Green Party TD for Carlow/Kilkenny, Mary White, has said she is going to urge Kilkenny’s local authorities to facilitate the oncoming era of electric vehicles.
Speaking ahead of a meeting next week with Kilkenny county manager, Joe Crockett, to discuss issues of public transport in the county the Green Party deputy leader said: “Kilkenny is making good progress in developing and facilitating public transport in the city and county through the action plan adopted by the council. What we need, and I hope we will see rolled out, is a more integrated approach to sustainable, public transport, for our citizens, commuters, school children and tourists. Movement on the issue of coaches and buses to be run on sustainable biofuels is also welcome.
“An issue we will hear more of the in the medium and long-term is electric cars: both pure battery-run and hybrids. My colleague, Energy Minister Eamon Ryan, is implementing a plan to facilitate growth in these environmentally-friendly vehicles, which require much less, if any, petrol. Already we have seen significant movement in the direction of manufacturing electric cars instead of traditional gas-guzzlers, with several models being developed in America and China. At local level we will need to install plug-in points where people can re-charge the batteries for these cars. I will be urging the county manager to begin work on providing them throughout Kilkenny. I understand that Kilkenny made a strong submisison to the Sustainable Transport Policy initiative - Smarter Travel - and I would like to see this ambitious strategy implemented in the Marble City. I raised the issue recently with the chief executive of Irish Rail, Dick Fearns, and I will continue to do so with stakeholders in the city and county who have a responsibility to begin working now on helping Kilkenny move towards a new, more environmentally friendly, form of motoring,” she concluded.
