Many Irish children are overweight “because they have to be driven everywhere”, the Green Party deputy leader has said.
Róisín Garvey made the comments at the Green Party think-in in Dublin, where she said there was a need to expand the “space given to children who are trying to get to school safely”.
She said: “Cars are king at the moment in this country and that’s still a huge issue.”
Ms Garvey said she personally relied on cars in rural areas but added: “In urban areas, it is insane that we still have kids being driven to school from across the road.
“We need pedestrian crossings, we need wider footpaths.”
Speaking on Monday, she added: “We need to take it seriously: A quarter of our nine-year-olds are overweight, that’s because they have to be driven everywhere.
“We have to take this seriously and give space back to our children, and back to older people who can’t always drive and people with disabilities.”
Ms Garvey, who highlighted recent changes to traffic management in Dublin city centre as examples of schemes that work, said: “We’ve seen it as best practice in other countries.
“Let’s just do it here and modernise our country and not be stuck back in the 1980s where we think everyone should drive a car everywhere, it’s insane.”
Ms Garvey was responding to a question on whether the School Transport Scheme should be expanded.
Primary school pupils must be 3.2km away from a suitable school while post-primary students must be 4.8km away.
Currently, the fee for a primary school child is €50 and €75 for a post-primary school child.
The maximum fee for a family is €125.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman also said the expansion of the scope of the school-transport programme “would be really welcome”, adding: “It has an environmental benefit, it has a cost-saving benefit and it has a time-saving benefit for so many families.”
He said the maximum fee had been lowered through the term of the Government and added: “I know (Education Minister Norma) Foley and the Department are working hard to make sure we can provide this service to everybody who wants to take it up.”
Speaking to reporters alongside her parliamentary party colleagues, Ms Garvey said it was an “honour” to be Green deputy leader.
“I feel like I’m surrounded by people who are maybe not natural politicians but are all really passionate community and environmental activists.
“That’s how all of us ended up here, it wasn’t through our love of being politicians, it was through our love of our people and our country and nature and what we need to do to protect this beautiful country.
“So that we are ready for the craziness that’s coming down the tracks that we’ve seen in Europe, we saw in Middleton (flooding) and we will be prepared.”
Ms Garvey said the party was “passionate about investing properly” in climate change measures.
