Ireland should not introduce congestion charges until we have made major improvements to public transport, an expert has said.
It comes after a new Department of Finance paper argued that congestion charges would be more “efficient” and “equitable” in achieving environmental goals than a car parking levy for workers.
In its annual batch of reports ahead of the budget, the Department's Tax Strategy Group (TSG) said "medium-term options" may encompass approaches like “road user charging or congestion charges".
Trinity College Dublin Professor in Transportation Brian Caulfield told Newstalk Breakfast nothing can really move forward without better public transport.
"The DART is a fantastic system and that celebrated 40 years this week," he said.
"It's been a quarter of a century since we extended the DART, so if it's that good why aren't we building more of it, more quickly?
"Equally, we had the 20th birthday of the Luas a couple of weeks ago - it's nearly seven years since we extended both of those [lines] and it's likely to be at least into the 2030s before we open up a new line.
"We need to start to do that, we need to start building more public transport.
"The reason congestion charging works in London and the other cities it’s in is because they've got fantastic public transport."
'Thousands of cameras'
Prof Caulfield said a congestion charge in itself would cost money.
"On the feasibility of a congestion charge, [it] would mean thousands of cameras to be put around the city at great expense, a lot of planning and it would take an awful lot longer than this parking levy to introduce," he said.
"It is an usual position to take - [the Department of Finance] go [to] great pains to say how this parking levy is perhaps something that we shouldn't introduce and yet congestion charges are put in there and there's very little talk about it.
"In the same document they talk about bringing in a weight-based tax for larger vehicles - SUVs and others - and very little is put into the discussion around that in terms of equity".
Car parking levy
The TSG also addresses calls for the introduction of a car parking levy for workers.
It notes that while the environmental objectives of the levy "remain sound and valid", a "major impediment to achieving those objectives is the lack of a fully coordinated and wide-spread public transport system".
It notes that there are 705 parking spaces in Dublin city paid for by the taxpayer at a cost of €938,000 - or around €1,300 per parking space.
The TSG, which is chaired by the Department of Finance with membership from a number of civil service departments, is not a decision-making body.
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