Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and the Minister for his opening comments. I congratulate the initiative and the pro-business and pro-living nature of these measures, for the living of our lives in all of the areas and businesses that will be impacted by this.

I have a number of requests for consideration. First, as to disabilities where we have street furniture now being used to a greater extent, I ask that we consider having some mechanism in place to ensure that we are not inhibiting in any way ease of access for people, particularly those in wheelchairs, or, where there is visual impairment. We must be accommodating and give these requirements some consideration in terms of where we locate street furniture on the footpath left after its installation, if provision is not made out on the street, as has been very sensibly done in Dublin city. We need to consider ease of access for people to ensure they are able to sit if there are raised plinths or some such feature.

If we learned anything from "Claire Byrne Live" on RTÉ last night it is the level of waste. I would certainly be in favour of considering the added cost and added services that will be required if we allow continuity of takeaway, which is eminently sensible, to ensure that we are maximising the potential covers in sales for restaurants. At the same time, if there is an associated waste we should make provision for being pragmatic, in the words of Councillor James Geoghegan last night, in how we address that. We should take the dual approach of, ideally, educating people to bring home their waste but also putting in place adequate bins and ensuring we have that complementary provision.