Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome yesterday's announcement of funding for cycleways and walkways across the country. Tipperary has received almost €650,000 to go towards cycleways and improving routes in the county. This is a critical piece of infrastructure. It is very good for well-being and good for people to be out and active.

Routes along Tipperary have been quite successful. The Suir blueway from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel is being extended from Clonmel to Marlfield and Cahir. With this funding, it will continue up to the Rock of Cashel. One of the most important elements of this funding is that it is going to connect the Suir blueway to the greenway in Waterford. We will have a cycleway from the Rock of Cashel down to Cahir, over to Clonmel, to Carrick-on-Suir, over to Waterford and down to Dungarvan, and it is extended on from Dungarvan to Youghal to Cork. It is a fantastic route. It gives people living in the area the opportunity to walk or cycle a couple of kilometres and increases tourism for the area as well, including for small towns and villages outside the obvious places such as Dungarvan, Waterford and Cashel. Towns like Kilsheelan, Portlaw and Kilmacthomas are now benefiting significantly from this type of investment. It is not massive money but its knock-on impact on regions across the country is huge. I welcome that funding. If we get a chance to have the Minister for Transport in at some point, I will talk about road projects but, in fairness to the previous Minister, there was an awful lot of work done on this sort of issue over the past five years and we are now starting to see the benefits right across the country.