Mr. Ray O'Leary:

I thank the Chairman and the members of the joint committee for the invitation to attend today's meeting. The Republic of Ireland has a public road network of more than 99,000 km, some 5,400 km of which comprises national roads with the remainder comprising regional or local roads. The chief executive of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Mr. Michael Nolan, is here today to address issues relating to national roads. My colleague and I hope to address matters pertaining to regional and local roads. Expenditure on regional and local roads has decreased from more than €600 million in 2008 to less than €300 million in recent years. Unfortunately, the latter amount falls well short of what is required to maintain the network as estimated under the strategic framework for investment in land transport. A recent survey, which was based on limited data, suggested that the backlog of repairs increased from €3 billion in 2005 to more than €10 billion in 2016.

The Department has two main grant programmes to cater for major schemes separately from maintenance. The specific grant programme covers projects costing €5 million or less and the strategic grant programme covers projects costing more than €5 million. To maximise the moneys available for maintenance, a limited fund of just over €10 million is available this year for these two grant programmes. This represents a decrease on the €170 million that was available for them in 2008. While the capital plan allows for investment of €140 million in such programmes over the period from 2016 to 2022, much of this money is being provided in the later years of the plan. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has indicated that he intends to make a strong case for additional funding for the transport sector under the upcoming review of the capital plan. Local improvement schemes relate to works on private roads, while community involvement schemes relate to works on public roads. It is still possible for local authorities to undertake both types of scheme, but such a decision needs to be made at local level because money is no longer ring-fenced for such works. The programme for Government indicates that as the economy recovers, the Government will promote increased funding for regional and local roads. The Minister has indicated that the issue of increased funding will be raised in the context of the capital plan review.

The committee asked us to speak about the impact of Brexit on cross-Border projects. Commitments regarding the A5 are governed by the Stormont House agreement and implementation plan, known as the Fresh Start agreement, which reaffirms the Government's commitment to provide funding of £50 million for the A5 project and an additional £25 million to ensure the first phase of the project, from Newbuildings to north of Strabane, can commence as soon as the necessary planning issues have been resolved by the authorities in Northern Ireland. Options for the proposed Narrow Water Bridge are under discussion by a group of senior officials. An update in respect of both projects will be presented to the upcoming plenary meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council, which is scheduled for 18 December. I will be happy to address any questions from members of the committee.

The committee also asked us to comment on the national mitigation plan, which is very distinct from the roads topics we are discussing today. At the moment, there is no transport element of the plan per se, although there will be in due course. Therefore, it might be more fruitful for the committee to consider the issue at a later stage when the draft national mitigation plan is out for consultation and we have a document about which to talk. I am always happy to help the committee and I can refer the matter to my colleagues from our climate change division who are present if the committee wishes, but I suggest it might be a more fruitful use of the committee's time to leave the-----