Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. This matter relates to the direction given to local authorities regarding residential car parking. We can all say with certainty that this matter has caused a great deal of hassle in areas. Being Dublin-centric, I am speaking about Dublin. I will not address individual requests, angst or fights but there is a great deal of anger and disbelief about the requirement on people to pay for car parking outside their own front doors. We must examine all of the Dublin local authorities' by-laws in their entirety. Will the Minister of State ask local authorities to engage in public consultation in order to update by-laws and provide priority parking for residents on their own streets? Other people leave their cars in their areas and spend the day in town or at work or go on holiday and leave their cars behind for considerable lengths of time.

I asked the Oireachtas Library and Research Service to undertake a research paper on this matter. It is a wonderful research paper. The service examined the five European cities of Edinburgh, Exeter, London, Paris and Amsterdam. While they have no priority parking for residents, there are novel ways of providing residents with parking close to their homes. I would like to send the paper on to the Minister of State.

We need to modernise how people live in the city, with all of its demands on roads and parking. The idea is for people to make less use of their cars, but people will realistically have to use them and park them safely outside their own homes.