Monthly Archives: November 2024

Irish Posts

Irish Cycling Campaign at Climate & Environment Election Hustings

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Irish Cycling Campaign was well represented at the Climate and Environment hustings held earlier today (Wed 20 November) at the Royal Irish Academy on Dawson Street in Dublin. Dr. Mike McKillen, Colm Ryder and Dr. Damien Ó Tuama attended wearing ICC hats.  

The event was hosted by DCU’s Centre for Climate and Society, Friends of the Earth Ireland and Stop Climate Chaos (of which Irish Cycling Campaign is a member). The debate was moderated by Pat Leahy, Political Editor of The Irish Times. 

Seven parties were represented:

  • The Labour Party, by their Leader Deputy Ivana Bacik
  • Sinn Féin, by Deputy Darren O’Rourke
  • Green Party, by Senator Pippa Hackett
  • Fine Gael, by Deputy Hildegarde Naughton
  • People Before Profit-Solidarity, by Deputy Paul Murphy
  • Fianna Fáíl, by Deputy Thomas Byrne
  • Social Democrats, by Jennifer Whitmore

There was some reference to transport in the contributions, but not a huge amount. Both Ivana Bacik and Darren O’Rourke referred respectively to The Labour Party’s and Sinn Féin’s commitments to public transport, while Pippa Hackett referred to the current Programme for Government’s commitment of the spend ratio of 2:1 for public transport projects versus new roads. Deputy Naughton mentioned her own role in initiating the current Safe Routes to Schools projects. Much of the debate centred on retrofitting, carbon taxes, the Nature Restoration Law, data centres and LNG (Liquefied natural gas). 

A YouTube recording of the event can be viewed here:

Irish Cycling Campaign is currently examining all the parties’ manifestos with a view to producing an analysis over the coming days. We will be reporting on this on the Irish Cycling Campaign website here. Watch this space. 

In short though, we know that Ireland is still not on track to stay within our national carbon budgets or our EU commitments for 2030. All of the political parties will need to radically up their games if we are to rapidly reduce emission from transport.

Irish Posts

Irish Cycling Campaign’s Impact – Seeking your Views

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In preparation for the imminent relaunch of our shiny new national organisation, we would like to develop a public document that shares the story of the impact we as cycling advocates have had over time.  This won’t be a comprehensive listing of everything that has been achieved over the past 30+ years, but rather one that gives a flavour of the breadth of results that have been generated.

We need to hear your views.  What is different now in your own life, in your community, in Ireland, as a result of our work?  How have knowledge, discourses, attitudes, behaviours, relationships, quality of life, policies, practice, infrastructure or the environment changed?

It doesn’t matter if you are a long-term / hard core cycling activist or if you are a new member of the Irish Cycling Campaign.  It doesn’t matter if you have masses you would like to share with us or only have a small thing you want to point to.  What does matter is that you do it! 

Please complete this one-question survey by 6 December 2024 at the very latest and encourage others to do the same.  We can’t wait to hear from you.

Jo Sachs-Elridge & Sandra Velthuis on behalf of the Executive Committee & Board of Irish Cycling Campaign

Irish Posts

Winter Bike Lights Promotion 2024

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Be with us in Ensuring Ireland’s Bike Riders are Lit Up this Winter!  

Winter is upon us again and the dark evenings have drawn in. So it’s time to ensure that your bike, and other cyclists are lit up and legally compliant these winter nights! 

So come on out and help your local cycle campaigners distribute bike lights over the coming weeks.  It’s also a chance to meet fellow campaign members and encourage voters before the upcoming election!  This is also an opportunity to encourage people to support and join the Irish Cycling Campaign – https://cyclist.ie/join/!  

So why not join us on one of these nights in November!?  Check out locally when it is happening via your local Cycling Campaign website or social media pages or via updates below on this webpage!  

A BIG thanks for the bike lights’ supply from the NTA and the RSA, and for the support of Cyclone Couriers in distributing the lights countrywide!

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Details of Dublin Cycling Campaign‘s bike light distribution:
https://www.dublincycling.com/cycling/2024-winter-bike-lights-promotion

The Bike Circus, Clonakilty (Co Cork) – see https://clonakiltybicyclefestival.org/bikecircus/ – will have sets of winter bike lights available Fridays and Saturdays for the month of November.  Come by between 10-3pm to have your bike safety-checked and we will provide free lights to bikes that need them until we run out of stock!

Cork Cycling Campaign distributing lights!