Ms Léan Kennedy:

I have a guide dog. He is seven years of age so he is a very well established guide dog and has good experience and confidence getting me out and about. I also have a one-year old daughter who I have to bring with me and carry with me on the buggy at times. The guide dog is guiding me and helping me get my daughter from A to B. My experience is that the e-scooters do rush up on the footpath. All you can do is stop. Often the people on the e-scooters think that we are doing it to be polite and to accommodate them. They often whizz by saying "thank you". They think it is great that we stop. They do not realise that it is completely disorienting to us and startling to the dog. I have to settle my guide dog again and refocus him because he is under a lot of pressure at times to ensure that not only am I being safe but that my daughter is safe as well. That is the issue and the concern.

I have worked with Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind for a number of years and have also been vision impaired since 13 years, so it is for a good number of years. I am finding that pedestrian access is becoming more and more difficult. Our experiences with e-scooters have become even more common in the recent months and weeks because people are trying to be more climate friendly and there being less traffic. We have been making compromises. Traditionally the kerb edge of the footpath was 120 mm. That was the best height to stop cars from going up onto the pavement and the best height for people who are visually impaired to know when they are stepping off onto the road. Kerbs have been being lowered since the 1980s to help calm traffic and to make drivers feel more at risk of causing an accident in order that they will drive more slowly and be more aware of other road users. That is a compromise that we have been making. It has gone from 120 mm down to 80 mm and to 60 mm and it is going even lower than that. The absolute minimum requirement we can take is 40 mm. It is making urban areas very difficult. We do not even know we were on the road half the time because the kerbs are going so low. Some people believe that tactile paving to mark the difference between the footpath and the road is the optimum solution to ensuring that blind or visually impaired people are safe and know we are on the footpath but it most certainly is not. The kerb is what we need. We have been working hard and we have been compromising. Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind has been adapting its training and the work of our dogs. We have been training our dogs to recognise tactile paving and so on. You can appreciate the stress we are under. This is one more thing that is happening to accommodate the mainstream and the move towards less traffic in the street and so on but what it is doing is pushing people with disabilities out more and more. We are really concerned and worried about this. The risk of colliding and getting into an accident with an e-scooter is highly likely. It has been happening. For myself, blind with a guide dog, getting out and about with my one-year old is difficult enough as it is but it will become almost impossible if e-scooters will be up on the pavement and getting in our way.