Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am anxious to get to the bottom of what happened there because it put the public representatives in a difficult situation - now you see it, now you don't. If we tell people the money is there and it will be delivered, we should be able to do it. I want to figure out who insisted on a consultant design being required for this and it being outsourced. It could have been done in-house very quickly. I acknowledge that many footpaths and cycleways have been put in and estates have been connected up. They should have been connected up when the development was done. Some of the estates were built too far out. They should never have been put where they are. They should have been put in closer and not leapfrogged out over green fields. They should be closer to the centre. We talk about ten-minutes cities; we need ten-minute villages and towns as well. Unfortunately, there are some bad examples around the country from the Celtic tiger era where they were built with five, six or seven green fields leapfrogged and put out in the middle of the countryside and then had to be connected up with sewers, footpaths and lights.

As was alluded to earlier, the other problem with active travel is that money is allocated from TII, the Department and local authorities. This can result in having two different sets of engineers in the council who may not know what the other is doing. One is operating under active travel funding and the other is under the area. The area engineer should know everything. I make the point to Mr. Doocey that the Department needs to get this joined up at local authority level. If work is being carried out in an area, the area engineer needs to be centrally involved in it. They cannot be pushed to one side. The area engineers need to know what is planned to go in to ensure there is no duplication of works and they need to know what funding is available.

Very importantly, there is another group of people who happen to be the legal local authority, namely, councillors. A new batch of them will be elected in five weeks' time. They need to be centrally involved. They are marginalised completely. New footpaths went in around where my office is in Portlaoise, down by Tower Hill. The input from councillors was zero. That is not acceptable. The Department of local government will join up somewhat, but the Department of Transport needs to start joining up with local councillors. These people generally live locally and see what is going on. They will see some of the issues and should be working together with the area engineer. That needs to be put back together again. That connection has been taken apart at local authority level.

Funding coming down needs to have the fingerprints of local councillors and the local area engineer across it. It has become completely disjointed because the Department sends money down through the NTA. TII, which is also under the Department of Transport, sends down money and the county manager decides where it goes. Hey presto, the work has started and they are on site before the local councillors even know it. The local councillors have no input and they get an earbashing from the local residents, commuters and everybody else because some obvious things have been overlooked. Tower Hill, for example, is not wheelchair accessible. A local councillor whom I am very familiar with brought people in a wheelchair to see if they could use it and they could not use it. Now some of that work has to be undone. Had the councillors being involved on the first day, that would not need to be done. I am giving that as a practical example.

Public money is being sent down and these are the people who are the legal local authority. They are publicly elected. There will be a new batch elected in five weeks' time. They need to be put back into this process. Money spent locally needs to have their fingerprints over it and their input, along with the input of the engineers, who do excellent work. I ask Mr. Doocey to give a commitment that that will be followed up in order that they will join up better. I ask him to respond to me, please.