Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A number of issues with road safety were alluded to earlier and there is a core problem around all of them, namely, enforcement. I want to start by expressing my deepest sympathy and offering my condolences to all those who have died on our roads. Last week, a young man was killed in our constituency on an electric bike in a tragic incident that occurred in Allendale.

Electric bikes are brilliant. I have one and I have been using it for the past ten months. I am hooked on cycling for commuting and enjoyment. However, I have noticed in the past ten months that there is a significant number of illegal electric bikes on our streets. Quite interestingly, I saw a post by An Garda Síochána, which was marking bikes for anti-theft measures. It marked one of these bikes, which was clearly illegal. It was clearly one of those bikes can travel upwards of 50 km/h or 60 km/h. I found that quite shocking. I see those bikes passing me. My bike is legal. It travels the 25 km/h that is legally allowed, but I see bikes passing me that are probably doing 30 km/h or 40 km/h. I have yet to see one single incident of enforcement around these illegal bikes which are extremely dangerous.

Anybody who has been knocking on the doors over the past number of weeks is constantly being told about electric scooters and electric bikes and how dangerous they are because people are cycling these on the paths. They are not on the roads. Regarding these bikes, people should have insurance, they should have licences and they should be trained on those bikes. Unfortunately, there is zero enforcement in this regard.

The second issue I would like to raise, which I raised previously when we last debated road safety, is that of a site that is being developed in Kellystown beside Scoil Choilm. I have complained and sent a planning enforcement notice to Fingal County Council. This developer submitted a road traffic management plan that was rejected by the council. I am holding a picture of the site and the site entrance, which is right beside Scoil Choilm. This picture was taken yesterday, when a massive truck passed by at 8.41 a.m. as children were entering the school. Again, I emailed Fingal County Council, but very little action is being taken to enforce the law. A specific issue in the planning application for which the developer received planning permission was that there was supposed to be no trucks passing between the school opening and closing times. In the past four weeks, dozens of trucks have been going in and out of this site, yet there is zero enforcement. Are we waiting for a child to be killed? That is absolutely shocking.

There is an issue that I would like to raise with the Minister of State, and it was also raised earlier by our Labour Party colleagues. This is the issue of the cycle lanes and allowing funding from the active travel fund to be used for existing cycle lanes. I invite the Minister of State to cycle along Tyrrelstown, the boulevard and its cycle lanes, as well as the cycle lanes in Hansfield. They are more like rumble strips than they are cycle lanes.

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