Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I concur that the rolling out of public transport and sustainable mobility is crucial. We have seen a great example of greater buy-in during the Covid period, when we have all been locked down. We have noted the importance of safe walking and cycling routes. This relates to the Safer Routes to School programme, which is under my remit. It is not just about safe routes to school but also about safe routes within rural towns and villages. It is important to get the message across that this is not just an urban or city initiative.

The Minister, Deputy Ryan, and I started straight off the bat, through the July stimulus, by asking local authorities to identify shovel-ready projects within their towns, villages and cities. We provided significant funding in this regard. The initiatives are now being rolled out and will be completed by the end of November. It was a challenge for the local authorities because some of them were probably taken by surprise by the significant funding. They had to grapple to try to get the works done. I would like to see a multi-annual programme allowing the local authorities to plan, over a number of years, for the rolling out of walking and cycling infrastructure across their areas.

When I meet local councillors, I ask them to identify the areas in their own local authority areas that need to be invested in. It is only through our local councillors as well as the executive within the local authorities across the country that we can identify and spearhead these initiatives. I know the goodwill when local communities get a safe footpath or cycleway. We need to look at the safe routes to schools outside our school settings and this is where the schools need to work directly with the local authorities. I appeal to local authorities to work on this because the funding will be there and there are health benefits, which the Deputy mentioned. The cycle buses going to schools, which we have in my constituency of Galway West, are so effective and an advertisement in themselves. We do not want a cycle bus but just that children can cycle safely on cycle routes to school eventually, so they do not need these organised cycle buses, though they are fantastic.

The rural transport programme now operates under LocalLink. The NTA has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally. There are 15 LocalLink offices around the country and they manage the delivery of that service on behalf of the NTA. They are critical in our rural towns and villages to ensure we have connectivity for employment and health services, and access to social and educational opportunities. I do not need to tell Deputies about the importance of that. There has been a substantial increase in funding for LocalLink services since 2016, going from €12.2 million in 2016 to over €21 million in 2019. In 2020, the total amount allocated for LocalLink services is €23.4 million.