{"id":381561,"date":"2026-01-21T04:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/381561\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T04:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:08:13","slug":"judge-who-called-cyclists-nightmares-is-ill-informed-darragh-obrien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/381561\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge who called cyclists ‘nightmares’ is ‘ill-informed’ – Darragh O’Brien"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darragh O\u2019Brien has described a judge who said Dublin cyclists were a \u201cnightmare\u201d as \u201cill informed\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week in a case involving a cyclist in the Circuit Civil Court, Judge James O\u2019Donohoe complained that, \u201cYou never know with cyclists what they are going to do\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that they have become a \u201cnightmare in Dublin\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Newstalk Breakfast<\/a>, Transport Minister Darragh O\u2019Brien said he did not share the judge\u2019s dim view of the capital\u2019s cyclists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI think [I have to be] careful [as a] Cabinet Minister talking about the judiciary, but I think the comments themselves were ill judged and ill informed,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that all of us have a job, all road users, to respect each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as I said there were 14 cyclists who lost their lives last year<\/a>; there were many motorists lost their lives as well and, indeed, pedestrians.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Flashing Cyclists wait to cross O’Connell Street in Dublin. Picture by: David Lyons \/ Alamy Stock Photo.<\/p>\n

Today, the Government announced \u20ac360 million in capital funding for active travel measures and greenaway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It will all contribute, Minister O\u2019Brien argued, to a much improved experience for cyclists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year alone, we’ll be adding another two hundred [kilometers of cycle lanes] and would also support things like training for school kids in particular,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the cycle training programme, which last year funded about 43,000 primary school kids training them how to cycle appropriately and learning the rules of the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, this programme, I think, is really significant in the sense that it gives other options for people and the infrastructure so they can walk and cycle.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" A cyclist on Nassau Street in Dublin. Picture by: Sam Boal\/Rollingnews.ie.<\/p>\n

When asked if he thought cyclists in Ireland would ever feel truly safe, Minister O\u2019Brien said he did think so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will and we can,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Irish Cycling Campaign, who I have met on a number of occasions, these are people who are rightly advocating for a better cycling facility, safety for cyclists – that’s what this programme supports,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re looking at dedicated cycle and walkways in urban and in rural areas as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the active travel programmes are really the ones that are on routes that people will be going to work or school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then we’ve the Greenways programme, which in many respects is more leisure based, but is really significant insofar as tourism offerings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Main image: A split of Darragh O’Brien and a cyclist. Picture by: Alamy.com and Rolling News.ie.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darragh O\u2019Brien has described a judge who said Dublin cyclists were a \u201cnightmare\u201d as \u201cill informed\u201d.\u00a0 Last week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-381561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}