Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am aware the Department is doing all it can within the public health guidelines and that the Minister of State and Minister are both aware there are those who do need driving tests and driver licences. I am sure they are doing everything possible to try to reduce the delay and accommodate the people affected.

On the funding the Minister of State announced recently, I very much welcome the funding for Safe Routes to School and cycling infrastructure for schools. It is important. Much of the congestion in our towns in the mornings is associated with the school run. It is generally created because there are no safe cycling and walking routes to school. Parents, including me, are very apprehensive about letting a child out on a bicycle to cycle the last kilometre or 1,500 m to the school gate because the route is so congested with traffic. The funding is critical and much needed.

Let me also refer to the funding announced this week for infrastructure in rural parts. We cannot have a divide whereby we are focusing on urban infrastructure and not rural infrastructure. We will have to play our part in this. Rural towns and villages also suffer from congestion in the morning. Safety issues arise when so many cars try to crowd into spaces. When I get an opportunity to walk my children to school in the morning, I see children and parents on scooters and bicycles. They are all on the footpath. All the space is given over to cars parked along the roadside. We need to flip the focus so it is on the more vulnerable people, not the people sitting in the metal boxes. The funding is really important. I hope it will be rolled out over the next couple of years. I hope there is a repeat roll-out of the funding because where people see examples of it working, they will ask why they cannot have it for their town. Surety of funding and of its being rolled out affords an opportunity to show the arrangement works. That is very welcome. I thank the Minister of State for the funding.

Yesterday, the Minister for Rural and Community Development launched a rural strategy. Part of it involves a focus on and an increase for the Local Link rural buses. Rural buses will be critical to rural towns and villages. Those who live in them should have an opportunity to leave the car behind and to have a reliable, frequent bus service. At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Climate Action last week, one of the witnesses, a UK consultant, stated the UK considered both the possibility of rural towns with a population under a certain size having an hourly bus service and the cost. It was really costly but it is the type of ambition we need to have. There cannot just be a bus service every three or four hours. A service has to be practical so people can use it to go to and come home from work and to access recreation and education. We really need to have a high ambition for rural bus services. What is the Minister of State's view on this? What is her position on rural bus links and their importance in reducing carbon emissions, which is our primary objective, but also in providing the connectivity needed in rural areas so people can live in them?