Mr. Michael Walsh:

Yes. I used the term "a stitch in time". Although it is lay man's language, that is the situation.

Regarding the approach taken to infrastructure in the Celtic tiger years, I appreciate that the length of our road network presented a difficulty for the political system as much as it did for engineers and managers. We inherited it from the time of the horse and cart in some respects. The benefit of the interventions during the Celtic tiger period are evident in the ratings. Many rural roads were strengthened with substantial foundations, which is the language used by Deputy Harrington. Some of the roads that were corrected in this way are now taking heavy loads, for example, milk tankers, but were a skin of stone and built for the horse and cart. We have recovered somewhat. Other interventions cannot be made and mapped until some foundation work has been done.

Our regional road network was left in a better place by the Celtic tiger. Many tarmacadam-based interventions were made in regional roads. This is manifesting itself in the rating and testing. I am not claiming that every pound was spent necessarily or correctly, but there has been a dividend. If we did not have it, we would be in a very poor place. We could not sustain the current level of maintenance spending and the deterioration would be more obvious.

Investment in motorways is a public policy decision. From our point of view, motorways serve the highest levels of traffic. In this regard, an advantage of the new construction is that there is no immediate maintenance cost.

The immediate cost of maintenance, the structural overlays - described by the Deputy as built roads - are designed for 20 and 30 year life cycles. Strengthening and other substantially costly interventions will come 20 years down the road, rather than in the next five or ten years. We all hope we will be in a better place then.

However, there is a small issue in terms of the standard of maintenance. The NRA is moving that project to contract and there will be very significant maintenance standards for motorways, which comes at a cost. Again, in terms of detecting most of the traffic, the majority of our visitors use motorways, for example, and on balance I would say that is the right approach. Ultimately, it still is a big cake that has to be cut and yet, because the cake is not big enough, the issue of prioritisation remains.

I appreciate I am not answering the point on consistency between local authorities satisfactorily. I would not know the detail on Leitrim versus the neighbouring authority, for example. There can be any number of reasons for the situation there. Historical road conditions or investment going back 20 years could have a bearing on the condition of a road. If that foundation or investment had been made 20 years ago a section of road could be otherwise. At some level we can accept the accusation of some lack of consistency across boundaries - I would accept and acknowledge that - but what we are trying to do as a sector through the Lutz committee and others is what Mr. McLaughlin was outlining, namely, to start highlighting that. This will be a very transparent system - it will give indications on ratings and scoring, will be very visible across county boundaries and once we reach that point it will be available to the public generally, to elected Members and local members. That will help in terms of consistency. In terms of issues such as winter maintenance we have greatly improved consistency. One will not find gritting, salting and such items breaking down at county boundary lines. Again, it is about reaching standards but it comes at a cost.

I refer to lobbying for more money, which we are doing. I will address one final point, the community employment schemes, and then leave the rest to my colleagues. As a sector, we would be very clearly of the view that we are happy to be working with a labour activation scheme. We would be very happy to take significant numbers into routine road maintenance areas but let us be clear there are issues with the unions in terms of allowing that to happen. We would see drainage, for example, as an imperative in this area and would believe it should happen in current circumstances almost as a moral scenario.