Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a question of getting the balance right. I agree with the Minister that, in some cases, it will not be popular but there are many local roads with limits of 80 km/h where you would be taking your life in your hands if you tried to drive that quickly. It is ridiculous that they have those limits. A common-sense approach needs to be taken to limits, but the main thing this comes down to is enforcement. Unfortunately, most of the enforcement we are seeing is on motorways and larger roads when it is actually needed on the other roads.

I wish to ask about active travel funding, particularly as regards the safe routes to school programme.

In many places, especially rural parishes and villages, school buses bring children to school and there is a certain distance that a child has to live away from the school to qualify. A child living just inside that limit would not be able to walk to school, though, because there are no safe routes to do so. I acknowledge that funding is being put in place to address this issue, but how much additional emphasis will be placed on it? There needs to be additional funding to ensure that we can create safe routes to school for the many children who require them. This is probably one of the main issues. In many cases, people who cannot get school transport for their children end up having to drive them because there is no other safe way to bring their children to school.