Number of children driven to school almost doubles
Of the nation’s 448,500 primary-age youngsters, a little more than half get a daily lift to and from school. Short trips of up to 15 minutes make up the bulk of such journeys. One-in-three, or 150,000, of primary school youngsters live within a 4km radius of school but get a lift in. A third of these live as close as 1km or less to the school gate.
Last night, the Friends of the Earth Ireland (FoE) environmental campaign group said the findings, from last year’s Census, were shocking but not surprising.
“You just have to go out on the roads every morning to find it’s no surprise and it’s something we need to address,” said director Oisín Coghlan.
“It would be interesting to find out why parents are prepared to drive children a kilometre or less to school.”
He said addressing the reasons why parents drove such short distances would help cut the congestion associated with the school run.
“For health and congestion reasons and on environmental grounds it makes no sense for children to be driven 1km or less,” he said.
Figures released yesterday showed 246,750 primary-age children got a daily lift to and from school in 2006, compared with 133,500 in 1986.
In the four years the numbers of youngsters walking to school has fallen from half to a quarter. The numbers cycling have plummeted from 23,500 to 4,000 while those catching the bus have dropped from 105,250 to 67,250. Last night, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, said the figures underlined concerns among teaching professionals about children getting too little exercise.
The travel figures, compiled by the Central Statistics Office, also reveal the number of men and women driving to work or getting a lift rose 22% between 2002 and 2006.
Of the 1.9 million people living and working in Ireland during the Census, about 1.1m, or 57%, drove themselves to work compared with 55% in 2002.
The numbers of people getting to work on the bus or train also increased, with Dublin’s Luas tram system attracting large numbers of commuters. FoE said the figures were proof workers would use public transport when the system was reliable and available.
Adults who live in urban areas travel 12.8km to work every day with the average journey taking 27 minutes 54 seconds. Workers who live in rural areas face a 21km trip but their journey-time is shorter at 26 minutes 48 seconds. Congestion means commuters spend 3% more time travelling than four years ago.
About 1.2m of Ireland’s households have at least one car — an increase of 170,000 homes in four years. Meath has the highest penetration of car ownership with 90% of households having at least one car.
Cork (88%) and Waterford (87%) were second and third while 40% of households in Dublin had no car.
