Mr. Michael Walsh:

I thank the committee for inviting us to appear before it. I am city manager of Waterford City Council and acting chair of the transportation committee of the County and City Managers Association. Mr. Tom Coughlan, Clare county manager, is currently indisposed. I am accompanied by Mr. John Mulholland from Kilkenny County Council, who is director of services in transportation, and Mr. John McLaughlin, director of services with Donegal County Council. All of us have been through the mill in terms of road maintenance and area engineers and have some degree of experience in these matters.

I will give a brief ten minute presentation on the broad background to the issues under discussion and to place the local and regional road maintenance programmes in the context of the overall funding position, which is obviously not very good.

At national level the reduction in Exchequer funding has been extreme over the past several years. In 2007 investment in maintenance of our roads was in the region of €700 million but that figure has decreased to €400 million in the current year. Members will be aware of the recent announcement by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government of an additional €50 million, for which we are very grateful to say the least because the money is necessary. However, even though the additional €50 million is a great help we remain concerned about the overall investment proposition in the longer term. The proposed figure for next year is closer to the €300 million mark, which would be less than half the necessary level of investment to hold the road infrastructure together. We acknowledge the fiscal context but we are worried about the investment context. International institutions such as the World Bank argue that a failure to invest in road maintenance represents a significant deferred liability. To draw a simple analogy, a stitch in time avoids significant damage. The current overall investment level is a case of loaves and fishes. Local authority contributions to road maintenance amount to approximately €100 million. This figure has declined somewhat due to pressures on local finances but it has been of that order for a number of years.