John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the start of the month, €11 million in active travel funding was allocated to Waterford, which might seem like a significant sum of money. Included in that was €4 million for greenway access into the city centre, which is nearing completion, thankfully. This is an excellent project which will benefit local communities as well as visitors to Waterford. Unfortunately, however, Waterford City and County Council requested an allocation of €18.5 million for active travel this year and as a result of the funding shortfall, projects such as those in Kilmeaden, Dunhill, Tallow, Ballinroad, Lemybrien, Boatstrand and Aglish have been shelved.I know the Department will say that Waterford City and County Council, along with all local authorities, has not drawn down its full allocation of active travel money in recent years. In its defence, it takes time to go through the design, the public consultation, the Part 8 process and the tender process for same. As a result, it has re-profiled some of that allocation into areas with significantly more population. In one sense this is understandable but it has created an expectation in those smaller rural communities, which bought into these projects and had the design and Part 8 prepared, that these projects would be delivered. As a result of the shortfall now, these are not available to them. I request that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, or the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, or both, come before the House to explain the rationale behind the re-profiling of those National Transport Authority, NTA, allocations and to see whether we can get additional allocations in the back end of this year to allow for some of those smaller projects, which have huge community dividend, to take place in those areas.