The CEO of a company which hopes to set up a new bike-sharing scheme in Dublin has said the company will be continuing with the scheme.
Bleeperbike plans to roll out the first stationless bike-sharing scheme in Ireland.
The service is different to traditional station-based services, such as Dublin Bikes, as instead of going to a station to get a bike, users use an app to find the nearest bicycle, which all carry GPS beacons to show their location.
When finished using the bike the user simply locks it and the next user finds it using the GPS locator.
Dublin City Council says it will start removing Bleeperbike bicycles from the streets tomorrow and put them in storage to be retrieved at the company's expense.
The council says it has the power to do this under Section 71 of the 1993 Roads and Traffic Act, which bans unlicensed advertising.
However, this evening Hugh Cooney told RTÉ News that he does not accept that the council has the power to remove the bicycles or stop him operating the scheme.
He said a solicitor's letter has been sent to the council asking it to desist from removing his bikes from the streets.
Mr Cooney says he will consider further legal action if the council goes ahead with its plan.
He added that if the council removes the 100 bicycles he already put on the streets, he will replace them.
He has brought in 1,000 bicycles but says he will not put all of them on the streets at the same time.
He will deploy as many as can be monitored by his company's Zone Supervisors, who are employed to make sure all of the bicycles are parked safely and legally
Earlier, Mr Cooney had told RTÉ that he would disable the bikes by shutting down the app but leave them on the street.
The Council said that this would not be acceptable.
