Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

Neither will I accept people who have local responsibility passing the buck to me. It is time people took responsibility. It is the responsibility of the local authorities to look after their local roads. By and large, they do that and do so reasonably well. I heard this rhetoric this time last year with regard to the roads. I heard fellows on the radio claiming it would take €1 billion to fix the damage to roads. It did not cost anything near that. Most local authorities managed to repair their roads, some of which were very badly damaged, within the timescale.

With regard to Deputy Carey's point about councils holding back money until the end of the year, that is a misreading of what actually happens. Local authorities do not submit their claims for the work they have done until the back end of the year.

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