Batt O'Keeffe (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. County councils and other major local authorities are responsible for managing and maintaining all non-national roads and bridges in their area. Each year, my Department assesses the non-national roads programmes of local authorities and makes substantial grant allocations towards these programmes. Authorities also have to commit an appropriate share of their own resources for this purpose, and the grants we provide supplement these.

The question of special funding for emergency improvements to non-national roads is regularly raised. The standing approach of my Department is that we do not hold back a reserve allocation to deal with such situations. Such an arrangement would mean a reduction across all local authorities in the road grant allocations to them at the beginning of each year. Instead, the allocations made each year to local authorities are inclusive of such risk factors. In determining the annual grants, the overall objective is to resource each local authority appropriately for their ongoing and special needs.

In January, the Minister announced the 2007 grant allocation for non-national roads, which at over €607.5 million is the highest ever. It represents an overall increase of 9%, or almost €50 million, on the 2006 allocation. In 2007, the initial allocation to Kerry County Council is around €22.282 million, an increase of 8% over 2006. While there are no further funds at our disposal from which we could make a special grant allocation to Kerry County Council for the replacement of Ballinagar Bridge, it is open to the council to fund eligible works at this location from its discretionary improvement grant provided by my Department or from its own resources. This year, a discretionary improvement grant allocation of €1.186 million has been made to the council, which is an increase of 3% on the 2006 figure. The selection of works to be funded from this is a matter for the council.

My Department is also prepared to consider any proposal from the council to adjust its 2007 specific improvement grant proposals, originally submitted in September 2006, to include eligible works at this location. Equally, the council may submit an application in respect of works to the bridge for consideration for funding in 2008 under this scheme. Alternatively, if a suitable formal application were submitted, my Department would be prepared to consider giving approval to the council to proceed with works this year on condition that the scheme would be submitted as a priority on the council's 2008 specific improvements grant list of applications.

Apart from non-national roads funding, general purpose grants from the local government fund may also be used by local authorities to meet their ongoing and special expenditure requirements. In this regard, the Minister has made available increased allocations of almost €948 million in general purpose grants to all local authorities in 2007. Kerry County Council has received an allocation of over €27.6 million in 2007, representing an increase of over 8% on its 2006 allocation.

I understand the bridge collapse is currently the subject of court proceedings. Accordingly, any further comment on the circumstances of the collapse of the bridge would be inappropriate. Deputy McEllistrim has been in touch with the Minister about this matter, but I will also raise it with the Minister on behalf of Deputy Deenihan before Friday's visit.

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