Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

With regard to the €40 million, this came from funding allocated to final close-out payments for motorways and the inter-urban motorway network in the main. These final payments go to arbitration as costs are estimated in advance. As it turned out, after arbitration less money was owed for those roads than was anticipated. The decision was then to be made as to whether the €40 million would be reallocated to a small number of national road projects or spread across the 30 or so local authorities to allow them repair 1,000 km of local and regional roads. On balance, it was preferable to spread the money over the approximately 1,000 km of local and regional roads that had to be repaired as opposed to just allocating the money to two or three national road projects that probably would not have even commenced this year. Road maintenance can be done quickly but full new projects take time to commence. Some local authorities have sought reallocation within the funds given to them and we are happy to consider that.

See this speech in context