I do not know if the Taoiseach saw the appearance of Blindboy from the Rubberbandits on "The Late Late Show" about two weeks ago. He put it brilliantly when it comes to climate change. He answered the question that was put, "Why should we do anything in Ireland because we are only a small country?" He said that whatever about our carbon footprint, our cultural footprint is enormous. As a country, we are ready and willing to step up to the plate on the issue. On Monday night, RTÉ broadcast a really good programme "Will Ireland survive 2050?" There was a particularly brilliant programme last night, "Hot Air", which shows that stepping up and addressing this challenge is doable and will be good for this country, if only we did not have Fine Gael.

Fine Gael has a blind spot on this climate issue that stares at us every day. The latest example is that Fine Gael is now thinking about widening a 22 km section of the M11 to get traffic more quickly and better into Dublin, that is, more cars. How is that going to help or benefit our country in any way? Hundreds of millions of euro will be spent on this new road-widening exercise but where will the traffic go when it gets to the junction with the M50? We know for scientific fact that the M50 is goosed. It cannot take any more cars and cannot be widened any further. The section between Cherrywood and Sandyford will be the worst affected as traffic continues to grow. It is not possible to put any more cars on the M50. Maybe it is thought that the traffic will drive into town down the Blackrock road or the Donnybrook road. Anyone who knows this city knows that they cannot take any more traffic.

The Government, however, is starting to do something right. At long last the National Transport Authority, NTA, is starting to listen and will change the Bus Connects project so that it is building communities not corridors. When it hits Nutley Lane or the Blackrock road, it will not take out all the trees or put four-lane highways everywhere. It will start to provide for cycling and walking and buses which is what that programme last night, "Hot Air", told us we need to do.

New housing is going to the outer counties around Dublin, under the watch of the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. It will force all those people, with no public transport options, to drive for two or three hours in and out of Dublin every day. That is injurious to their health. When will they see their families? How can we tackle climate change if the Government is all about sprawl? That is what the Government's transport policy is all about. I could pick a dozen other examples around the country but this may be the most egregious one because we fought the argument on it before, in the Glen of the Downs, when we said 20 years ago that investment in public transport would serve our people better. We did not do that and now we are making the same mistake again, thinking that road building can solve our traffic problems. It cannot and will not. This is madness and should stop today.

There is a lot of talk about climate action and a little bit of hot air too. I believe we need action, actual policy decisions, changes being made and led by Government but also by communities and business individuals as well. I will give one or two examples of major policy decisions and actions taken by the Government in the past six to eight weeks when it comes to climate action.

Tell me about the M11. Tell me why that is being widened.

If the Deputy would give me 30 seconds at least I will come to answer his question. In the past couple of weeks, a decision was taken to take peat off our electricity grid, many years earlier than originally intended. It is not an easy decision for the midlands and is a big test of the just transition. It was a difficult and right decision taken by Government and State agencies. A total of €500 million has been secured for the Celtic interconnector in order that we can connect our electricity network to that of continental Europe and really expand wind energy in Ireland.

There was a difficult decision but the right one, supported by the Deputy but not by others, to increase the carbon tax in the budget and to ring-fence those proceeds from it for further climate action. There was also a decision taken to restrict exploration for oil in our waters. As for investment in transport, we have a difference of opinion on that. The Government policy is that we should prioritise investment in public transport over roads in a roughly 2:1 ratio and that is precisely what we have in Project Ireland 2040. If we take out maintenance, and I think we all agree that we have to maintain our existing infrastructure, Project Ireland 2040 favours public transport investment 2:1 over roads investment. That means projects such as the Luas capacity expansion, benefiting the Deputy's constituency which is now under way, as well as BusConnects, which I am glad to hear the Deputy now supports.

I always have.

The additional carriages that we have ordered for the commuter lines to Kildare, Drogheda and Maynooth, which will increase the capacity on those lines by 34% in 2021 to the benefit of my constituency and others, and MetroLink, which is making a lot of advances.

As the Deputy mentioned one road project I think it is only fair that I mention some of the many public transport projects that are happening under this Government. We do need some investment in roads. We need to better connect ports such as Rosslare and Foynes to our road and motorway network. There are towns around the country that need bypasses, such as Adare, Virginia or Ardee, because bypasses will calm those towns. As we move into the future and have more electric cars, hybrid buses and more trucks powered by hydrogen, they will need roads. That is why it makes sense in some circumstances to have bypasses in order that those electric vehicles and hybrid buses and hydrogen-powered trucks are not going down the main streets but are going around the bypass instead.

In his next response, will the Taoiseach answer the question? What is the transport logic of widening the road, not bypassing but running through the Glen of the Downs? Where is that traffic going to go? How is that going to serve the long-distance commuters, who are only going to get stuck in more traffic as they come into Dublin?

The Taoiseach is a former Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. What is the transport logic of widening the M11 for 22 km at massive expense when that money could be used to provide public transport solutions that might actually work for our people? We will never tackle climate change if the Government continues this road building, leading to sprawl with housing going further and further out and people stuck in traffic forever and a day. Whether they are in electric cars, using diesel or petrol does not matter, they are all stuck in traffic. This road is primarily for long-distance commuting. There is only 2% HGV traffic on it compared with the other motorways, all of which are widening into Dublin at the same time. How does widening the M11 for 22 km make climate sense, transport sense or economic sense? The Government should spend the money on public transport instead. The Taoiseach should please answer the question, what is the argument for the M11 being widened?

I will be very frank with the Deputy. I am a former transport Minister and I have a great interest in transport and continue to keep up to date with it as much as I can. I met the Secretary General of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport only last week to talk about some of these projects. This must be one that is only being examined because it was not even on the agenda. It must be one that really is only being looked at and considered. It is good to look at these things and not just to dismiss them out of hand for ideological reasons. It is being examined, I understand, by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, which will take into account all the benefits, all the potential downsides and come to an analysis of whether it makes sense to proceed, which will then go to Government. If I were to think about potential benefits from M11 widening, which may or may not happen, I can see two. The first is much better access for trucks to the south east, to the port in Rosslare. Perhaps it would make sense, rather than having everything coming into Dublin Port and going out on the M50 to all the hubs and distribution centres around the M50, to have more going into Rosslare and coming up from the south east. These could be hydrogen-powered trucks, green trucks. Second, an area of potential benefit for the many commuters from places such as Gorey and Wexford would be to use the widening to provide a dedicated bus lane, which would allow those buses to get to Dublin, where people work, much more quickly but that is just off the top of my head.