Mr. Peter Walsh:

There are a number of different assessments on the network. From a safety point of view, there are two programmes of work. One is reactive and the other is proactive. As for the reactive one, we take all the accident statistics and analyse them, identifying accident clusters and then reporting those back to the local authorities for them to comment as to whether an engineering intervention is an appropriate way of responding to that particular circumstance or whatever other comment they wish to make on it. That informs our safety programme, and that could then end up in either a minor improvement, which could be a realignment of the road or a much lower level intervention or a widening of sight lines or whatever the issue might be. That is one programme of work.

The second is a proactive one, whereby we undertake an investigation. We inspect the routes and pick up what we think might be hazardous circumstances, which then make their way into a programme of works. The structural or operational performance of the network is something Mr. Maher and his people in network management survey continually. That is largely done by machines. A vehicle drives the road and picks up everything from cracking to deflection to surface deformation and so on. Those are all indicative characteristics of pavement in distress and warranting intervention.