Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our contributors. I read all their opening statements in advance and have been listening to all of them and to committee members. I am afraid I do not have many new points to bring to the table. I was previously chairman of a transportation strategic policy committee on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and, therefore, I am familiar with issues such as mirrors, footpath widths, parking and so on. Dundrum Town Centre is very close to me. When it was being built - it was probably opened in 2005 - much bigger car parking spaces, and much bigger everything, were deliberately provided.

What we are talking about today relates to e-scooters, legislation and how e-scooters impact, in particular, on the people represented by the witnesses and the organisations they are involved with. I thank them all for everything they do. I do not think any of us could replace the personal contributions that were made and brought forward by them today. It is very important for us and for anyone involved in drafting the legislation to realise the lived experience of people who are in wheelchairs, who have sight impairment, who are blind and who use guide dogs. That is why the witnesses are here. It is very important we appreciate that a guide dog that has had a bad experience may not want to go back out. People who are using wheelchairs, or who have sight impairment or sight loss, are obviously a little concerned about any new technology, especially technology that I was not aware could go at 120 km/h. Even 20 km/h, 30 km/h or 40 km/h is very high in an environment where people are not expecting it to be.

I picked up on the fact that the witnesses all had very common themes. By all means correct me if I am wrong. They do not want any scooter use on footpaths or any free-for-all in people being able to abandon shared service scooters anywhere and everywhere; there needs to be designated places for picking them up and depositing them. There is also an issue with the speed of scooters and the fact that they need to emit a constant sound, which is something I never thought about before. I appreciate that the witnesses brought that point forward.

In respect of the issue around shared areas, there are very large parks in my own area, such as Marlay Park and Cabinteely Park, in addition to the Phoenix Park, where there would be appropriate scope for shared areas. That is not to say that we can have scooters on every pedestrianised area in Dublin or anywhere else, but scooter use will happen whether any of us like it or not. I was surprised to hear the NCBI figure of 53% of its members suggesting that they had an encounter with a scooter, either a close encounter or whatever. This is at a time when scooters are not even legalised yet and are not supposed to be on the road at all. They are coming and we need to do the very best, from our perspective, to make sure that we can address the concerns. I presume that, over time, as people get more used to them, including those using them, pedestrians and the people the witnesses represent, we will all get a little better at interacting with each other.

Ms Tinsley gave us a list of six points. Will she give us the exact six points she had again? I think I have addressed most of them. It is very important that when we deal with officials regarding this legislation we make sure that those six points are addressed. I would not like to see a situation where scooters being used by 16- or 17-year-olds are prohibited from all public parks and we then find them in other places where they are more vulnerable to cars. There are parks that would have the capacity to absorb usage by pedestrians, those who have a level of sight loss or are in a wheelchair, in addition to other pedestrians and scooter users. Will Ms Tinsley bring back those six points?