Mr. Michael Nolan:

Deputy Murphy mentioned TII's condition surveys. TII has 5,500 km of network of which approximately 3,000 km is legacy roadway, which has very poorly engineered pavement structures. We have 2,500 km of engineered pavement which is in better condition because these roads were designed and constructed to a certain standard. We undertake condition surveys every year on the network and with that information we are able to prioritise where the funding is directed. Various different factors are taken into account in the condition survey. Based on the annual condition surveys, where we survey the strength of the pavement on the underlying structure and we also look for skid resistance and so on, on that information we should be spending ideally of the order of €140 million annually on repaving the national road network. Pavements last for a seven to 12 year cycle, depending on the surfacing, so TII should be working on 400 km of roadway every year. At present we are only reaching 130 km of roadway. In monetary terms the underfunding - this is acknowledged by TII and the Department - is of the order of €90 million to €100 million each year, depending on the year. One can get around underfunding in the short term, for one or two years. When underfunding is persistent, TII will find that it will spend €2 in future years to fix what €1 would do today. We do not intervene when we see potholes, we intervene with our condition surveys when we can determine the underlying structure of roads and we know when the interventions are needed.