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

I had thought the question referred to an uneven allocation from year to year and I did not realise it was specifically about the northside versus the southside of Cork. I will come to the details of that in my supplementary reply and I will first give the original written response.

I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to active travel, which is administered through the National Transport Authority. In partnership with local authorities, the NTA has responsibility for the selection and development of specific projects in each local authority area. Walking and cycling projects are funded across the Cork City Council area through allocations from the NTA's active travel infrastructure programme. As with all local authorities, funding allocation is based on demand, user need and project phase. Typically, projects at an early stage in development, such as concept development, will have a lower allocation need than projects which are at or approaching construction phase.

The active travel programme has seen a significant increase in investment in recent years, in line with the programme for Government commitment to spend €360 million per annum on walking and cycling over its lifetime. The years 2022 and 2023 saw full allocation spend by local authorities, with €310 million and €340 million invested in active travel, respectively. This was only made possible through the increase in the capacity of local authorities through the provision of funding for dedicated active travel staffing by my Department.

A consequence of the success of the programme is that there is a huge pipeline of projects to be funded, including a significant number reaching the aforementioned high-cost construction stage. The programme is moving into a project prioritisation stage, whereby funding will be allocated to projects which should see the greatest impact in terms of modal shift away from private car use. The process of identifying such projects is undertaken by the NTA in collaboration with the relevant local authority.

Cork City Council has received funding allocation of over €140 million since 2021, including just over €29 million this year. I look forward to the completion of more projects around the city, following on from recently completed projects such as, on the northside, MacCurtain Street, as well as the Vernon Mount Bridge and the Grange to Tramore Valley Park active travel scheme.

I might come back to the Deputy on the specific north-south issue.

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