoning any responsibility when it comes to reducing our independence in fossil fuels?\u2019\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORMER TRANSPORT MINISTER and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has hit out at the upcoming increase in bus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,284012,284013,37852,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,68411,790,13421,284014,7,8],"class_list":["post-671791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-bus-connects","tag-bus-fares","tag-eamon-ryan","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-not-happy","tag-politics","tag-public-transport","tag-public-transport-fares","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117211402580102048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}