Ms Aisling Dunne:

What we have been told is that the regulations will cover both private use and the shared schemes and that as soon as the primary legislation has been passed in both Houses, they will commence drafting of those regulations. From our perspective, when we speak to councils about their plans, they say that we are only at primary legislation at the moment, which is very macro, that they do not know the details and cannot progress with even considering how a shared scheme might look. From an operator's perspective, we would love to see the Department working with the local authorities as the regulations are being drafted, facilitating the councils to commence their deliberations and work on the by-laws.

In that way, hopefully by very early next year, the councils might at least be in a position to start considering operators.

There is real urgency to private use, an issue the Chairman raised. That is the element that is active. People are operating in a legal lacuna, without any guidance. There is also an urgency to trying to help people to make this modal shift. We would love to see both elements progress in tandem with each other in order that there is not this stop-start-----