Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Sometimes one thinks it is best not to talk about this because one fears that it might put people off cycling. As Dr. Ó Tuama has said, that latest health survey today shows that 60% of people are obese. Cycling-active travel every day is the best way of tackling that issue. As Mayer Hillman the great UK doctor and every analysis has shown, even with the high incidence of accidents, the reality is one will live longer if one cycles.

The truth is that our conditions for cyclists are atrocious. Those who came here for the Velo-City conference could not believe people cycle in this city. It is scandalous that we have not addressed the issue.

To answer Deputy MacSharry's question on behaviour, there is a general level of abuse. Women in particular perhaps are sensitive to it but there is a general level of abuse against cyclists at present and it has escalated in the past two or three years. For some reason it is online and it needs to stop.

The issue regarding cyclists being lit up has radically changed in the past 20 or 30 years. The cycling campaign did a survey in the mid-1990s through the UCD marketing and development programme that showed a very high percentage of cyclists did not have lights on their bikes. I do my own survey because it is important that we light up and I believe it is now much higher. I believe it would be close to 80% or 90% of cyclists. It should be 100%. It has radically improved partly because the lights are cheaper and better and LED technology has improved.

Cycling behaviour is improving. In this city as the number cycling increases, I notice we are starting to self-police. When cyclists come to traffic lights they stop. We will solve the issue of behaviour by creating sane traffic and transport infrastructure. I hope that at the same time we address the issue that 98% of motorists are breaking the 30 km speed limit throughout the country every day on every road. The figure for those breaking the 50 km speed limit is 80%. Speed kills. We need to stop this cyclist versus motorist argument. Someone here told us about seeing four cyclists cycling abreast in Mayo. Big groups of people cycling overtake each other and we might occasionally have this as a rare occurrence. Cars also overtake each other. Two cars passing is the equivalent of four cyclists abreast. I do not go bananas about it.