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

It is important to bear in mind the challenges this year in regard to Covid. The level 5 restrictions had an impact on the roll-out of greenways because those projects were not seen as essential projects during the level 5 restrictions, which meant any non-essential construction could not occur during those months. That has impacted on the roll-out of a number of those projects.

All local authorities spent much of this year recruiting new staff after that formal authorisation was given to them in March to recruit NTA-funded staff. The NTA will be driving that. Obviously, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and I have allocated a lot of funding for active travel throughout the country. It is imperative that agencies working with local authorities and the local authorities, which will be over the roll-out of many of these projects, prioritise these projects over the next 12 months. Now that the allocation of resources is there, the excuses are not there for any kind of slowdown or delays for many of these projects to be rolled out.

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