Mr. Ray O'Leary:

The Minister is ambitious to at least get to a position where we can make a recommendation before Christmas. As good civil servants we of course tell him it will be early 2020. We hope to be in a position to at least give him some advice certainly by early 2020, possibly beforehand, depending on the various demands on all our time and any other significant information. We have to keep our ears tuned to what may happen. Safety is very important. People are dying using these in many jurisdictions and circumstances and while I would not want to single out any individual case I noted that one of the first fatalities in the United States was a young man from the Chairman's constituency and on behalf of the Department and the Minister we would like to express our condolences to the man's family. These things happen and we have to consider their context, even if we do not have the depth of evidence to draw scientific conclusions we have to acknowledge what has happened in trying to make the best judgment.

The Deputy made a good point about the challenge of trying to manage competing demands for road space and relieve the pressure on the shared infrastructure for cycling and buses, and the impact of additional demands on the current users. Last week, the Department was very clear with the NTA that the ideal solution is completely segregated facilities but that requires space, investment and time. At the moment we, the NTA and the local authorities are trying to manage the challenges around road space. It is much the same as the money end of things, if we do not have enough we try to make the best use of what we have, accepting that it will always fall short of the ideal.