Mr. John Mulholland:

I will cover some of the points Mr. Walsh did not get to and will try to do so as quickly as possible. Deputy Harrington asked if we have carried out an assessment of the amount of investment required on regional roads - the answer is "Yes". A report was finalised last year which indicated that 39% of the country's regional roads required structural intervention. The cost can vary so I cannot give a figure but, as a percentage, that figure seems about right. If one looks at the soils classification map of the country it gives a large clue as to what areas will be susceptible to road failure. That is simply an engineering principle and fact. We all regard investment in motorways as being very profound, one that will have dividend and yield in the years ahead, not alone for driver safety, which is already to the fore, but also in regard to consistency of transport of goods and people around the State.

Senator Mooney asked if we were concerned about the standard of the road network. Yes, we are, and we continually make representations in that regard and present cases to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the National Roads Authority. The two examples the Senator cited were about standards. One might come from a very high standard of road to a lesser one which can be a difficulty for drivers, in particular for people who are unfamiliar with the area, given the road depreciation. That is picked up under low-cost accident remediation works in many cases. There has been a significant investment there.

I refer to Deputy Phelan's queries on the co-operation we have with quarries, forestry owners and the like. We all know those various employers are going through difficult periods and margins are tight. However, we do try to establish codes of practice with them in regard to the roads they use, asking them to use the proper ones even though it might mean a couple of miles out of the way - depending on where one is, it could be 15 miles in some counties. We ask them to use the better roads to get in and harvest their timber or take out their stone material. It is not always easy. Sometimes they sub-contract the driving duties, and so on, but we continually try to establish that link with them.

Traffic volume is critical. I take the Deputy's point about class 3 roads and local communities but that also comes into the equation. Over the past ten years in particular there may be families settled in an area who have schoolgoing children at bus routes and this is factored in, in terms of representations on top of the engineering inspection conditions.

Are we satisfied with the flexibility? We have written to the Department and the NRA for the past two years regarding flexibility. That was reciprocated with a positive response in January in the roads grant allocation, something we were very glad to see. It allows councils at this time, when money is not really available, to apply lower-cost solutions to attend to immediate difficulties. We know there is an underlying issue with some structural deficits. I point out to Deputy Harrington that even the best built roads in the world need to be maintained on a regular basis. For example, roads in the United States that were built to a very high standard in the 1950s are suffering huge degradation at present.

The Chairman's question referred to community involvement in roadwork schemes. I would regard that as a most beneficial programme that must be sustained. It varies from county to county as to how much local communities and councils avail of it but once it is applied, and people get to know the system, there is value for money and local solutions can be applied in a more timely fashion than would happen while waiting under a roads programme. We see it as something that needs to be maintained. Certainly in our experience it is a very good scheme.