Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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223. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the number of additional children cycling to school as a result of 2017 Cycle Right training; the criteria or metric his Department uses to evaluate the success or failure of Cycle Right; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21730/18]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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There is no data available on the number of children cycling to school directly as a result of Cycle Right Training.

The overall purpose of the Cycle Right training programme is to provide practical cycle safety and skills training to support more competent and confident cycling. Cycle Right is supported by my Department, the Road Safety Authority and administered through Cycling Ireland, with input from central and local agencies, including Sport Ireland Coaching, An Taisce Green Schools, An Gárda Siochána and local authorities.

In 2017, 15,245 pupils participated in Cycle Right training in 428 schools across 22 counties. This cycle training, which includes an on-road element, will result, over time, in an increase in the number of responsible cyclists on our roads. As Cycle Right is essentially a training programme, we will continue to monitor it based on the number of participants, which show that it has proven extremely popular since its inception.

My Department also funds the Green Schools Travel Flag programme which is overseen by the NTA and delivered by An Taisce. This programme monitors the numbers of children travelling to school by Active Travel means. Survey results from that programme indicate that levels of children cycling to participating schools increased from 3% to 4% over the two year period 2015-2017.