Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The facts speak for themselves. Under the Roads and Road Vehicles (Transfer of Departmental Administration and Ministerial Functions) Order 2007 all remaining matters pertaining to the Roads Act 1993 were transferred to the Minister with responsibility for transport. Consequently, this matter is one which comes within the policy remit of my colleague the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. Perhaps the Office of the Ceann Comhairle might take note of that. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has a wide range of functions related to roads, including the legal framework for the provision and maintenance of roads, funding of the roads programme and promotion of road safety. The Department states that its overall objective is to provide, within the framework of a balanced and integrated transport policy, for the safe, efficient and cost effective movement of persons and goods by road. Specific objectives include those to ensure, as far as possible, the provision of a safe and efficient network of national, regional and local roads, and to ensure the optimum and safe use of the public road network.

The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each road authority. Works on those roads are funded from local authorities' own resources supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is also a matter for the road authority.

It is also the case that section 70 of the Roads Act provides that the owner or occupier of land must take all reasonable steps to ensure that a tree, shrub, hedge or other vegetation on the land is not a hazard or potential hazard to persons using a public road and that it is does not obstruct or interfere with the safe use of a public road or the maintenance of such a road. Where a tree, shrub, hedge or other vegetation is a hazard or potential hazard to persons using a public road, or where it obstructs or interferes with the safe use of a public road, a road authority may serve a notice in writing on the owner or occupier of the land in question requiring the preservation, felling, cutting, lopping, trimming or removal of such tree, shrub, hedge or other vegetation within the period stated in the notice.

However, I can inform Deputy Jim Daly that I am examining the prospect of developing a new social employment scheme in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in conjunction with my colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton. This could involve participants, who are unemployed at present, carrying out some of the work that is the subject of the topical issue raised by the Deputy. I hope the Minister, Deputy Burton, and I will be in a position to agree this scheme in the coming weeks with a view to having it rolled out in 2013.

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