Dr. Brian Caulfield:

I thank Deputy O'Rourke for a really interesting question. There are a couple of things we can do to improve the situation in respect of travel to school. In one way, it is where habits start to be made. For students who use less active modes of travel and do not walk or cycle, that may progress throughout their life. There is a significant amount of research that looks at the generational consequences of that. As for the funding that has been earmarked for the active travel side, while it is very important to deliver infrastructure on that, it also needs to deliver social change and these kind of ground-up approaches. We have seen during lockdown, after lockdown and even before lockdown with the Green-Schools initiative that there are several really good concrete examples from across the country that could be scaled up, such as cycle buses and low-emission zones or no-idling zones around schools. That is something that could reduce emissions, especially given that these short trips involve cold starts, which mean the engine is burning far more carbon.