“It’s time for a Bike to School scheme for children”.
That’s according to TD Ivana Bacik who’s reiterating the appeal she first made in 2015 while reacting to the publication of the annexe to the Climate Action Plan.
The Labour spokesperson on the environment is backed by former local councillor and Principal of Gaelscoil OsraÍ, Seán Ó hArgáin, who’s told KCLR News; “Our school is a green school and we very much have benefitted from the Bike to Work scheme as employees but also we have put a huge push on encouraging cycling, walking and scooting to school here and on a good weather day we would have anything between 80 and 100 children biking and scooting to school in our school and it makes a huge difference to children’s attitudes to the environment but also on their physical and mental wellbeing”.
Over 1,300 every day attend the Presentation Secondary School and Gaelscoil Osraí which sit side by side on the Outrath Road in Kilkenny. And Príomhoide Ó hArgáin says getting as many of them as possible out of cars is essential; “We need to increase substantially the number of those children who are coming to school in a sustainable way whether that’s by bus transport or whether it’s walking, cycling or scooting to school, also we have done a little bit in terms of encouraging cycle buses to school, it’s something that we’d love to do in conjunction with the other primary schools in the city would be to have as many children as possible cycling in the mornings and in the afternoons to the schools”.
And he adds something he’s noticed while on the cycle to work that Kilkenny City’s clogged with car traffic, much of it ferrying children to schools; “It’s frankly atrocious to see the number of cars which have a parent and a student sitting in the car and nobody else and they’re being used almost entirely for children to get to school; that has huge implications in terms of air pollution and, in particular, in terms of the arguments about obesity and ill-health for children, if we’re serious about tackling climate change and if we’re serious about tackling the issues about children’s health we’ve go to do everything we can to encourage children to come to school in a sustainable way”.
