Enough is enough! Everyday bicycle users are taking to the streets en masse to demand proper funding for cycling.

The protest will take place on Monday 3rd October, meeting at 5.30pm at the Dublin Bikes stand on Merrion Square West (just across the road from the Natural History Museum (‘The Dead Zoo’ as it is sometimes called) and the back of Dáil Éireann).

The protest is organised by Dublin Cycling Campaign in collaboration with Cyclist.ie - the Irish Cycling Advocacy Network which is the member for Ireland of the European Cyclists’ Federation. Also supporting the protest are An Taisce - the National Trust for Ireland and Love 30, an umbrella body of organisations and individuals who believe that lower speed limits can make our towns and cities safer and more pleasant places to live, work and play.

The background to the protest is that cycling continues to get the crumbs at the table when it comes to overall national transport spend. Of the €10B (billion) allocated for transport investment in the Capital Investment Plan for 2016-2021, active travel (encompassing walking, cycling and other such measures) is allocated just €100M (million) - i.e. approx €17M per annum for each of the six years. That means that cycling is to receive approx 0.5% (half of one percent!) of the transport pie. If that wasn’t bad enough, we heard in the last few weeks of further cutbacks in future funding for cycling projects for Dublin City Council by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport - as reported on Irishcycle.com. This all comes at a time when we have had nine cyclist fatalities in Ireland this year already, the most recent of which was the tragic death of Donna Fox at the junction between Seville Place and Guild Street in the north inner city. We raised these points (and more) in our demands ahead of General Election 2016 - worth a look to get a sense of the wider changes we are seeking.

Dublin Cycling Campaign is calling on everyone who uses a bike in Dublin - for transportation or for leisure - to join our protest on Monday 3rd October so as to send a loud-and-clear message to the Minister that he needs to recognise that the status quo is not good enough - cycling needs proper funding to make it safer and to enable Dublin to reach its potential as a world class cycling city. We are calling on the Minister to Allocate Cycling a Better Share.

Watch this space over the coming days. We will have more information on the protest. And if you can spare time over the coming week to help us distribute flyers and get the word out, do please contact us. All help gratefully received.

If you can’t get hold of the flyers, you can still spread the message with our printable cut out slips, A5 flyer and A4 flyer.

We have created a Facebook Event for the protest, please share it to encourage your friends to come along too.

Here are the route details and some guidelines for participants on Monday’s protest. Please take a few moments to read.

Finally, Dublin Cycling Campaign wishes to pay a special thanks to graphic designer supremo, Andrea Figueira, for her lovely artwork delivered to us promptly and professionally. A sincere thanks Andrea!!