The obvious move is to make public transport free on commuter routes, at least for a month. Victoria can make public transport free because it built a public transport system. We negotiated the tax arrangements without ever negotiating the energy security that hosting them requires. We did not develop an energy security strategy. The prosperity was real, but the dependency is also real, and the absence of strategy – energy strategy, security strategy, industrial strategy – is what turns a dependency into a vulnerability.

Source: The Irish Times April 05, 2026 06:59 UTC