There has been an increase in the number of cyclists hospitalised as a result of cycling accidents on Irish roads.
Nearly 1,450 cyclists were hospitalised after road crashes or transport accidents last year.
They include almost 1,100 men and nearly 400 women.
These new figures have been released by the Health Service Executive (HSE) under the Freedom of Information Act.
In 2017, 1,414 people had inpatient admissions in hospital due to a cycling accident or collision.
The following year, the figure was 1,408 - and in 2019 it rose to 1,437.
Last year, the largest amount of hospitalisations involved the Ireland East Hospital Group at 289 - seven more than the South/Southwest Group.
The HSE figures include only inpatient and day-case admissions, so do not include people treated solely in Emergency Departments.
'It is really grueling'
Louise Williams is vice-chairperson of the Dublin Cycling Campaign.
She told Newstalk Breakfast: "It's grueling when I look at the breakdown and the figures that you got, and fair play to you guys.
"The number of kids who were hospitalised - 114 boys, 37 girls - it is grim, it makes for grim reading."
"In some ways when I look at the overall number of people who are going out cycling, and that is on the rise and we celebrate that as Dublin Cycling Campaign, in some ways it hasn't risen very significantly - and in some ways I'm surprised it hasn't risen more significantly."
"We did a brief survey amongst our members this week - we haven't released it to anybody else - but just to give you an insight from our membership: we asked 'Have you experienced a near-miss or collision while cycling in Dublin in the last six months?'.
"It was really grueling: 67.8% of our members had experienced a near-miss, that's a lot".
"And in terms of minor collisions and serious collisions, 13% a minor collision and 3.5% a serious collision".
Asked what needs to be done to keep those numbers down, she said: "Observe the speed limit and build more cycle tracks like we have out in Dún Laoghaire".
FOI reporting by: Eoghan Murphy
