Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 and 15 together.

In March 2021, the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Naughton, and I launched the safe routes to school, SRTS, programme, which aims to support walking, scooting and cycling to primary and post-primary schools and to create safer walking and cycling routes within communities, through the provision of infrastructure interventions.

This should help alleviate congestion at school gates and increase the number of students who walk or cycle to school. Some 931 applications were received from schools across every county in Ireland. On 21 June 2022, 170 schools were notified that they had been selected for inclusion in the first round of the programme. Subsequently, two schools have deferred their applications and one school has withdrawn, leaving 167 schools in the first round. It should be noted that all schools that applied to the original call for applications were accepted into the programme and, if not selected in the first round, will be selected for forthcoming rounds. Some €15 million has been allocated for projects in this round.

In terms of progress to date, 16 schools have had front-of-school measures completed under the programme,13 schools are in the detailed design phase and three are under construction. Some 128 projects are under development or design and seven are involved in statutory processes or are out for public consultation. Separately, 243 schools have also had cycle parking installed under another branch of the safe routes to school, SRTS, programme. Since its launch, approximately €3 million has been spent to date on projects, cycle parking and programme staffing costs.

While all projects so far are great improvements for the schools involved, some exemplars include: An Mhodhscoil in Limerick, which will launch its school street this Friday; Waterford's first school street at Glór na Mara in Tramore; and Bunscoil Rinn an Chabhlaigh in Cobh, whose front-of-school works will be completed at the end of this month and have already resulted in traffic calming.

All schools were eligible to apply to the programme and information was circulated from the Departments of Education and Transport to schools nationwide. As I stated, almost one quarter of schools in Ireland applied and those that have not been included in the first round of funding will not be required to reapply as they will come into the programme on a rolling basis. Due to the overwhelming response, there are no plans for an additional call for schools to join the programme at this time.

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