Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

While I accept the €1.1 billion as a total figure, did the Minister not slash the road maintenance figure by €325 million, or one third? In this year of all years following the flooding and the big freeze the Minister has slashed the budget by one third. The Minister has said he has requested a report from the local authorities. When will he get that report? Will he be informed, for example, how many kilometres of regional and local roads have been severely damaged? In other words will he request a total audit of the road situation following the two natural disasters? Would the Minister agree that local authorities are completely in the dark as to what will happen to the maintenance and repair of these roads? It is not just a maintenance issue, as my Fine Gael colleague knows very well. It is also a very serious road safety issue. I remember receiving a call from my colleague Councillor Willie Quinn in Carlow from a crater in the middle of a major road outside Borris. Along with 1,000 councillors throughout the country, he is deeply concerned about the state of the roads. Has the Minister given a deadline to local authorities to go to work to supply the report? What kind of extra funding will be provided?

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