The government will spend 1 million euros a day on walking and cycling

GREEN PARTY LEADER Eamon Ryan has said the government will spend at least € 1 million a day on walking and cycling infrastructure.

Ryan told his party’s National Convention, forced online due to the pandemic, that the sum was going to be part of the next budget.

In his speech, Ryan acknowledged that the Green Party’s entry into government had not been easy.

“In the last nine months our party has also been tested,” he told his party members.

Ryan said:

“Entering the Government is never an easy process and we all know that this administration has had to manage a series of events that have not facilitated the process, but I firmly believe that we can work effectively both within our party and with our partners in coalition. to serve our people at this critical time.

Presenting his vision of what government can achieve, Ryan said he wanted to promote “transportation-driven development.”

This would be “where the new home is a 15 minute walk or bike ride to high quality public transport stations”.

Ryan also referenced the Greens’ priorities in agriculture, including a national plan on how Ireland can manage its land in the future.

“We will design this new plan in consultation with agricultural and environmental organizations,” Ryan said. “No sector will be able to opt out of the international obligations on climate and biodiversity that we are assuming, but at the same time the changes that we have to make cannot leave any community or industry behind.”

‘Is not perfect’

Earlier, Deputy Leader Catherine Martin told the party that it was “a greater political force than” ever before.

The party has 12 TDs and four senators, although it has also faced divisions over the government program. TD Neasa Hourigan, in particular, has been critical of some of the government’s policies and was sanctioned along with her colleague Joe O’Brien for failing to support the government’s Residential Leasing and Appraisal Bill.

Reflecting on the electoral success that brought the Green Party to power with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in a historic coalition, Martin said that the government program “was not perfect” and “it is not a perfect or easy coalition.”

But he said that “no coalition or government program is and it is only in the execution and delivery of a real change that we will be judged as Green.

“There will be many difficult conversations in the coming months and years,” he warned. “We need to learn from the last six months and make sure that respect and inclusion are the most important thing in everything we do.”