Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill. The deteriorating road infrastructure in Dublin city is a problem that I encounter as a cyclist and hear about from my constituents. This is a danger to road safety. There are certain stretches of road and dedicated cycle paths that are in such disrepair that accidents will inevitably happen on them. We should invest more money in repairing them. While I accept that the road maintenance budget may be down by €100 million, we should target it at repairing roads. This would also lead to savings. For example, a victim of a road accident caused by the poor state of a road will end up in hospital, a further cost to the Health Service Executive. During the bad winter several years ago Dublin City Council claimed it could not afford to maintain sufficient salt stocks to keep footpaths clear of ice. However, many pedestrians suffered falls as a result and ended up in hospital. The cost to the State of broken bones was more than the cost of buying salt for gritting. It will cost us more money in the long run if we do not invest in repairing existing road infrastructure and providing new infrastructure to deal with accident black spots.

All Members know someone who has been affected by a road traffic accident. We can bring in laws such as this, but if the basic road infrastructure is not up to scratch, serious road safety problems will continue and only get worse.

We need to do more to make cyclists comply with the laws of the road and not break traffic lights or cycle on footpaths. Recently I saw a person knocked over by a cyclist on a footpath. Fortunately, they were not badly hurt. On-the-spot fines should be given to cyclists who do not comply with the rules of the road. The only way we will get cyclists to comply is if they are walked to the ATM to pay the fine or asked to empty their pockets as they are far too liberal with the road laws.

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