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

As it happens, I am meeting the NTA later this morning so I will raise this and will push for it to look at south Dublin. On another point, the Deputy is right about focusing on making it safe for our children to take the bus, walk or cycle to school. On days like today, when traffic tends to be bad and the weather is not great, 30% of the morning rush-hour traffic is children being driven to school. In many ways, that is very attractive for parents as they are chatting and they are in a safe space with their child. However, when everyone is doing the same thing and everyone is caught in gridlock, it is very debilitating.

We have had a real challenge where some of the safe routes to school programmes were advancing and the challenge has often come down to local opposition. It is difficult. We have created this car-dependent transport system over five decades and when we try to switch towards a safer system where kids might be able to get the bus, walk or cycle, it means changing the road network and that often brings opposition. Our biggest difficulty has actually been local opposition. In many instances, it is not that the council is not willing to do it but that there is no local support. In politics, we all know that local community support is needed. I will talk to the chief executive of South Dublin County Council to suggest it does similar to what Dublin City Council is doing with its accelerated, advanced measures. I agree that we have to bring the community with us on that. We have to be careful that it does not become a massive, long-winded, complicated and legal process where we end up doing nothing in the end. We have to engage with local communities and bring them in, but that is for the council.

My Department will be very supportive. Finance is not always the key issue. To a certain extent, at some of these pinch points where there are wide distributor roads and we might be taking a lane, putting in a bus gate or taking some other such measures, it is political will rather than financial support that is the key. It is time for us to do this. I think people will be surprised. When we introduce the measures, they are very popular. The fear of them in advance is often the biggest obstacle.

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