Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our guests for their attendance today, for their submissions and for sharing their experiences with us. As we try to craft legislation, one of the advantages of sitting on a committee is the opportunity to bring in experts and people with experience in an area. That assists us to get the legislation right and to try to get it right first time. We do not always succeed in doing that but we are going to make an attempt this time.

We are dealing with a lot of new technologies here, including electric vehicles and, in particular, scooters. I want to put some questions to our guests, the first of which I will direct to Mr. Fulham and Ms Kennedy. It relates to what they referred to in their opening statements. My experience is that much of the time, our footpaths are a battle zone for pedestrians, vulnerable users, schoolchildren, people in wheelchairs, elderly people and all of us. We are all crammed onto footpaths. We have given over masses of space to motorised vehicles. There are some good graphics on this issue. If one looks at the space left for vulnerable users, pedestrians and cyclists, all of us who are vulnerable to cars, compared to what cars get, it is completely unfair and inequitable. This has been planned. We have planned for the dominance of cars for the past 60 years in the way we have designed our towns and the way we have allowed planning to sprawl. We have created car dependency. That often has impacts for air quality as well, which impacts all of us.

Some very vulnerable people are impacted by the air quality created by the disproportionate space that we give to motorised vehicles. In terms of the unmanaged and careless parking to which Mr. Fulham referred, I often see cars parked on footpaths, cars not displaying a disability badge parked in a disability bay, and cars almost abandoned on double yellow lines. It does create a real difficulty.

I also accept that I have seen bicycles locked to railings or locked around a pole that have fallen down and that are covering the entire footpath. I completely accept that it is very difficult for somebody to manage, especially somebody with visual challenges or mobility challenges. Most cyclists and users of EVs will accept that if they had allocated parking bays they would use them because they do not want to chain their bike to a railing and they want to put it in a proper bicycle stand. Most people do, but we still do not have enough of them throughout towns and villages.

What we need to look at here is proper road space allocation. We must ensure that we have the proper road space allocation in order that people on electric bikes, bicycles or scooters have a safe carriageway to travel along. Footpaths need to be addressed. Local authorities require better funding to make sure that footpaths are kept repaired and that they are not uneven, cracked and damaged with holes. We see trees removed and stumps left; all sorts of carelessness goes on. That is what we need to address, instead of pitching various footpath users or active travel users against each other. The concentration needs to be on winning back that space that we have given over to cars in recent years.

In the Bill we are going to look at the opportunity for local authorities to trial these road allocation spaces. In devising the Covid mobility measures we looked straight away at the allocation of footpath space to tables and chairs. If we expect people to walk on the road, we must ensure it is a safe space. When space is being allocated, we must maintain accessibility at all times. We must consider that. Does Mr. Fulham agree that more spaces need to be allocated to active travel and pedestrians while ensuring that the standards are high to maintain accessibility for all users?