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

That is a very good question on the underspend for cycling and walking infrastructure. We made a commitment in the programme for Government to allocate €360 million every year for walking and cycling infrastructure. The Deputy is correct in his question as to whether the delay is due to Covid-19, which it partly is, or resources, which it also is. It is important to say that this is the first full year of the roll-out of walking and cycling infrastructure. I expect that this will not be an issue in 2022 because of what the Deputy has mentioned on the allocation of resources to local authorities. They will be better equipped in 2022 to be able to roll out this infrastructure. I am very eager, having allocated much funding across the country to many local authorities where some are faster than others in rolling this out, to keep the impetus there and to ramp up that capacity. I will be watching this very closely, as we all will, in 2022 in our towns and villages, as walking or cycling infrastructure is not just an urban issue. We need to be very clear on that. This is for county councils across the country, and not just city councils, to ensure that they are identifying towns and villages - be it through the Safe Routes to School programme or otherwise - to ensure that they have footpaths, cycleways and safe routes. It will be ramped up and I hope that we will not have that significant underspend in 2022.