Mr. Paul Lenehan:

On making our towns greener and the directive to take cars out of our town centres, we all support this. To do so, we need the bus spaces. Taking cars out of town centres also drastically reduces footfall to many of our small town centres. In larger, more touristy areas that is all well and good, when people are automatically coming in on more direct bus and train routes. Many towns struggle when the parking that was traditionally there is taken out. It is having an impact on business. I can talk as someone who has been directly impacted in respect of a town centre that is currently under a scheme to be fully pedestrianised. Taking out the car park and not replacing it with car parks elsewhere or adding extra facilities for the town that are a short walk from the square is having a detrimental effect on our own and on other towns I know. Business owners were told that the pedestrianisation of a town centre would increase business by 20%. That does not happen. We need to be careful when we go with these kind of projects and that a lot of thought is put into it. Do the measures suit the particular town that is to be pedestrianised? Are we taking cars out of the right streets in a way that does not impact many businesses? It is a good initiative but alternative parking needs to be provided in such instances.