Mr. Eoin Doyle:

The level of reduction has been quite significant. Anecdotally there have been reductions in total funding of anything up to 60% or 70% of funding which the local authority has at its disposal, be it the council's own funding or departmental funding. Cavan's local authority has maintained its county road fund which is our own fund at its level, or thereabouts, to maximise whatever funding comes our way from the Department. We have included figures which show reductions of that magnitude in the period from 2005 to 2015. There are reductions from €23 million down to as little as €12 million in total non-national roads funding. This is very significant.

I would bring members back in their recollection of Cavan which was once regarded as a county with very poor road infrastructure. Now it has an excellent road infrastructure but it is reaching a point where, by virtue of broken maintenance cycles, we could end up having difficulties in the non-national road infrastructure. In a county which is predominantly based on non-national roads, that is crucially important. It would be remiss of me to not mention the fact that from O'Connell Bridge as far as Aghalane Bridge on the Border, every single town is bypassed apart from Virginia. The bypassing of a town like that would provide access to an entire swathe of the county, from as far away as where my colleague is from in the Cavan-Belturbet district up as far as Blacklion. It would be a major infrastructural project for Cavan.