Hold on to your seats, folks, there's a tough new strategy coming down the line, writes Kilian Doyle
SO YOU thought the Budget was bad? Wait until you see what's coming down the road for motorists. It'll make Lenihan's hatchet job look like a free-for-all at the National Mint, mark my words. The omens are there. Take, for example, pronouncements from the Department of Transport's secretary-general, Julie O'Neill, at a recent seminar on climate change.
When O'Neill speaks, you'd be advised to listen. I'm reliably informed that it is she, rather than the random politicians who pass through Kildare Street on their paths of ministerial mediocrity, who runs the transport show.
O'Neill said the public consultation on the Government's Sustainable Transport Strategy - now closed - had revealed "a recognition that fiscal measures will have to be introduced to discourage people from using the car unnecessarily".
Seasoned observers among you will know what that means - the Government is to use the submissions of a few hundred organisations and citizens to justify imposing a whole new series of taxes, levies and duties on millions of motorists, walloping them where it hurts. I smell a Congestion Charge.
O'Neill also called for an "aggressively-supported" programme of promoting cycling and walking. Does that mean gardaí will lean into your car at traffic lights and box your head off for not being out on your bike? Or will the Government line the streets with feral children armed with airguns taking potshots at cars? Or impose a windscreen tax? (Knowing them as I do, most Irish drivers will brick theirs up to avoid it).
I had a browse of the consultation document, professional that I am. It was chock-full of theories, aspirations and other high-falutin' stuff, all backed up with banks of statistics. It can't have come cheap.
Central to it was Noel Demspey's "vision" for transport. I had to suppress a giggle reading his ministerial statement. "I strongly believe that by 2020, Ireland can have one of the best transportation systems in the world," says Noel, talking his head out of the clouds for a second.
And I strongly believe in Santa Claus. Which doesn't mean he's going to deliver me a seismic shift in driver attitudes, a fully-functioning, integrated public transport system, reduced emissions, less congestion and a safe network of cycle-paths within 12 short years. Does it?
I'm sorry for being facetious. After all, this is serious stuff aimed at reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, improving public health and cutting pollution.
Perhaps Dempsey genuinely does have some jaw-droppingly brilliant sustainable transport plan up his sleeve that he's about to unveil.
The truth is, as I am but a lowly hack, I have no idea what he's doing. The problem is I suspect that neither does he.
Meanwhile, while researching this rant, I came across an invitation issued by Comhar Sustainable Development Council earlier this year for tenders for a policy document on rural transport sustainability, for which it was offering to pay €10,000. It noted that "if Irish transport is to become more sustainable, then it will be necessary to improve the sustainability of rural transport by reducing the amount of individual vehicle kilometres driven". I have the answer: get rid of rural Ireland altogether by making the country so small that everywhere will be urban. Simply chop off everything west of Thurles and north of Arklow and let it float off into the Atlantic.
Force every halfwit who seriously expected improvement from any politican, or agreed with Joe Duffy, to live in tower blocks in New Ross. And ban them from going anywhere, unless they walk, cycle, push themselves in battered shopping trolleys or propel themselves by other eco-friendly means. Problem solved. Granted, they'll all be miserable. But at least it'll be sustainable misery.
I hereby claim my €10,000. Normally, I'd give away that idea for free. But these aren't normal times. I fear I may be needing the money in the very near future.