One in 25 boys nationally cycle to school, but this falls to just one in 250 among girls, TDs and Senators have heard.
Three transition-year students from Mungret Community College in Limerick - Juno Loughran (16), Laura Pietruszkiewicz (16) and Dolmarian Ugwuagbo (15) – told the gathering at Leinster House that 20 per cent of boys cycle to their school, but just 2 per cent of girls do so.
The students are taking part in the Green Schools #AndSheCycles Ambassador Programme, which aims to close the gender gap when it comes to cycling to school.
The briefing, part of National Bike Week, brought together politicians, campaigners, health professionals and students to discuss the future of everyday cycling in Ireland.
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The students called for streets to be designed for everyone, with segregated, well-lit, continuous cycle routes; for national targets to be set to increase the number of women cycling; for expansion of the Bike to Work Scheme; and cycling to be treated as essential national climate and public health infrastructure.
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“It isn’t just about bikes,” Loughran said. “It’s about freedom, health, climate action and building towns and cities where people actually want to live.”
Research commissioned by insurer RedClick found that only 3 per cent of the Irish population cycles daily, and men are four times more likely than women to do so on a daily basis.
Half of survey respondents said poor weather was a deterrent to cycling, while 57 per cent said safety concerns put them off.
Caoimhe Clarke, a consultant psychiatrist and member of Irish Doctors for the Environment, cycles to work at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin and when tending to patients in the community.
“It shouldn’t be the default choice to have to get in the car,” she said, adding that Ireland is the second most car-dependent country in the EU.
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Clarke noted that one in four children are overweight or obese and six in 10 adults are insufficiently active. Physical inactivity costs Ireland an estimated €1.13 billion per year, she said.
“So while we’re saying to people we need to get you moving, you need to use the bike, enjoy cycling. If the network is not connected, if it’s not safe, if it’s not convenient, it’s not going to work for people.”
Clara Clark, who founded Cycling Without Age in 2017, said trishaws, three-wheeled bicycles that can carry passengers on the front, are being used across the country for older people and those with disabilities. She said this mode of travel can stimulate and relax passengers, giving them the right to feel “wind in your hair”.
However, she has seen “absolutely dire” cycling infrastructure while using her own trishaw in Ireland, and said this needs to improve.
“You have to choose which wheel is going to hit the potholes,” she said.
Neasa Bheilbigh, chair of the Irish Cycling Campaign, who partnered with the Oireachtas All-Party Cycling Group to host the briefing, said “our cycling infrastructure is critical infrastructure... we need an increase in active travel funding to deliver these completed networks; without completed networks, we’re not going to see the model changes that we need.”
