Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Costello is unable to attend, I will use his time to raise matters I discussed with him a short while ago. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister, whom I have not had the chance to address in the House yet. I wish her well in her new role as Minister for Education and Skills.

When schools closed and the country went into lockdown, many schools kept working in order to feed pupils who relied on the school for meals. Credit should go to these schools and teachers for keeping a vital service going. As we now reopen schools, there is great uncertainty about breakfast clubs in schools; some are opening again but others remain closed. There is a degree of confusion and uncertainty that should be avoided at this difficult time. Will the Minister or her Department give us a reassurance that breakfast clubs will be able to reopen and the Department will support schools in keeping open this vital service and will issue clear guidelines to remove any doubt? Will the Minister or her Department share any information on the matter with me or Deputy Costello, as this would be very helpful?

I raise a matter related to school transport in my constituency of Limerick city. We have a unique issue in Limerick because of the common application system for secondary schools, which means the school transport system is heavily relied on by many families whose children are not placed in a school near them. I have been contacted by such families across Limerick city and its environs and I understand at this stage there are at least 38 concessionary students who have not received a place for this year. I wrote to the Minister some weeks ago and I ask her to request her Department to give this matter its attention.

The principal matter I wish to address is active travel to school. As kids, many of us enjoyed the freedom of cycling to school but, unfortunately, in recent decades there has been a total collapse in the number of children who cycle. Roads have become more dangerous, and quite understandably as a result, parents tend to drive their children to school now more than ever. Of course, the more children are driven to school, the more cars are on the road and the more dangerous it is for those people who would like to cycle. It is a self-perpetuating and vicious cycle.

The 25 years from 1986 to 2011 saw an 87% decrease in the number of people cycling to secondary school, which is an incredible indictment of our society. Vast sums of money have been committed to road building in those decades and while much of this has encouraged driving, it discourages cycling and walking by making such activities unsafe and inconvenient.

There is a wide acceptance both in this House and outside it that the temporary phenomenon of driving children to school over short distances in recent decades has been a mistake. It has been a mistake because an environment that encourages children to be driven to school causes many children to develop health issues due to a lack of exercise, including what we now believe is an increased risk of contracting the coronavirus due to obesity. It has been a mistake because increased air pollution causes many premature deaths. It has been a mistake because we are denying our children the joy and independence of safely travelling to school under their own steam. This mistake has led to a greater expense for parents, more stressful lives and poorer health for children, as well as many more adverse outcomes.

Fortunately, this mistake is temporary and can be reversed. I pay tribute to the Limerick cycle bus in my home city of Limerick. This morning, like every school morning, a group of committed parents set off from the north side of the city, following their children as they cycled to school in a group. The sight of these children cycling along while talking and laughing as they start school each day is an inspiration. Rain does not stop them and neither does traffic. These committed parents in Limerick, as well as other cycle buses around the country, have demonstrated that a better way is possible.

Happily, the necessary changes do not require a large amount of funding. Starting in cities and quickly expanding to regional towns and villages, in the majority of cases we have the road space; we must allocate it better in order to facilitate those who live in a neighbourhood instead of those who are simply passing through. We saw first in the Dublin City Council area during the Covid-19 lockdown, and subsequently in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, how safe cycling and walking facilities can be implemented quickly and cheaply.

Coming back to Limerick, our Covid-19 mobility measures were more limited than those in the capital city but I am happy to report one small measure has been kept temporarily. A single segregated lane on a bridge over the River Shannon is dedicated to cyclists, and every morning this lane is used by the Limerick cycling bus to cross the city. Parents must still physically protect their children as they cycle in traffic but for that short period crossing the River Shannon, the parents and children enjoy a brief period of safety and experience of what our roads and streets could be like if they prioritised people of all ages. Just this morning, a constituent contacted me from the north side of the city to say this small piece of infrastructure had enabled his son to cycle to primary school. In Limerick and across the country, we must now continue bringing this infrastructure to every school gate. In the coming years, we must build an entire coherent network of safe walking and cycling infrastructure, making hard and sometimes unpopular choices in order to do this.

Our education system is not fit for purpose if we cannot provide our children with a safe way of getting to and from school and college. There is no point spending much time combatting obesity within the school gates if the environment outside is hostile to active travel. All of us have made mistakes in how we have allocated space on our roads and streets in an unhealthy way. We must acknowledge these mistakes and quickly remedy them in order to provide a healthy future for our education system.

See this speech in context