I will raise the issue of the provision of public footpaths, and their maintenance, repair and infill. There is no dedicated funding for such within the local authorities. There is active travel funding, roads funding and all of the other streams, which are very often criteria-driven. For example, any engineer who is requested to have a look at the provision of new footpaths, maintenance or repair, the answer received is that there is no funding. I am looking for separate footpath funding to be dedicated to each council so they will be able to repair and maintain what they have.

I thank Deputy Roche for raising this issue. It is an interesting point. The primary focus of investments in the regional local road network is on the protection and renewal of them, which obviously plays a crucial role for communities, local economies and the likes. We have very significantly increased our funding on that. There is a discretionary grant under the regional and local road grant that can be used by councils for a wide range of works, including footpaths. Local authorities have that discretion from that grant allocation. I know some local authorities decide to do footpath programmes from that grant. The broader point the Deputy is making, when we are trying to encourage people to be active and the safety issues in rural Ireland in particular, is a valid one. I will certainly work with our colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and others on this to see if there is more we can pursue. I will come back to the Deputy on it.