Transport and the Green Party

DeVore

There were a number of questions regarding transport, from support (or lack of it) for Dublin Bus and public transport, to bio diesel and importantly, other sources of energy.

To kick off, here are a couple of specific questions:

1. Did you (or the Green party as a whole) support cuts to Dublin Bus? If so, why?

2. If we are following a "polluter pays" approach, why not a tax on fuel (which "punishes" polluters on a sliding scale of how much they pollute) rather then the current approach which seems more focused on punishing everyone who owns a car regardless of their usage?

DeV.

bijapos

Some points from the questions for Paul Gogarty thread


1. How does the Green Party justify the recent closure of the Waterford/Rosslare railway? It was the first full rail closure since 1967 and on the Green Party's watch - some achievement!!!

2. Look at the damage the green party has done to two areas in which they had an influence :
(B) The silly subsidised "cycle to work" scheme, where high income people can effectively get their cycling hobby subsidised. I was talking to one cycle shop owner recently, and he said the bulk of people who availed of this scheme were health board workers, school + college staff etc ie public sector workers. Often they spent 600 to 1000 euro , but the interesting thing he said was that they use the bicycles for triathlons / recreation / weekend trips etc, not cycling to work. Why should the taxpayer subsidise this sport ?

(B) Motor tax. people buying a bmw or mercedes now can get away with paying as little as 156 euro yearly road tax. 6 or 10 or 20 years ago road tax was far higher, in real terms. Given the state our government finances are in, the govt could dearly do with all this lost revenue. People driving economical 5 or 8 year old hatchbacks, + who cannot afford to change, are paying more road tax than fatcats driving new large expensive cars. Not fair.

3. Why is the GP and paticullary Min John Gormley in bed with car manufacturing companies,notably Renault,trying to sell on the Irish people the next biggest Con job of electrical cars and some utopian ideal of Ireland being powerd by green energy by a totally unrealistic date of 2015??

why has the GP got an immense problem with certain types of hybrid vechicles?IE the Lexus 4WD,and none with the EG Toyota Prius??
BOTH have the same technology,are made by Toyota,yet one has a larger more practical design.Is this Green social engineering,on the basis of all dual power cars are equal in the tax bracket,except those who might be driven by rich capitalists and country bumpkins???

Why is the GP not examing the possibility of alternative fuels.EXCLUDING bio diesel?GP has gone remarkably quiet on this issue since the closure of the Mallow sugar plant and the idea of converting it into a alcohol fuel recovery plant. Why is the GP not suggesting that local areas with crops[mostly anything ,inc weeds] should be grant funded to produce alcohol for fuel for petrol driven vechicles

deelite

Think this question is for here - the trucks that pick up the "green bins" and the "brown bins" are they environmentally friendly?

gandalf

This is a comment from the main Politics Board transport topic from Lenny Lovett.

I believe they missed a golden opportunity to reform the transport policy. The 'user pays' method would have been far preferable from many angles. They could have abolished road tax and tolls etc and included all these overheads in a single petrol tax. They could have pushed for a return to rail transport for much of Ireland's freight but never even touched on it. In fact the were in a Government that actually closed a rail line linking three ports. So a step backwards really.

My Comment: It sums up some of my own thoughts on the missed opportunities to bring in a tax based on consumption for motoring.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

deelite

This was a question posted by Eric Cartman

On the issue of motor tax , your party's co2 tax band system has created a situation where everyone in Ireland has moved over to buying diesel cars , and in the case of some manufacturers and models petrol variations are no longer for sale . Do you think we will end up like northern Ireland in having diesel more expensive than petrol due to demand . And secondly do you yourself drive a car ? If so which tax band is it in

PaulGogartyTD

DeVore wrote: »

There were a number of questions regarding transport, from support (or lack of it) for Dublin Bus and public transport, to bio diesel and importantly, other sources of energy.

To kick off, here are a couple of specific questions:

1. Did you (or the Green party as a whole) support cuts to Dublin Bus? If so, why?

2. If we are following a "polluter pays" approach, why not a tax on fuel (which "punishes" polluters on a sliding scale of how much they pollute) rather then the current approach which seems more focused on punishing everyone who owns a car regardless of their usage?

DeV.

The Green Party obviously voted for a budget that included cuts to Dublin Bus. But at the time the fact that the routes were not being reviewed and the money was not being used wisely made sense from the perspective of investing scarce resources wisely. I welcome that the network review has commenced and would hope that the company will be in a position to attract further investment in the future once its services have been reviewed and operations are as cost effective as possible while also meeting modern usage demands.

That said, one of the things we made a tactical error on was the agreement in 2007 to allow road investment be front loaded with a reversal of the proportion spent on road versus transport later on. When later on happened, it was at a time when money had dried up. So while transport has done proportionately better in the last year, it is from a smaller pot than would have been the case in 2007. Could we have secured more for transport if we had pushed it, not having that Ministry and with Dempsey in situ? I do not know, but it is a fair comment.

In general we have achieved far more in ministries we control and that is a fact of life in every Government.


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In relation to fuel and polluter pays, Green Party policy is actually to tax the fuel and the usage. However the Department of Finance was not agreeable to this policy during negotiations and so a separate policy was introduced which set in place a reward system through motor tax for purchasing vehicles with lower emissions. Not our ideal, but at least it has changed purchasing practices.

PaulGogartyTD

deelite wrote: »

This was a question posted by Eric Cartman

On the issue of motor tax , your party's co2 tax band system has created a situation where everyone in Ireland has moved over to buying diesel cars , and in the case of some manufacturers and models petrol variations are no longer for sale . Do you think we will end up like northern Ireland in having diesel more expensive than petrol due to demand . And secondly do you yourself drive a car ? If so which tax band is it in

We may yet end up like Northern Ireland but the policy push is on electric and hybrid cars, as witnessed by initiatives coming out of both Energy and Environment departments.

I currently drive a 2005 1.2 petrol Renault Modus. I can't think of the band, but it is a small car and I think the second lowest level on the old system. I did toy with an electric car, but it was too expensive and didn't have enough range. It will be our next purchase, no doubt, but we are not a family that spends a fortune on cars or would take out loans to get a brand new one.

When my father died in 2008 we inherited his car, a Stilo estate 1.6 litre. We keep it for sentimental reasons. This is used for carrying kids and family around and for carrying boxes of stuff in and out of the Dail.

I find that locally a bicycle gets you around quickest. I have cycled into the Dail occasionally but it takes more time, even allowing for traffic because you have to shower after coming in fast from Lucan direction.

I take the bus occasionally, more so as part of a family outing, but because I go from a to b to c to a again quite frequently, and carry a lot of stuff around, and am on the hands-free phone quite a bit, it is not feasible for my day to day work. There is no train service accessible from where I live; you would be almost in town by the time you would get to Adamstown station or Leixlip from where I live near Lucan village. The service is of use to other Lucan residents closer by, however.

Interestingly enough for a Green Party member, one of my favourite programmes on TV is Top Gear...

PaulGogartyTD

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Our rural TD and Minister Mary White has been proactive, as has Minister Ciaran Cuffe in pushing for measures that would assist rural dwellers and save exchequer funds. Measures being looked at include combining school and healthcare transport services as part of a wider rural link service. Some of these routes are already in operation on an ad hoc basis, but if they were set up as part of an official scheme you would have all of the services of more urbanised areas for a really affordable cost.

This proposal needs more work but is something we are pushing.

On a separate note, we have been strong advocates of the western rail corridor for example and for measures to keep community services in rural towns and villages which helps social cohesion and makes transport services viable. But as stated in another discussion, we don't hold the transport ministry and have to influence delicately.

Now in relation to the motor tax/VRT, as stated elsewhere this is not our policy implementation in its pure sense, but rather an FF Green amalgamation.

Failing to get a tax based on usage only as is our own party policy and acknowledging that the revenue for local government comes from motor tax at present, it was decided that cars would be taxed on the basis of emissions from January 1, 2008, with all cars purchased after that date becoming eligible. This was extended to July 2008 to allow for a transition period.

It was clear that making the system retrospective would be difficult to do in practical terms, particularly in terms of how emissions from older vehicles were assessed and measured; such data has not always existed.

The new system means that any car purchased before July 2008 is still assessed on the basis of engine size. Any cars after that date are calculated on emissions. So a VW Passat is less than €200 whereas some of the big polluting vehicles now attract a motor tax of up to €1500.

While this may seem to be unfair, it is not really. The new scheme is designed to be revenue neutral, but the same level of revenue has to be collected as before from the newer vehicles. It is simply a case of those who purchase low emission cars now benefit more than others as part of a national attempt to reduce emissions overall.

If nothing was done, and if there was no new system introduced, the motor tax increases based on engine size would have gone ahead anyway to cater for the shortfall in revenue to local government (which is where the money currently goes) and you would still be paying the same now. However so would those who purchased a Passat in late 2008, assuming the engine size is the same.

The line has to be drawn somewhere. And to retrospectively benefit one cohert, as has been suggested by some, would mean either bankrupting local government or retrospectively charging someone else more money for a car they might well not even own now. It would be impossible to legally implement, so the line had to be drawn somewhere.

PaulGogartyTD

deelite wrote: »

Think this question is for here - the trucks that pick up the "green bins" and the "brown bins" are they environmentally friendly?

I don't know. There is no legal requirement. Some would run on diesel, some might have a biofuel mix. It would be desirable, but many of the trucks that operate for local authorities are actually contracted from private operators so it might be impractical to implement.

Soon enough the technology will exist for viable electric bin lorries or those drive by hydrogen fuel cells. And given that such energy supply would be local and renewable it would probably reduce their operating costs. Such an opportunity is about five years away at best.

PaulGogartyTD

gandalf wrote: »

This is a comment from the main Politics Board transport topic from Lenny Lovett.

I believe they missed a golden opportunity to reform the transport policy. The 'user pays' method would have been far preferable from many angles. They could have abolished road tax and tolls etc and included all these overheads in a single petrol tax. They could have pushed for a return to rail transport for much of Ireland's freight but never even touched on it. In fact the were in a Government that actually closed a rail line linking three ports. So a step backwards really.

My Comment: It sums up some of my own thoughts on the missed opportunities to bring in a tax based on consumption for motoring.

As elsewhere stated, the user pays is Green policy, but it is not a policy that we succeeded in implementing.

Maybe it is not the best place to outline here, but it was never the case that we could dictate every policy for the Government with just six TDs. So lots of things we would have liked to do had to be scrapped or compromised... That is not a failure, just a reality of trading. Perhaps we might have secured more, or perhaps we would not be in Government, but who can really say under the circumstances.

gandalf

You may have answered it elsewhere but your comments on the railway line closure from Lenny's question?

With regard to the Motor Tax question I see the benefits in simplification from an administrative perspective as well in not using as many resources to collect the tax which at this time is definitely another positive aspect to look at.

PaulGogartyTD

gandalf wrote: »

You may have answered it elsewhere but your comments on the railway line closure from Lenny's question?

With regard to the Motor Tax question I see the benefits in simplification from an administrative perspective as well in not using as many resources to collect the tax which at this time is definitely another positive aspect to look at.

There have been far more new rail links opened with the Greens in Government than closed. In fact more lines have been reopened in the last three years than at any time in the last 80. The issue of the Waterford Rosslare link relates to its economic viability. Ciaran Cuffe has raised this issue many times, has visited the line and met with company officials and Minister Dempsey. It simply does not have enough passengers and even with incentives will not attract enough passengers at present. Nor is it cost effective for freight for companies that prefer to use road.

All efforts were made to keep it open. In the future, with peak oil, it may become viable again, as indeed will our canals, but the company says it is costing to much to subsidise.