Last year I launched the Sustainable Travel Demonstration Areas Fund to encourage Local Authorities to come up with practical proposals to meet the ambition set out in the Government's Smarter Travel policy.
I was pleased with the level of responses from Local Authorities. 39 applications were received in the Stage 1 process of the competition, including one from Dublin City Council relating to the Drimnagh Area.
Eleven of these applications, including the Drimnagh one, have been shortlisted for Stage 2 and each Local Authority has been briefed in detail on what is expected of them in this next Stage.
The final selection is likely to happen in the second quarter of this year and the successful areas will have access to the €50 million fund I have set aside for this over the next 5 years. The aim is to deliver areas of best practice in Ireland to show how we can achieve more sustainable travel options for our citizens and the competition is but one element in a range of initiatives I am undertaking to deliver Smarter Travel.
Full details of the competition are available on www.smartertravel.ie.