Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the funding announced yesterday for active travel. The fund is €184 million, which is nearly €200 million that has been allocated this year to local authorities. Some €11 million has been allocated to Galway and Roscommon for walking and cycling routes. Some might say that is grand, but in many rural towns there are no footpaths. It is dangerous to go out walking in the evenings or any time of the day on a busy country road. It is important that we are seeing this type of development and it is brilliant that it is having such an impact in rural areas as well. As I mentioned, there are projects for walking schemes, footpaths and the cycle way will come in to the west as well. I hope that will make a huge impact.

An amount of €4 million was also allocated for the summer works scheme for many schools in rural areas. Such funding is used to provide improvements to windows and ventilation for children in schools and for roof works and external areas, in other words, playgrounds. Schools are trying to encourage more use of outdoor areas.Safe routes to schools was another thing being funded as part of active travel. Having safe drop-off and pick-up areas where cars are able to stop outside of schools is a big issue in rural areas.