This morning.
Outside the offices of Dublin City Council on Wood Quay, Dublin 8.
Cyclists held a ‘die-in’ demonstration following the death of Neeraj Jain (top) who was cycling to work last Friday morning when his bike collided with a cement mixer at the back of the building site of the National Children’s Hospital.
Mr Jain, from Faridabad, India, moved to Ireland in 2018 to pursue a Masters degree in Engineering in UCD and was working with Deloitte in Dublin.
UPDATE:
Table from I Bike Dublin
I Bike Dublin has announced that it will hold a second ‘die-in’ demonstration outside Leinster House at 1pm tomorrow.
They write:
During the tenure of our last three Transport Ministers – Leo Varadkar, Paschal Donohoe and Shane Ross – 85 people have been killed while cycling on Ireland’s roads.
Mr Neeraj Jain, who was killed in Kilmainham last Friday, is the 39th person to die while cycling since the formation of the current government.
Fine Gael are the only party in Dáil Éireann who objected to a motion calling on the level of investment in cycling and walking to reach 20% of all capital spend on land transport.
Despite the Citizens’ Assembly and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change also recommending this level of investment, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and his colleagues have rejected these recommendations and continued to spin minuscule investments as something to be celebrated while, at the same time, announcing billions of euro in funding for new roads.
Leo Varadkar’s government, with their conservative 20th century car-first approach, are balancing the transport budget with the lives of people who will die cycling.
Minister Ross, who takes years to get a line of text brought into law has long lost the respect of people who cycle.
His penchant for photo ops is matched only by his penchant for avoiding eye contact with those to whom he has made past promises.
The minister has also been unwavering in his support of the Road Safety Authority, who have embarked on a multi-year campaign of victim-blaming, embodied by their fetishisation of high visibility vests.
We call on the government to:
– Immediately allocate 20% of the Land Transport Budget towards active travel (walking and cycling) and prioritise the implementation of the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan.
– Increase funding of An Garda Síochána coupled with zero-tolerance enforcement of illegal use of cycle lanes, bus lanes and bus corridors.
– Introduce mandatory regulations for HGVs in urban areas to ensure maximum visibility from the driver position.
– Immediately introduce a €500 e-bike grant for all Irish residents regardless of income.
Yesterday: ‘This Death Marks A Turning Point’
Rollingnews