Two weeks ago, a car crashed through a wall outside St. Paul's National School in Limerick. Thankfully, this happened a few minutes before the school finished for the day and no children were injured. We are seeing motorist behaviour outside schools throughout the country that is putting children at risk. Parents do not believe it is safe to let their children walk or cycle to school and as such it is compounding problem and a vicious cycle. We can break the vicious cycle through the safe routes to school programme. The challenge is the implementation, delivery and roll-out of this programme as quickly as possible. If it is rolled out quickly, we will create better towns, cities and villages. It is imperative that we get children walking and cycling to school. I ask the Tánaiste to set out what can be done to expedite the safe routes to school programme.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The safe routes to school programme is a programme I am rolling out across the country. We are investing €1 million per day in walking and cycling infrastructure throughout the country. This is enabling the schools to work directly with the local authorities and An Taisce on projects and measures specific to schools in specific areas. This is not only being rolled out to specific or urban areas, but also to our towns and villages. Earlier this week, on Monday, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and I announced a significant funding of €289 million for active travel, which will feed into the safe routes to school programme as well.