Mr. Pat Maher:

There are a couple of matters. We are very appreciative of that increase in pavement renewals funding. It is worth mentioning there are two sides to the matter of road pavements, road maintenance and road renewals. Capital maintenance is typically defined as the renewal of the asset. It is work that takes place over a time cycle and in pavement terms, it could be from 12 to 20 years. That is funded from capital resources. As Mr. Nolan indicated, we have had a substantial increase in terms of funding in the current year and it will allow us to undertake pretty much double what we have been able to undertake in the past number of years. It is very important. That relates to pavement and other assets on the network. It is a very important element but it is one side of the coin.

The other side is the routine maintenance and operations money. It is in routine maintenance and operations that we have a reduction in the current year of approximately €6 million. The big issue with respect to routine maintenance and operational funding is that this is a further cut on foot of almost ten years of reductions. Routine maintenance has traditionally covered the basic housekeeping activities, including minor pavement and pothole repairs, routine bridge maintenance and repair of crash barriers and signage. It also covers lining, repair of boundary fences when they are hit, drainage maintenance, litter collection, road sweeping, grass cutting, verge maintenance and footpath repair. It is very much the day-to-day bread and butter housekeeping activities that go on year on year, as opposed to the major capital reinvestment in order to maintain the condition of the network. Over recent years, traffic management costs have become significantly greater by virtue of the fact we have increased regulation and we are far more mindful of road operative safety, as are local authorities. On our motorways, as incidents increase, the cost of incident response and management goes up. We have far more sophisticated winter service delivery than we had ten years and certainly 20 years ago. We also have intelligent transport systems, variable message signs etc. and all those come within the ambit of the maintenance allocation. Between 2008 and 2010, we opened a large section of the motorway network so we have been hit quite hard by the cuts in maintenance over the period.

There is no one correct figure for maintenance and we get what we pay for. The level of service that can be delivered depends on the available funding. The reality is if the funding is not available on the ground, certain elements must be cut. That is what we do. We manage within the terms of the operational budget but it is an increasing challenge to deliver the level of service required in the context of the modern motorway network on one hand and the existing two-lane network on the other hand. We are talking about approximately 1,200 km of motorway dual carriageway versus 4,100 km on the two-lane network.

The Deputy asked why the pavement seemed to be worse on regional roads and I would say it is the same for national secondary roads. Our modern motorways are built to the highest specification. They are modern and have large depths of pavement construction. Much of our legacy roads, including unimproved roads, regional roads and much of the national secondary routes, fall into the same kind of category. They do not have the same construction so they are more prone to failure. They do not have the same drainage so the water sits there and the pavement fails earlier. When a pothole or an area is treated, there is always the risk it will fail again. That is an historical legacy. Much work has been done on non-national roads and the national roads over the past two decades or more in terms of upgrading and replacing legacy pavements but there is still work to be done.