Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. When one is parked outside the school gate or one is walking to school, it really focuses the mind on the safety of children going to school. I am dealing with this matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless, who has given me a comprehensive answer. As we all know, the Government is committed to achieving a modal shift in transport and increasing the number of active travel journeys over the coming years. This is evidenced in both the commitments made under various policy documents, including the programme for Government, the climate action plan and the Department of Transport’s national sustainable mobility plan, as well as the significant increase in funding for walking and cycling measures over the past four years. It is important that we move quickly to reduce our carbon emissions and in doing so, we must promote a modal shift away from private car use. This will not be achieved without the provision of alternative transport modes such as active travel.

The programme for Government sets out an ambitious and wide-ranging set of commitments in relation to walking and cycling and has committed that €360 million in cross-government funding will be spent on walking and cycling per annum over the lifetime of the Government, equivalent to 20% of the 2020 transport capital budget. This investment will help support the planned delivery of almost 1,000 kilometres of improved walking and cycling infrastructure by 2025 as well as additional investment in greenways.

The active travel infrastructure programme also funds the safe routes to school programme which specifically targets schools around the country and provides them with safe, connected walking and cycling infrastructure projects at various scales. The programme is funded by the Department of Transport through the National Transport Authority and An Taisce's Green-Schools is co-ordinating the programme. Invitations to express interest were sent to all primary and secondary schools in the country. I acknowledge that it was launched in March of 2021, when we were in the middle of Covid. Schools were not open at the time and it probably took until the end of 2022 and into 2023 before schools started applying at scale. A total of 932 schools applied to the scheme, equating to around a quarter of all schools in the country.Some 170 schools were selected for round 1 of the programme in the summer of 2021. Subsequently, two schools deferred their applications and one withdrew, leaving 167 schools in round 1. Round 2 of the programme, consisting of 108 schools, was announced on 12 December 2022.

Despite being launched in 2021, just 77 of the total 930 remaining safe routes to school programme schools have had projects completed. This is due to various factors, including the initial time spent setting up the programme and developing the various resources for stakeholders involved, as well as the time it has taken to progress projects through the earlier planning stages, which are now nearing the construction and delivery stages. The rate of delivery is now increasing, though, as local authorities have become more skilled at delivering safe routes to school projects. However, scheme acceptance and funding are still challenging factors.

A note was provided on active travel investment grants in 2024. The allocation for Tipperary County Council amounted to €4 million. While the note does not provide a breakdown between north and south Tipperary, this is significant funding. I have seen some of these schemes in my constituency. Although it takes a while to put them in place, when they are in operation they work really well. The whole focus, as I know, is to keep children safe as they go to school and to make sure they can cycle or walk if they so desire.