Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

General Scheme of the Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2019: Minister for Transport

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

The Deputy is right that we have to set these regulations in a way that gives flexibility as new devices, such as Segways and hoverboards, and there will be others, come in. We are deliberately calling this powered personal transporters, PPTs, rather than e-scooters legislation because there will be other examples of this form of transport and we have to set the regulations in a way that gives us flexibility in that regard. That will be key.

I am very glad the Deputy is on the Dublinbikes scheme. It is very unfortunate it has had a technical problem with batteries. Any delay in those batteries being replaced may be due to the global supply chain for a variety of products being in severe constraint at the moment. The availability of bicycles is still recovering from the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. I very much regret that but I am confident that, whenever the global supply chain recovers, we will see those bicycles back in operation and working well.

With regard to County Clare, I agree with the Deputy that a town like Ennis would be a perfect location for testing, promoting and creating a safe space. It will be very much dependent on local councils creating a safe space for the infrastructure. We need that, particularly for safe routes to schools and in the designation of space. To go back to what I said at the very start, many of these PPTs will be in the same safe space occupied by bicycles, such as bike lanes. This a real opportunity for any town, and this will be very good for our towns in improving accessibility without the huge problems of car parking and so on. I might get the Deputy to talk to my colleague, Senator Garvey, who has done a lot of work over the years on the issue of safe schools and travelling in Clare. There is good experience available. Ennis would be a perfect town but it is not the only one. A number of other towns around Clare would be ideal for this form of transport.

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