This week is national bike week. As conveners of the all-party Oireachtas cycling group, Deputy Ciarán Ahern and I were delighted to host a cross-party cycle around Leinster House today, and thanks to all the colleagues who took part. We need to see the Government step up and provide proper investment for cycling infrastructure. I ask that colleagues commit not to buy into an anti-cycling narrative. There has been a lot of talk recently about the cost of bike sheds, but we need to put that in perspective. The cost of building a single basement car parking space, for example, is between €50,000 and €70,000, and €1.2 million is being spent every year by the OPW on leasing car parking spaces for civil servants. In a climate crisis, while we of course need value for money in all our projects, investment in cycling is not a frivolous extravagance. In a climate crisis, we need to support people to make the transition to cycling in order to help reduce emissions from fossil fuels and reduce dependence on private cars. I ask the Taoiseach and those on all sides of the House to commit to supporting cycling.

I support investment in cycling. The greenways, cycleways and active travel programme have represented a transformation over the past decade in particular. It has been fantastic. People are voting with their feet in places where safe cycleways can be provided. Obviously, we need more sensible arrangements in terms of bike sheds, if I am honest. People did seek that here in Leinster House and we saw what happened afterwards. More generally, investment in cycling is a good thing. It is healthy, and it has implications for less congestion and so on, but we need to provide very safe routes. A lot of that has happened over the past number of years. We will continue our investment in active travel, cycling, pedestrian walkways and so forth.