Dr. Damien Ó Tuama:

The Deputy asked about the figure, which is a good question. I believe 20% of the transport capital budget allocated for walking and cycling, which corresponds to €360 million per annum for the lifetime of the Government, is a very good start. We are playing catch-up compared with our northern European colleagues who have been reallocating space and providing high-quality infrastructure since the mid-1970s, since the oil crisis back then and there was a shift in policy. If we continue to do that, it is important. It is not the only bottleneck. There are bottlenecks around resources in local authorities and in having a sufficient number of engineers, planners and community liaison people, which is important also. Training is needed for all of the professionals working in transport planning and traffic engineering so they are up to speed on all of the latest designs for signalling, junction design, surfacing and so on. Perhaps that is where the bottleneck is rather than an absence of funding at the moment. The allocations at the moment are good but they need to continue for several decades and not just for several years.