Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Retail businesses on streets all over our towns have been dramatically affected by parking spots being taken away. I raised this among my colleagues yesterday evening and I was not surprised by how many said that the same was happening in their towns. This morning, I will use my town of Navan, County Meath, as a prime example. Navan is going through its plan of Navan 2030, the introduction of which says:

Navan is an attractive town, with historic streetscapes ... and a rich cultural and landscape heritage on its surrounds. Navan has a large population, and substantial growth is forecast in the coming years.

I do not think any person or business disagrees with our plans for Navan and as someone who has proudly lived all her life there, I have to say that our town is looking really well. However, I am worried about the cost. On our main street, we have lost many car parking spaces that have been replaced with trees and landscaping. Would the town not have been better served by providing even age-friendly or disabled parking spaces? Our historic Fair Green, which will again look fantastic, will lose 12 spaces alone and that does not take into account the spaces we will lose around the Fair Green. One business from Trimgate Street in Navan stated:

The readjustment of road layouts and finally the removal of parking has lost us 40% of business over the last four years. I have a couple who every week for 20 years have been coming ... in to buy their weekly magazine who have now cancelled that subscription telling me they cannot find parking close to my shop anymore.

On top of this, buses are coming through the town which backs up traffic. Not a week goes by where traffic in Navan is not brought up on social media and you can only imagine what it is like at school times. A journey that would have taken five minutes in the past is now taking 40 minutes. We all want to see people using buses, helping our environment and our towns becoming more attractive. However, does it have to be at the cost of car parking spaces, turning people away from shopping?

I raised this argument before as a councillor and the response I got was that many people had moved online, but I cannot get this hair highlighted online, I cannot buy fresh fish online, I cannot have a nice lunch in a café online and I cannot get clothes dry-cleaned online. There are many services we need to protect in our towns and I strongly feel that, when we look at future plans for our towns, we should think outside the box and not always look to reducing car parking spaces as a first resort. We need to increase parking spaces, including disabled parking spaces, in many towns that have seen dramatic population growth. I call for this to be looked at as a matter of urgency so that businesses in our towns will not continue failing. I ask that the Minister for local government look at this and come to the House to discuss the situation.