Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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177. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to review or amend the Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets during the lifetime of the Thirty-third Dáil to ensure it meets international best practice to protect the rights of persons with a disability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22155/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Design Manual for Urban Roads and Street was first launched by the then Ministers for Transport, Tourism and Sport and Housing and Planning in 2013. A revision to DMURS, which was issued in August 2019, was overseen by a Steering Committee that included a representative of the National Disability Association (NDA). A number of individual meetings were also held with and further correspondence received from the NDA prior to the issue of the revised document. Based on these interactions with the NDA several amendments were made to the DMURS with regard to the use of materials, kerb heights, use of zebra crossings and references to ‘Building for Everyone, A Universal Design Approach’ published by the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design.

With regard to future review, DMURS has always been viewed as a ‘live’ document, and the website (www.dmurs.ie) was developed to provide an accessible resource for all updates and supplementary material (including advice notes) along with links to key publications and case study material. In this context a working group, consisting of staff from various local authorities together with both Departments, which was formed in 2010 to produce DMURS still meets periodically and has prepared a number of training courses, updates to the document and other supplementary material.