A Dublin city councillor says we should be following New Zealand's lead by widening and fixing footpaths to give more space to people for social distancing.
Yesterday the local authority said it would look at a number of areas where road space could be reallocated to walkers and cyclists.
It comes as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she doesn't believe some path widening would be "an unreasonable thing to be doing".
Fine Gael Cllr James Geoghegan told Newstalk Breakfast he believes paths here should be widened on a short-term basis, but also fixed and improved in the long-term.
He explained: "Some of Dublin's foothpaths are extremely narrow, as well as being broken.
"What New Zealand has proposed is essentially giving a lot of money to local authorities to install planters or bollards to basically take back some of the road and make it available for pedestrians."
He said that while he's interested in a longer-term plan to fix footpaths in the city, they should be widened on a temporary basis as well.
He explained: "A lot more people are currently jogging around... a lot more people are going to be walking... public transport at least at the moment is almost empty, and for the medium to long-term is not going to be as busy as it previously was.
"We have to give people more options in their daily commute - and one of those options in my view would be a very major investment in fixing our footpaths right across the city."
The Fine Gael councillor also suggested the paths need to be improved to ensure elderly or vulnerable people who are currently cocooning can walk around safely when the current restrictions are lifted.
Cllr Geoghegan said he does believe the temporary use of bollards or planters would be realistic in certain areas.
He also noted that DCC Chief Executive Owen Keegan has now written back to councillors to say officials are currently working on securing bollards for some parts of the city where there are issues around space on footpaths.
