Councillors look for more consultation with disabled people on city-centre traffic plan

For 45 years, Ronan McGuirk, who is blind, has walked around Dún Laoghaire and used public transport independently.

McGuirk uses a cane to feel the wall or buildings on one side of the footpath and the kerb on the other side. “Until recently it was pretty easy to walk in a straight line,” he says.

But he fears losing his independence soon as changes that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is making to paths are making it riskier, he says.

Recent works at a pedestrian plaza on the seafront, where the Peoples Park meets Park Road in Dún Laoghaire, mean that the pedestrian area and the road are on the same level, McGuirk says.

“I don’t know if I am in the middle of the junction or the plaza,” he says. “It’s extremely dangerous.”

In the Dublin City Council area too, disabled people are raising the same issue with road redesigns, and calling for more focused consultation with representative organisations ahead of future changes.

At a full meeting of Dublin City Council on 8 April, the council’s traffic manager Brendan O’Brien presented councillors with the latest on the city centre transport plan, a vision for Dublin’s core which aims to reroute drivers who aren’t bound for the city centre around it, rather than through it, closing two short stretches of the quays to private cars while also improving public transport links, cycling and walking routes and adding greening.

Most councillors backed the plan, but also supported an emergency motion tabled by independent Councillor Damien O’Farrell calling for full consultation with organisations for people with disabilities, as is required under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The council transport manager, Brendan O’Brien, said that the council contacted organisations representing people with disabilities and invited them to make submissions to the public consultation. They’ll consult again with them during the planning permission process, he said.

But Robert Sinnott, co-ordinator of Voice of Vision Impairment, a disabled persons representative organisation, says that isn’t enough.

He called on the council to uphold their human rights. “It’s disablement by design,” he says. “You are taking perfectly acceptable streetscapes and turning it into a nightmare for us.”

Going backwards

McGuirk says he avoids some parts of Dún Laoghaire, like the raised pedestrian crossing at the junction of Adelaide Road and Upper Glenageary Road.

He is worried that Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Council has said that it plans to introduce more raised pedestrian crossings, he says.

If the council does that, he won’t be able to navigate the town independently anymore, he says, as the risk of ending up on the road will be too high. “It feels like we’re going backwards.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Transport says that raised crossings are best practice and have been in use for more than 20 years.

“These are highly recommended in areas where pedestrian flows are high such as in centres,” they said. “They are also an effective measure for calming traffic and enforcing lower speeds.”

In October 2022, the National Transport Agency, together with Limerick City and County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council carried out a pilot scheme in eight places for a revised type of zebra crossing that uses a sign without beacons, he says.

“The pilot schemes were in place for six months and monitored and did not present any safety issues,” says the spokesperson.

The spokesperson says that tactile paving at each pedestrian crossing highlights the crossing area for the visually impaired. (Those are the circular bumps on the pavement at a crossing.)

McGuirk says that because so many roads and pavements are bumpy anyway, the tactile pavement isn’t a clear marker like a kerb.

Kerbs are a major signal that a visually impaired person cannot miss, he says. Guide dogs are trained to recognise kerbs and stop, says Sinnott.

“I could go anywhere in Dublin city on my own,” says Sinnott. “I know all the streets like the back of my hand.”

But in the last few years it’s getting a lot more difficult too, he says. He points to other changes like widened footpaths.

Very wide footpaths are also disorienting, he says, because visually impaired people use the two sides of the footpath to ensure they are going straight ahead.

Sinnott says that the group also objects to plans to mix cycling and walking at some locations.

Mixing cycling and pedestrians doesn’t work well for the visually impaired, says Sinnott. In some European cities including Amsterdam, it is very difficult for visually impaired people to get around, he says.

“You can’t do it independently,” he says. “Whereas here, it wasn’t perfect, but we had something to work with.”

Voice for Vision Impairment has created a checklist of concerns about the impact of proposed changes to traffic and travel in Ireland.

Council planners should read it, says Sinnott, and then meet with Voice for Vision Impairment to talk about the challenges.

The council has not provided them with accessible documents so that they can properly critique the council’s city centre transport plan and help make sure physical changes are accessible, he says. “We experience discrimination on a daily basis so we know the way out of it.”

“Some changes might be in line with the Planning and Development Act but against human rights,” says Sinnott. “If it’s stopping us from going into the city centre, it infringes our basic human rights.”

What does consultation mean?

In his motion on 8 April, O’Farrell, the independent councillor, called on the council to defer implementing the city centre transport plan “until such time as there has been disability proofing”, in compliance with the council’s legal obligations.

A spokesperson for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth says Ireland ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2018.

That convention gives people with disabilities special rights to consultation on decisions and policies that affect them.

The government is fully committed to realising its obligations and has established and funded the Disability Participation and Consultation Network, said the spokesperson.

It is working “to further embed the principles of participation and consultation with disability stakeholders across central and local government”, he said.

At the full council meeting on 8 April, Social Democrats Councillor Catherine Stocker said that she unequivocally supported the city centre transport plan and wants it to go ahead.

But, she said, “we have not met our UNCRPD obligations to the DPOs [disabled people’s organisations].”

O’Farrell says that under the UN convention, the council has to offer the DPOs consultation meetings, consider their contributions, and demonstrate how those were weighted.

There needs to be mention in the final report that each DPOs specific points were considered and weighted, said O’Farrell, at the meeting. “It’s not here.”

Green Party Councillor Claire Byrne said that, “ultimately the plan will bring nothing but positive changes making it calmer, safer and healthier for those living in the city now and in the future”.

Tension with DPOs about changes to traffic plans had come up before, said Fine Gael Councillor Naoise Ó Muirí. “We really need to nail this so that we have these groups on board.”

O’Farrell repeatedly asked O’Brien, the council transport manager, to clarify what consultation the council had carried out with the DPOs. The Lord Mayor, Fianna Fáil’s Daithí de Róiste, asked him to stop interrupting the meeting.

De Róiste said that he had launched the council’s new process for engaging disabled persons’ organisations in December 2023.

DPOs should be fully consulted from the beginning of the process, he said. “It’s about consultation in creation.”

He asked for an opinion from the law agent, the council’s legal advisor, as to whether the council is in compliance.

The law agent, Yvonne Kelly, said that under article 4.3 of the UNCRPD there is an obligation on public bodies to consult closely with disabled people on a policy that impacts them, through their representative organisations.

“There is no prescribed format, the obligation here is to engage with those DPO organisations about how they wish to have their consultation,” she said. “The DPO consultation process is ongoing.”

O’Brien said there will be more opportunities for people to offer opinions through the Part 8 planning process for public-realm works as they roll out different bits of the plan.

Labour Councillor Declan Meenagh suggested that the council invite the DPOs to a meeting within the next month to consult on the plan, and that was agreed.

Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey asked whether the plan could be subject to a legal challenge as a result of failure to consult disabled people’s organisations.

“That is something we hope doesn’t arise,” said O’Brien.