This briefing paper was prepared by Richard Douthwaite, David Healy and Kevin Leyden to inform the proceedings of the Comhar Conference “Towards Sustainability in the National Development Plan 2007-2013” – 4th to 6th October 2006. The paper shows that the Irish transport system has developed over the past few years in a way which has made it less sustainable by becoming, on a per capita basis, more heavily dependent on one increasingly scarce non-renewable resource – oil – than perhaps any other system in Europe. This dependency has arisen largely because of the recent under-priced, uncontrolled growth in the use of the private car. After discussing the effects of this policy of encouraging heavy car-use, the report then turns to look at the policies and techniques that are available to rectify the situation.
The Towards a Sustainable Transport System paper was published by Comhar SDC as part of a larger document Towards Sustainability in the National Development Plan 2007–2013
