Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would like to support the amendments that are coming today. It is a time when we need to support local businesses and to do everything we can. It is only part of the issue. A few members have touched on the fact the whole issue consists of providing the local authorities with resources for extra staff and bins and for more collections. I was in Cork city centre last Saturday night and there was a fabulous atmosphere in there. The business community has done its part and the city council is trying to work with it but it needs more resources to make this work.

Cork City Council has implemented a great initiative in closing off a lot of the streets to have more on-street dining, which was a tremendous success last summer. The side effect of that last year was that it moved disabled parking spaces from where they were on these streets to peripheral streets. All that was done in the majority of cases was to just paint a disabled parking sign. That is not good enough. There are areas in Cork city that have had disabled parking spaces that people cannot access because when they open their doors, it is onto a main road, and there are other examples affecting such people and others with limited mobility. This is not acceptable for Cork City Council or any local authority. The local authorities need the resources. We welcome the initiative. On-street dining is a good thing and we want to support businesses but we have to make it accessible to all.

I have raised the following issue a number of times in the Dáil. There is a plan to carry out walkability audits for all local authorities. I asked Cork City Council if it would carry out a walkability audit in Cork but the problem is there are no resources to do it. I do not see why people with disabilities must always campaign and fight to get things that every citizen is entitled to, accessibility being one of them. They have the same rights as everyone else. We welcome the amendments today but this is only part of the issue. The whole issue is that of disability. As other members have mentioned, everyone needs to have the same rights.