Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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574. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide a copy of the regulations under section 1(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 allowing local authorities to make by-laws regarding the use of vehicles in public places which may include animal drawn vehicles under section 46(a) of the Road Safety Authority (Commercial Vehicle Roadworthiness) Act 2012 in view of a further incident involving collisions between horse-drawn carriages and mechanically propelled vehicles (details supplied); and if he will commence section 31(1) of the Road Traffic Act 2016 which allows the National Transport Authority to make regulations under section 20(5) of the Taxi Regulations Act 2013 in relation to horse-propelled hackney carriages. [43743/18]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I assume the Deputy means to refer to Part 19 of the Local Government Act 2001. It is under this Part that local authorities can choose to regulate horse-drawn carriages that operate for carriage of persons for reward. Part 19 (as amended) is available at the following link:

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Regarding section 31 of the Road Traffic Act 2016, following legal advice received, the prudent decision was not to commence this section. The legal risk associated with this provision was considered unacceptably high with a strong likelihood that the regulations under the provisions could be challenged and ultimately struck down. Understandably, given this information, I decided not to commence section 31.