Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Draft climate change action plans have been prepared by the four Dublin local authorities and specific documents in all of those cases include transport within the Dublin local authority areas such as fleet operations, fleet procurement and road traffic management, as well as sustainable travel for staff. Dublin City Council quite transparently provided the travel figures for the 1,500 staff that work in Dublin City Council’s civic offices on Wood Quay. Of the 1,500 staff members, 53% travel to work by car with 280 car parking spaces provided in the Wood Quay site for Dublin City Council staff. I am not doubling down on Dublin City Council but 280 cars at 4 m length each would line the south side of the quays from Wood Quay almost back to Heuston Station. In comparison, a Luas could accommodate 350 people. A Liffey cycle route would provide a genuine option for commuters to safely travel along the quays. I do not know if anyone here has cycled along the quays: it is just mental. I do not know if the Liffey cycle route that has been proposed will accommodate all of the cyclists in the future but I want to see a Liffey cycle route that can be used by children also.

Can the Minister tell me how many of the private cars coming into the city each morning are public servants working for the State? I do not know many private companies in the city that provide staff car parking spaces. Perhaps there may be three or four spaces for directors but not a parking lot for the numbers of staff that we see in Dublin City Council. I see that the Minister is writing and he probably has those figures but if the figures are not to hand or do not exist, then we should have a study on which public institutions provide car parking spaces, how many, and if it is sustainable to facilitate that. The answer to the last question is most likely to be "No". The study should start with this institution, with the Oireachtas and the Parliament, and whether we should have a car park out front. What message does this send to the public and what alternatives can be made?

Dublin was built without many public spaces in which to congregate and mobilise, and given the location of the Dáil and the lack of space to assemble, the possibility of pedestrianising the near end of Molesworth Street opposite Leinster House to enable safe demonstration, public gatherings and performance should be explored.

As I commute around town I am either angry, frustrated or embarrassed that the city is in the state it is. Nobody is being served properly by the status quo.In the core of the city - around George's Street, Dame Street, Stephen's Green and Leinster House - nobody is being served by the status quo.Also nobody in the suburbs is served by the status quo: not the drivers who sit in their cars, bumper to bumper, breathing in the fumes of the vehicle in front; not the cyclists whose cycle tracks disappear into thin air or who have to negotiate their commute with a double decker Dublin bus; not the people who use the bus, a service which at rush hour is completely at capacity and which may have no bus lane - including the two bus routes for me to get home to Inchicore - meaning that a bus with 20 to 60 passengers may have to sit behind a whole stretch of 20 cars; and the pedestrians are also not being served, even with the Grafton Street quarter.

While it is easy to have a good balance of cycle lanes and so on in places like Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin County Council areas, when choices have to be made in the Dublin City Council area it seems that those choices are not being made. We have situation where nobody is being served by the status quo.

I believe there is a step change happening with regard to the inner core of the city I referred to earlier. It is happening among businesses that realise pedestrianised streets are good for business. That will have an effect on Dublin City Council's approach to pedestrianising streets. It is good to see a trial of this on Suffolk Street and I would call on Dublin City Council to make that a permanent arrangement and to adjust the street into a pedestrian street full time. We are also seeing it in the response from businesses on Liffey Street Lower. The private car park lobby want access to Bachelors Walk via Liffey Street Lower but the Ha'penny Bridge is our landmark pedestrian bridge: pedestrians should be able to cross the quays and enter on to Liffey Street Lower and breath and socialise and have that space, rather than cars exiting Abbey Street onto Bachelors Walk. There is overwhelming support out there, especially among younger people, for a realignment of the priorities of the inner city and particularly around pedestrianisation and democratic spaces. It is about protection, comfort and enjoyment.

We also need to have a conversation about extending public transport later into the night. There is a conversation going on about the night-time economy, staggered opening hours and licensing law reform.I know workers in the hospitality industry and the cultural and creative sector who leave a shift and pay half of their wages on a taxi home. We need to extend the Nitelink and run the Luas later, and this should happen every night of the week. There is growing impatience among young people and a demand for priorities to be changed.