Mr. Hugh Creegan:

There has been an announcement that a large number of posts are now going to be assigned to active travel in the various local authorities across the country. The key focus is the city regions, for the obvious reason that there is more network to develop but also covering every single other county. For some of the rural counties the intention is that the regional design office is operated by Transport Infrastructure Ireland and that its resources are augmented so it can also provide the service to deliver these cycling and active travel projects. The Senator asked how much seniority they will have and will they be fully empowered to deliver the national cycle manual. There seniority level will be a case-by-case thing but overall there will be a proper team in place to deliver the projects that are needed in every county across the country. On getting the standards we need, we are updating our national cycle manual, we will be providing training to all the local authorities starting later on this year and all of those units that are being set up will be tasked with fully applying the quality standard set out in the cycle manual with the projects they deliver.