IMAGINE YOU’VE BEEN eating a lot of junk food and have put on weight and can’t fit into your favourite jeans anymore.

Then you decide to change your habits. You start eating healthier food and taking exercise, but at the same time you also take up smoking. 

With that improved diet and exercise you lose some of the excess weight and can fit into your old clothes again. 

Would you then conclude that smoking is making you healthier?

Well, that is exactly the logic that An Coimisiún Pleanála has used to justify granting permission for the Galway City Ring Road.

A key factor in the quashing of the original planning permission by the High Court in 2022 was that the decision had not properly considered the latest Climate Action Plan.

A critical aspect of the Climate Action Plan identified by An Coimisiún’s Inspector is the requirement to reduce transport emissions by 50% by 2030. 

The Inspector also refers to Ireland’s Long-term Strategy on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction 2024 which sets targets of a 50% increase in active travel journeys – cycling and walking – and a 130% increase in daily public transport journeys by 2030.

The Inspector makes the assertion that there will be a 16% reduction in kilometres travelled and a 43% reduction in carbon emissions and that therefore the ring road project complies with the requirements of the Climate Action Plan.

Creative accounting

This has led to considerable scratching of heads amongst observers because the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) submitted with the application seems to say something different. It projects a 6-8% increase in vehicle kilometres and a 37% increase in carbon emissions.

The explanation for this illustrates an extraordinary degree of creative accounting by both the applicant and An Coimisiún. 

Essentially, An Coimisiún Pleanála has decided not to deal with the road in isolation but as part of the 2016 Galway Transport Strategy (GTS).

The GTS includes a range of measures designed to improve transport in Galway. These include the ring road, other road improvement projects, public transport projects, active travel projects and traffic demand management measures.

There are three separate scenarios to consider here:

A. Do Nothing – none of the GTS is implemented.

B. Do Minimum – All of the GTS is implemented except the ring road (i.e. public transport, demand management, active travel etc).

C. Do Something – All of the GTS is implemented including the ring road.

What An Coimisiún Pleanála appears to have done is to compare C to A and concluded that the ring road will result in traffic volumes reducing by 16% and carbon emissions by 43%.

The EIA submitted with the application actually compares C to B and shows a 6-8% increase in traffic volumes and a 37% increase in carbon emissions. 

It also shows a reduction in mode share for public transport, walking and cycling and an increase in mode share for the private car. 

What this illustrates is that it is the sustainable transport measures in the Galway Transport Strategy that are doing all the heavy lifting. 

It also illustrates that the gains that are projected by implementing the sustainable transport measures are being undermined by the addition of the ring road.

To then conclude that the ring road is compliant with the Climate Action Act requirement to reduce vehicle kilometres and reduce carbon emissions is completely untenable.

As per the analogy at the beginning of this article, it’s like saying a healthy diet plus smoking is better than doing nothing – and then claiming smoking is good for your health.

This kind of creative accounting and lopsided logic might get us through the planning and legal hoops but in the long run, it is the climate, and the people of Galway who will pay the price.

Ciarán Ferrie is an architect and transport planner.