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

Some €366 million was announced in the 2021 budget for walking and cycling infrastructure and with 365 days in a year, that is more than €1 million a day. I will return to the point I made to Deputy Matthews about the call on local authorities. The funding will be there. It is about identifying projects. As I said, the July stimulus package may have caught some local authorities slightly on the hop, which is why we asked for projects that were ready to go and did not need planning or compulsory purchase orders. It was for footpaths that needed upgrading, segregated cycleways and other projects that could be done easily. We want to continue that.

The Deputy mentioned schools. We need to try to work with schools to target people who do not need to drive 1 km or a couple of hundred metres to drop off children outside the school. That is not going to change without consultation between school management and local authorities. We need to work and provide the infrastructure to have safe zones around schools that will enable parents to feel safe in dropping off their children.