Mr. Brendan O'Brien:

The initial measures we took were in two particular areas where the tram cannot fit on bridges. The tram cannot stop on O'Connell Bridge or the Rosie Hackett Bridge without blocking either the south or north quays and, therefore, our response, which we put in place last August, was to make sure that public transport could move. The stated objective we had at the time was to remove some of the bottlenecks for public transport in the area and to make sure that the introduction of the tram on O'Connell Bridge did not cause problems for public transport on the north and south quays. Those measures have been successful. Originally, we had examined whether we needed to remove cars from Bachelors Walk completely but we did not do that. They can still travel down Eden Quay and the south quays. We, therefore, took appropriate measures to safeguard public transport in the area.

The other aspect of this is cycling and we have always steadfastly said, as Mr. Keegan pointed out, that we need to accommodate cycling in the city centre because that is the growth mode currently. The measure we took, particularly on the north and south quays, to introduce more public transport priority assisted cyclists in large numbers. The figures for the number of people cycling on the quays versus those using other transport modes show that to be the correct case.