We will seek to use that mandate to write a new national development plan that will be properly climate-proofed. We will also look for savings. Fine Gael's Deputies and Senators in Limerick are rattling cages, insisting that we need a N20 solution-----

We do.

-----when there are other solutions available. A route via Cahir would save €500 million which could be used to provide the public transport system Fine Gael is not providing in Limerick or Cork. On Monday the party voted against such a system.

The air quality issue in Dublin is exacerbated by the fact that the Government is widening every motorway approach road in Dublin to the M50 that is gridlocked. That will only make the problem worse and do nothing to solve the transport problems of the city. It will make them even more difficult, as the Government plans to remove front gardens and every tree in the city to cope with the model into which it has bought and the resulting ever-increasing traffic. It is the same in just about every city or area at which one looks. The Government is following an old-fashioned and sprawling road-based development model. It claims in the national planning framework that it wants to go back to the core, but its transport policy is doing the exact opposite. It is encouraging sprawling development that can never be sustainable. That is not good for our society. That is the reality of what is happening. The reality is that 51 major national road and motorway projects are on the go, while not one single public transport project is being built or is even in the planning system. Fine Gael is voting against one in Cork and ignoring the air quality issue in Dublin. Nothing is happening to promote cycling. That is what is happening. That is the reality. A Green mandate will see it change.

This is the reality. Any reasonable person would be a little confused on hearing Deputy Eamon Ryan's contribution. The democratically elected local councillors in Cork decided to vote against the bus project precisely because it involved taking away trees and parts of people's gardens. The Deputy seems to think that is a reason to vote against BusConnects in Dublin, but it is not okay for people in Cork to vote against the project on Wilton Road for exactly the same reason.

Hear, hear

That is a bit strange. There is something else on which the Deputy is incorrect. The national development plan is a matter for central government and has been adopted by it. Under European law, action plans on air quality are the primary responsibility of local authorities, of which the Green Party is now one of the controlling parties. The Deputy's party has a responsibility to act in that regard.

Indeed we will.

We will be here to assist it, but it must show some leadership and take some action that it has a mandate to take.

On what is being done to improve air quality, I note the move to electric vehicles. That is really important and it is happening. A total of 17% of new vehicles bought this year are electric or hybrid. That is not enough, but it is a lot better than it used to be and the number will continue to increase. The Government is supporting it. We also need to move away from diesel cars. I appreciate that it may have been done in good faith, but a terrible policy error was made by the Green Party the last time it was in government when it encouraged people to move from petrol to diesel cars. That is the main reason air quality has disimproved to such an extent.

Now we are left with the problem.

Now we are sucking diesel.

We need to change this and started to do so by increasing taxation on diesel imports in the last budget. We must also invest in greenways, cycle lanes and public transport, as we are doing. As to what is under way, the new bus fleet is arriving, with hundreds of low emission buses on order. Hybrid carriages for the DART expansion project are on order. We are pushing ahead with the DART expansion project and BusConnects. All of these things are happening.