Mr. John Mulholland:

I thank Deputy Murnane O'Connor for the question. Training at community level and in-house is a key question. It is a matter that needs to be continually reviewed, seeking continuous improvement both at collective level and individually within the local authorities and communities. If we take the example of what has happened under Age Friendly Ireland we can apply that in this context as well. There is a certain amount of crossover in that. That has been exceptionally effective and very good models have been built up in that area.

As regards the public realm and street design and access, we need to strive to continue to improve in that area. Local authorities can adopt different methods of including people at the design stage. There is a large amount of investment going on in the country at the moment between urban regeneration development funds, rural regeneration development funds, town and village renewal and so on. Local practices at community level can be to the extent that people with any particular issues and disability will be invited in to give their view on preliminary designs and designs as they go in to the public space. That is very good. Even for amenity areas it is very helpful, whatever about strategy and plans, to invite people locally to get their perspective on what is being provided for amenity areas, libraries and so on. As we say in the statement in relation to libraries, for example, they are all designed for universal access being, as they are, part of the infrastructure. I would be loath to say which local authorities lead the way with best practice but perhaps my two colleagues might give a response on that. Wicklow has some good examples. Could I ask Mr. Michael Nicholson to come in on that? He might be able to give a good example.