We love to complain, don’t we? After all, if we didn’t love a good old moan then Joe Duffy would have no reason to exist. Are these complaints — the building blocks of small talk and everyday conversation — valid when it comes to complaining about getting around in Ireland? In part, yes but the surprising thing is that Ireland isn’t as far behind as you might think when it comes to public transport.
According to a study carried out by Mike Hynes and Patrick Malone from NUI Galway, capital expenditure on public transport, having dipped from a low of € 254 million in 2012 to € 754 million in 2020, continues to rise. The report also showed that Ireland is broadly in line with our fellow EU member states when it comes to the dominance of private car use. Indeed, Ireland’s peak of private car use, as a percentage of total journeys taken, was lower than the European average — 65 per cent of journeys were made by private car in Ireland, compared to a European average of 83 per cent.
Ireland is also ahead when it comes to our use of buses with 14.3 per cent of national journeys undertaken by bus, compared to the European average of 8.8 per cent. Of course, much of that is down to us not really having much of a choice. When you look at the use of trains for journeys, Ireland’s figure of 3.1 per cent usage is well behind the European average of 7.9 per cent, and dramatically behind the 10.8 per cent figure in France.
That arguably also reflects the fact that while our population is weighted towards the east coast and Dublin, we are still a relatively diffuse nation, with an overall population density of 72 people per square kilometre, compared to 281 per km in the UK, and 232 per km in Germany.
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The good news, given that the majority of public transport initiatives are going to be targeted at, and probably most needed in, Dublin, the city ranks reasonably well in terms of the sustainability of public transport. A report from The Oliver Wyman Forum, in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, contains an index to show how 60 major cities rank “in their capacity to lead mobility’s next chapter”. Dublin, happily, ranks exactly mid-table. We’re behind such noted public transport leaders as Stockholm, San Francisco, and Singapore (those being the top three cities as ranked) but ahead of Dubai, Warsaw, Riyadh, Istanbul, Dallas, and Milan. Clearly, there’s room to improve, but at least we’re not coming bob-last.
Private car
Beyond Dublin, much work needs to be done. Jerry Mac Evilly, head of policy change at Friends of the Earth, says: “We’re mindful that the carrots and sticks shouldn’t be applied to rural and urban areas in the same way. For example car dependency, and therefore increased taxation on cars and fuel, is particularly challenging for rural areas given that these communities often have few alternatives. Congestion charges are an important measure to focus on urban areas in order to reduce traffic, decrease emissions and air pollution, as well as generate revenue for public transport, cycling and walking. This should start in Dublin in the first instance and charges should be based on car/engine size with the largest cars, particularly SUVs, facing the largest charges. Further expansion of rural bus links is needed to improve public transport connections between and within rural towns and villages.”
Private car use won’t go away entirely of course, but the critical thing now is to get people to switch to electric cars (net of assuming that the national grid can handle the extra power needed to charge lots and lots of EVs). In this respect, Ireland lags behind the best. The latest figures show that Norway, long a leader in putting EVs on the road, now has 83 per cent of all new car buyers plumping for electric power. By comparison, in Ireland in 2022 so far, 13 per cent of new car sales are taken by fully electric models. However, it’s important to compare apples with apples in this regard — Norway is seen as a shining light for EV sales, and rightly so, but the SEAI’s Declan Meally warned: “Much of that is to do with very high carbon taxes pushing buyers out of internal combustion cars, and into EVs.”
Those high carbon taxes have been paying for massive electric car incentives, but even Norway is going to start rolling back on those now. Norways’ transport minister, Jon-Ivar Nygard, said in the statement: “Electric cars give us greener transport, but they also have a clear intermodal competition with public transport in urban areas. We must make it more attractive to travel by public transport, cycle, and walk.”
Ireland is already making moves in that direction. Are we, for once, ahead of Norway? Only time will tell.
