Seán Connick (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputies Costello and Tom Hayes for raising this matter on the Adjournment, which I am taking on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Transport. I will respond to the matters raised by the Deputies. The Government response to severe weather is led by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, supported by all relevant Departments. As part of its role on the Government emergency task force, the Department of Transport reviewed the transport-related response to the severe weather events of last winter and has worked with the task force and other Departments to put in place additional measures to respond to similar events.

What emerged late last year and early this year during the severe and lengthy spell of bad weather was the need to overhaul the system whereby each local authority traditionally sourced its own supplies of de-icing salt. Under that system some local authorities had more than sufficient salt supplies while others had to ration it. The Minister for Transport addressed this issue by tasking the National Roads Authority to be the central procurer of salt supplies for all local authorities and to ensure that adequate salt supplies would be available in future to maintain a prioritised road network.

Day-to-day operations on the national roads network is managed by the National Roads Authority, NRA. The authority also provides support to the Department of Transport in respect of the administration of grants for regional and local roads. Such grants are provided as a supplement to own resource funding within local authorities. As part of the planning strategy, the NRA finalised and published an updated winter maintenance guidelines document in October that addresses the response to severe weather events. In response to its role as the central procurer of salt supplies, the NRA advertised a framework contract in August 2010 for the supply of de-icing salt for the coming winter. The contract is for the supply of 80,000 tonnes with an initial call of 50,000 tonnes and a further 30,000 tonnes in January 2011. This supply was in addition to the 20,000 tonnes of salt stock available since earlier in the year. In addition, local authorities can purchase directly from traditional sources should they wish. The NRA is investing €6 million this year in additional dry storage facilities for de-icing salt and a further €2.5 million for grit spreaders and snow blades and so on, for local authorities.

To co-ordinate the overall response to similar severe weather events, the Department of Transport called on its agencies to liaise with local authorities to ensure access to their services are included in the relevant local authority priority routes being provided to the Department.

In response to the current severe weather conditions, the Department and all its agencies have been meeting on a daily basis since last Friday to monitor and provide information to the travelling public on transport issues. A Government task force inter-agency response group on severe weather met yesterday. The group reviewed reports from the various agencies on issues relating to the severe weather. Met Éireann has reported that there is no sign of the severe weather abating. All local authorities are treating roads on a prioritised road basis. The NRA has confirmed that adequate salt stocks are in place nationally and are being distributed as required to local authorities to meet these priorities. The agreed objective for local authorities during periods of severe cold is to keep the full national road network and other key strategic routes and public transport routes open for traffic. These roads carry an estimated 60% of total traffic and about 80% of commercial traffic. Other roads are dealt with on a needs basis by local authorities, for example to provide access for medical facilities and emergency services, schools and commercial districts.

Local authorities also take a pragmatic approach and respond to specific situations or community events. Local authorities also liaise with An Garda Síochána, the Health Service Executive and voluntary community organisations to address specific issues, including working with the Civil Defence and Defence Forces where appropriate to ensure key services, such as public health nurses, are able to access isolated clients in rural areas, and to deal with specific priorities which are agreed locally.

Regarding the request for additional funding to local authorities for exceptional weather events, the Exchequer grants for regional and local roads are allocated each year by the Department of Transport to the local authorities. The Department does not hold back a reserve allocation, at central level, to deal with weather contingencies. Holding back such an allocation would mean a reduction in the road grant allocations made to all local authorities at the beginning of each year. The allocations made to local authorities are inclusive of a weather-risk factor. Local authorities are expressly advised in the annual road grants circular letter that they should set aside contingency sums from their overall regional and local roads resources to finance necessary weather-related works.

This year the planned rehabilitation works on regional and local roads were deferred and greater flexibility was given to local authorities to deal with the urgent repair of damage to the regional and local road network arising from the flooding and prolonged severely cold weather. A total of €188.8 million was provided under this special improvement grant in 2010. Local authorities were also provided with €111 million in maintenance grants in 2010.

The division of moneys between surface dressing and general maintenance works was rebalanced to give councils increased flexibility in responding to events such as the current severe weather. In this context, the moneys provided for discretionary maintenance which can be used for severe weather works, such as salting, were increased from €30 million in 2009 to €51 million this year. Additionally, the National Roads Authority is supplying grit at no cost to local authorities.

The overall impact of the considerable work by the employees of our local authorities has resulted in the public transport services continuing to operate with some curtailments of bus services in areas over the day. Irish Rail and Luas services are fully operational. Air and sea ports are also operational and access routes are being maintained.

Anyone wishing to travel should check with their service provider directly. Access to travel information is also available on the Department of Transport's website www.transport.ie. Spokespersons on behalf of the transport agencies are providing information to the radio networks and providing customer contact numbers for those without access to the web. Members of the public are reminded by the Garda and the Road Safety Authority to avoid unnecessary travel and to take public transport where possible. Safety advice for road users during severe weather is available from the Road Safety Authority directly at www.rsa.ie. Latest advice on traffic is also available from AA Roadwatch. The Department continues to monitor the situation and will continue to provide information to the public.

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