Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I also take the opportunity to express my sympathy to all those who have been affected by the recent flooding in County Mayo, outlined by Deputy Flynn.

In September 2004, the Government confirmed the Office of Public Works as the State's lead agency in flooding, to be tasked with delivering an integrated, multifaceted programme aimed at mitigating future flood risk and impact.

As regards flooding of roads, the improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is a matter for the relevant local authority, to be funded from its own resources supplemented by State road grants paid by my Department. The initial selection of works to be funded from these grants is also a matter for the local authority. Funding of national roads is a matter for the National Roads Authority.

When road grants for regional and local roads are allocated each year, my Department does not hold back a reserve allocation at central level to deal with weather contingencies. 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 allocation made to local authorities is inclusive of the weather risk factor. Local authorities are expressly advised that they should set aside contingency sums from their overall regional and local roads resources to finance necessary weather related works. That stipulation is contained clearly in the circular letter sent with the allocations.

In 2009, grants totalling €22.316 million were allocated to Mayo County Council for works on regional and local roads. This included a discretionary maintenance grant of €1.952 million and a discretionary improvement grant of €826,000, which are available at the discretion of Mayo County Council to fund contingency works arising from weather conditions. My Department would also be prepared to consider sympathetically any request from Mayo County Council to adjust its multi-annual restoration programmes in order to prioritise work necessitated by severe weather conditions. In 2009, Mayo County Council was allocated a restoration improvement grant of €7.638 million and a restoration maintenance grant of €5.614 million.

It should also be noted that Mayo County Council's own resources expenditure on regional and local roads in 2008 amounted to €5.4 million, which represented only 15% of the total expenditure on regional and local roads in the county, with the other 85% funded by State road grants. The expenditure of €5.4 million in 2008 is also €1.95 million less than the council spent from its own resources in 2007. Mayo County Council needs to address this issue with a view to assigning more of its own resources to the regional and local road network.

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