Shane Ross (Independent)

This Adjournment motion is about the need for the Government to improve facilities for cyclists in Dublin city. I am aware that the Minister is issuing what he calls a sustainable travel and transport plan and will be bringing it to Cabinet in the coming weeks. It is a very ambitious plan to put 150,000 commuters on the roads, and substitute them for cars by 2020. However, it is a plan that will be very difficult to implement, particularly if the past record of care for cyclists by successive Governments and Dublin City Council is maintained. I will quote David Maher of the Dublin Cycling Campaign, which welcomed the initiative, from an article in the Sunday Times, of last Sunday, 12 October, which states:

I would say that 10% of all trips by 2020 is completely achievable, but we have found in the past that there is no follow through from policy to reality on the ground. You can make all the cycle tracks you want, but if the gardaí are going to allow people to park all over them, they are more of a hazard than a help.

The promotion of cycling has been more aspirational than a matter of delivering factual and concrete facilities for cyclists, and I shall give the Minister of State a few examples. I believe there are only 200 km of cycle lanes in Dublin city, which is grossly inadequate if we are to achieve the type of objectives the Minister has already outlined. Where they exist, they are dangerous — because there are potholes which are not looked after and they are cut off in many cases throughout Dublin and lead nowhere. They are dangerous because cars are left parking on them for hours and cyclists cannot pass them. They are also dangerous because taxis often use them and because gardaí often do not enforce the law in respect of cycle lanes. Cyclists believe that whereas the bicycle is everybody's favourite vehicle to champion, it is ignored in reality.

As the Minister of State will be aware, there are several types of cycle lane. They carry with them different rights and nobody, beyond cyclists themselves, is aware of those rights, and certainly not the drivers of other vehicles. The different rights attaching to cycle lanes are not carried in the rules of the road, which need updating so that people become familiar with the rights of cyclists in various lanes. The data on cyclists and the accidents they have had, as a direct result in some cases I suggest because of neglect of the maintenance of cycling lanes, have not been updated since 2006. We need new ones, but there are fatalities between cars and bicycles, at the rate of at least three a year. There were 86 injuries involving bicycles in 2006, an unacceptable number.

I should like to indicate some examples for the Minister of State of places that badly need cycling lanes and do not have them. There is a large amount of space around the Guinness hop store, for example, where there is no cycle lane, and which is very dangerous for cyclists. There are enormous potholes on the Lower Leeson Street cycle lanes and the only alternative is for cyclists to cycle in the bus lanes, with the buses coming in the opposite direction. This makes life extremely hazardous for cyclists as well. There is a great deal of room along Parliament Street on the approach to the City Offices, yet there are no, or very few, cycle lanes on offer.

It would be appropriate if the Minister of State could give me some assurances that this matter is now a priority, not just for the safety of cyclists, but for the environment. I know he will probably say there was a grant in the budget yesterday, which gave €1,000 under a new cycling to work scheme. That is an encouragement to people to cycle but they are not going to do so if the lanes are dangerous.