Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with the Deputy. This is a tricky one because the scheme was always based on a tax model. We have been talking to the Department of Finance to broaden it so it could, as the Deputy said, cover someone who is unemployed or a student who does not pay tax and is therefore not able to accrue the benefit. That is a matter for the Department of Finance and my Department. It has been a difficult issue to resolve but I hope we can do so in the upcoming budget. I will try to. In the interim, there are a number of other measures such as the bike library scheme we are introducing in colleges so people can have access to bikes.

The roll-out of bike-sharing schemes has been remarkably successful. Sligo town is one of the most successful developed recently. I agree we need to provide wider access to bikes. I would like to extend the scheme to include other non-taxpaying citizens. We do not have the mechanism yet but I am trying to get that in time for the budget. Separately, the bike library and bike-sharing schemes help to go a long way.