Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If the Deputy had said Kerry and Cork county councils were not working together I might have understood but there is no excuse for two Cork local authorities not working together. The Deputy should tell them to work together and we will work with them if they work together. These boundaries would do your head in. These schemes are community-led. During the Covid pandemic, as we all know, we had to stay within 5 km and we suddenly discovered walkways that needed a bit of work but which we never knew existed. We were able to provide funding to upgrade those trails. Deputy Cannon spoke about adventure tourism. You just have to go to the Slieve Bloom Mountains to see the benefits of the mountain bike trail. That is adventure tourism at its best. There are loads of other facilitates around the country that have been funded through the outdoor recreation scheme. It is a great scheme that puts money into local areas through visitors into the economy and it is good for mental health as well. It is good to keep fit. There are many benefits to it. I will continue to support this scheme. The outdoor recreation scheme is one of the best schemes we have. We also are examining the improvement of surfaces and making them more accessible for wheelchairs and even parents with buggies. Some of the walkways were not particularly good and we will examine how we can make them more easily accessible. It is a great scheme and we will continue to support it.

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