The head of the Climate Change Advisory Council has called on the Government to implement a levy on workers who get free parking in urban areas.
Marie Donnelly told the Oireachtas Transport Committee there is a provision in the 2008 Finance Bill under section 18(b) to calculate free parking as an additional benefit.
Ms Donnelly said the legislation is already in place and all it needs is a signature.
She added that sufficient measures have not been identified to achieve Ireland's target of a 50% reduction in transport emissions from 2018 levels by 2030.
Ms Donnelly, who is the chairperson of the Climate Advisory Council, described the target as "ambitious" and said it will require an early and fundamental shift in the Irish transport system.
"There needs to be some pro rata for the privilege of having free parking," she said.
"Free parking is worth on average €20 per day and that's worth around €5,000 per year.
"We’re not saying 'take the car away from people', but if they are getting €5,000 a year of parking, it’s not an outrageous suggestion to say they should pay a levy and that funding should be used to further invest in alternative options that are available.
"It's already on the [statute] books here in Ireland it was just never implemented," she said.
There was also criticism of the planning system and the time it takes for decisions to be reached.
"Ireland's planning system needs to be sufficiently resourced to be able to adjudicate and act on the rollout of public transport projects."
"One area of concern for the [Climate Change Advisory] Council is the speed at which the planning system operates and the fact that this is a delay factor in the rollout of new public transport projects."
She told the members that "we have plans and we talk about actions but the difficulty we have is we do not action them fast enough".
"We need to roll out the plans faster, we need to take things from paper and put them into reality as quickly as possible and that is the urgency we face and that is the only way we will stay within our carbon budget both for 2025 and ultimately for 2030 and beyond."
