Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I apologise for running in and out of the meeting. The unfortunate nature of this place is that we all have to be in two or three places at once. The Joint Committee on Justice is meeting in a different room and I have to run between the two. I am also supposed to be somewhere else for a third meeting, so I apologise for running in and out.

The witnesses are speaking my language. I was happy to see the sorts of things they are looking for. One of the things I am conscious of is that they held up Capel Street as an example, but I will come back to that point. One of the first matters I wanted to talk about is the point Zena made about money. Money has been made available. My question relates to whether the money is being spent. That question has been answered already and we have been told it is not being spent. I do not know why that is. As the others are saying, that is something the witnesses need to talk to their local authority about. Sometimes one of the reasons is if there are not enough engineers in the local authority who know what they are doing in the context of active transport. In such cases, money can be made available but it will not be spent. When I was on Dublin City Council, there were not enough traffic engineers to do two big projects at once. One of the things the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was doing was giving money to councils to hire traffic engineers who could deliver these projects in order that when the money arrived, there would be people in place to make sure it was spent. Our guests asked about money. I implore them to ask if the relevant posts have been filled, if people have been hired and if the council has enough staff to spend the money it has been given. When they are linking in with the active travel unit, the witnesses should ask if it has enough staff. If it does not, they should go and annoy their councillors, the Chair and Deputy Murnane O’Connor in order o make sure that the local authority hires those people.

My next point is that we need to campaign more. Our guests are doing great work, and they held up Capel Street as an example. The pedestrianisation of Capel Street has been a really positive development. We need to get Parliament Street, which is the next bit street over on the other side of the river, pedestrianised as well. We also need to pedestrianise Liffey Street. I could list about 20 more streets. However, we had to fight tooth and nail to get Capel Street pedestrianised. There are still people who complain about it and who want to see what was done overturned. One of the challenges in trying to achieve these kind of things is that it can be long and slow. Our guests will need to keep campaigning. There are lots of campaigning groups. I am from Dublin, so I do not know who the witnesses know in Carlow or who is down there. There are groups like I BIKE Dublin that were proactive in the city. There are pedestrian networks across the country. I am more than happy to link with the witnesses' teachers and provide links to some of these activists and campaigners. Maybe those people could share some of their experiences and stories with the witnesses, if that would be useful. It might help the witnesses to campaign harder in respect of this matter.

The other thing I thought of is a study on children and young people's independent mobility that was compiled by Mary Immaculate College in Limerick a number of years ago. The study related to young people being able to go where they wanted by themselves, independently. Grace made the point that her parents want to drive her places because there is too much traffic and they do not feel it is safe. However, them driving makes more traffic and we get this vicious cycle. One of the interesting things the Mary Immaculate College study showed was that the young people surveyed wanted independence. They did not want to be driven to school; they wanted to be able to cycle, walk or get the bus and chat with their mates and have fun on the way to school or wherever they were going. I can share this with our guests later but I encourage them to find that study and ask their peers in Carlow, do a small version of that study and find out what their peers think. What do our guests think? Do they like being driven to school or do they want to walk or cycle? Do they want the independence to be able to go somewhere? I think I know the answer but I am asking the question anyway. I have another question I might come back to later but I will leave it at that question.