Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is wide-ranging legislation. The transport committee undertook pre-legislative scrutiny over the past few months. Many aspects of the Bill seek to make our roads safer from variable speed limits to regulating e-scooters to giving gardaí more powers to check for uninsured vehicles on our roads. Sinn Féin welcomes these provisions. We support making our roads safer and trying to reduce the number of serious collisions and fatalities on our roads each year. The Bill also contains a number of miscellaneous provisions, including tackling the dangerous use of scramblers, providing for the testing of autonomous vehicles on our roads, amending how fixed-charge notices issued by traffic wardens are dealt with and linking driver licence records with vehicle registration records. There is a huge amount in the Bill. Sinn Féin will bring forward amendments on Committee Stage which we think will improve the Bill and add positively to our road traffic legislation. I look forward to engaging with the Minister on that.

The popularity of e-scooters has accelerated in recent years, with a significant number of people now using them to commute to and from work and school. The rapid growth has bypassed current road traffic legislation and has left significant gaps in the law that need to be addressed. E-scooters are a cleaner, cheaper form of transport compared with cars and their use is only expected to grow.

I welcome the efforts in this Bill to address their use on our roads. There is considerable detail on this and we will have an opportunity on Committee Stage to unpack some of that. Introducing laws is not about punishing e-scooter users but, rather, putting protections in place for their safety and that of cyclists, pedestrians and motorists.

A number of issues will need further discussion and interrogation when this Bill comes to Committee Stage, namely, the wearing of helmets and high-visibility clothing; the use of lights; areas where e-scooters can be used, including geofencing; liability; maximum speeds and power; and age limits. On Committee Stage, it will also be important to examine proposed e-scooter sharing schemes. These are commonplace across Europe and are hugely popular with tourists and residents alike. However, there is also concern over some of the negative aspects that can arise if a shared scheme is not introduced correctly. We do not want to see e-scooters used on footpaths or strewn all over sidewalks and public spaces, like we see in some cases elsewhere. This causes huge issues for people, particularly those with visual impairments, elderly people and people with a disability, as e-scooters can constitute serious hazards if they are not appropriately used or stored. It is, therefore, vital we develop appropriate pick-up and drop-off points for shared schemes. This will be an important issue to address on Committee Stage and I encourage the Minister of State to engage with groups such as the Irish Wheelchair Association, Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind and the National Council for the Blind of Ireland to hear their suggestions and to work with them to address their legitimate concerns and on the shape of the regulations that will follow.

E-bikes are another aspect of modern transport this Bill seeks to regulate for the first time. This is a positive initiative as it will help encourage this alternative form of mobility, reduce reliance on private cars and open opportunities for active and healthy travel for more people. I ask the Minister of State to advise the House whether she is considering expanding or reforming the bike-to-work scheme to take account of the growth of e-bikes and e-cargo bikes. As far as I am aware, €1,500 is the maximum cost that can be applied for the scheme, but some e-bikes and e-cargo bikes cost in excess of that. E-bikes cost a fraction of what an electric vehicle costs and take up much less room on our roads. While their regulation in this Bill is welcome, I hope the Government is planning to bring forward updated incentives to increase their use. The Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action heard about the potential of e-bikes to make medium-distance travel more manageable for people.

On scramblers and quad bikes, Sinn Féin has consistently called for action and legislative reform to tackle the dangerous and illegal use of these bikes. My colleagues, Deputies Ellis, Munster and Paul Donnelly, brought forward legislation in this Dáil and the previous Dáil to regulate this area. Unfortunately, successive Governments have sat on their hands while communities continue to be tormented by their use. The misuse of scramblers and quad bikes in parks and public spaces, particularly in urban communities, is a significant problem. Many people feel frightened, unsafe and intimidated by the rogue use of these scrambler bikes in public areas, which should be shared spaces for everyone to enjoy safely. In addition, there have been very serious incidents, including relatively recently.

The Minister of State indicated the aim of these amendments is to ensure prosecutions for dangerous driving may be taken against those who use scramblers or other similar vehicles in a dangerous way in any location, altering the public space definition. We are also told the Bill seeks to strengthen the powers of An Garda Síochána when dealing with the illegal use of scramblers and quad bikes, including the explicit seizing of these bikes. It is imperative the provisions in this Bill are fit for purpose to finally address this problem. This is as much an issue for the Department of Justice as it is for the Department of Transport. The Minister for Justice and the Garda need to be involved in this. The most important step that must take place following the passing of this legislation is the implementation of these new laws by the Garda. We will seek a meeting with senior Garda management to ensure a strategy is put in place to enforce the laws and the Garda has the resources to do so.

Section 5(l) of this Bill amends section 95 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 which deals with traffic signs. We welcome this initiative, which will allow Transport Infrastructure Ireland to proceed with dynamic traffic management on the M50 in the first instance, giving it the power to change speed limits on sections of the network. Drivers will be notified of such changes via lane control signals along the road and on overhead gantries. The aim of this is to allow TII to close lanes temporarily and slow traffic approaching an area where there has been an accident or traffic build-up, in order to improve the dispersion of congestion and avoid further collisions.

Members of the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications visited TII’s operations centre in East Wall this week and saw at first hand the impressive work it does there monitoring the motorway network and keeping motorists safe. I echo the recommendation of the committee that Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the Road Safety Authority run a public information campaign before the launch of the eMOS system on the M50 to ensure motorists are aware of the introduction and enforcement of variable speed limits and dynamic lane control. I note TII did that before it launched its early pilots. It is also important that the Department of Transport, TII and the RSA should monitor and analyse the report on the progress of the eMOS system on the M50 before proceeding with any further projects for other Irish motorways and I note the Minister of State's comments on that.

I briefly raise the High Court judgment from last week relating to driving licences. The judgment quashed a decision by the RSA which refused to exchange South African driving licences, citing residency issues as the applicants were in the direct provision system. The programme for Government contains a commitment to improve conditions for asylum seekers and specifically cites the ability to obtain a driving licence but this has still not been acted on. It is disappointing the applicants in this case were forced to take legal action in the first place but the successful outcome of their case is very welcome. I noted in a newspaper article at the weekend that a spokesperson for the Minister or the Department indicated an amendment to this legislation might be the place to address this matter. When does the Minister intend to address this judgment and what impact will that have on the wider driving licence system?

I am conscious that while the Minister for Transport was in Glasgow this week, hammering home the need to reduce emissions and get people on public transport, the NTA and the Government were announcing the draft transport strategy for the greater Dublin area which seemed to be on a completely different page. The provisions in the Bill set out a number of measures covering automatic vehicles, e-bikes and e-scooters. There are significant proposals and this Bill legislates for many aspects which align well with the direction of travel, for want of a better term, towards the type transport infrastructure and model we will have in the future. However, much of what we saw yesterday in the transport strategy for the greater Dublin area, many of the provisions in the national development plan and the level of funding for Connecting Ireland, for example, do the opposite. I note the plan moves away from the Navan rail line and MetroLink projects and puts light rail on the long finger and heavy rail on a longer finger. There is a mismatch between the rhetoric and the policy and, certainly, the delivery. That needs to be addressed in the time ahead.

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