Ireland is the second highest country in the EU for reliance on cars. Three-quarters of people use cars as their main form of transport on a typical day.
The main reason is the lack of proper, regular, and frequent public transport. A Eurobarometer survey showed that 46% of people think public transport is inadequate and a further 35% thought it too expensive.
The best way to get people out of cars is to provide free, high-quality public transport. It is a no-brainer.
Free public transport would cost €500 million a year – but most of that would be recovered as medical conditions from air pollution would be reduced.
But guess who is against free public transport? It is Eamonn Ryan, the leader of the Green Party. In the Dáil yesterday, he told People Before Profit’s TD, Brid Smith, that it would lead to ‘an increased level of unnecessary trips’. In other words, people would get onto buses for the sheer hell of it.
And to sound like some expert, he cited unnamed ‘research’.
People Before Profit is an eco-socialist party. The Greens are neoliberals. That is why one supports free public transport and the other opposes it.
