Mr. Ciarán Ferrie:

I will make a brief comment on my experience. I grew up in a rural village about three miles outside of Galway city. When I was growing up, all the old people cycled to mass every weekend and all the kids cycled to school. We used to cycle into the city every day to go to secondary school and we did so en masse. Loads of us cycled. We used to gather at the crossroads and it was a social thing. What happened, however, was that the roads were improved, meaning they were widened and straightened and suddenly the cars started travelling faster. Vehicles also got bigger and more powerful and people were less inclined to let their children go out on the road. The road infrastructure has changed. It is not that roads are not wide enough but that they are designed to allow people to drive as quickly as they can from one point to another. We are not asking for something new in requesting that cyclists be allowed to use the roads. Cycling has a long tradition in Ireland. Bicycles were on these roads before cars, believe it or not, and we would like to see-----