Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to Deputy Ellis's question, it is a fact that local authorities have cut their contribution by more than the Government's and I provided the figures in my reply. They used to provide 40% of the cost but that has fallen to 32%. Local authorities are, therefore, cutting their funding faster than the Government is cutting their grants.

If additional money becomes available, we could easily put another €100 million into road maintenance, €100 million into the small NRA schemes that I would like to go ahead with, and probably between €50 million and €100 million into new road, tourism and sports projects.

That is all we would be able to spend. I would love to receive further funding as it would be preferable to pursuing public private partnership projects which take two, three or four years to complete and do not provide good value in the long term. As I stated, it is not necessarily the case that €1 billion has become available. We must meet our growth targets and, unlike last year, all Departments must come in on budget and without an overspend this year. In addition, we must also deliver €300 million in savings, the figure under discussion in the Croke Park talks. Given that the €1 billion is not available to spend just yet, we should not go down that road.

Deputy Ellis is correct that a number of ramps, especially in Dublin, were badly constructed and are in very poor condition. Fingal County Council has been allocated €100,000 to address the issue, with similar amounts allocated to other counties. This funding will not be sufficient, however. If additional money was available, I would happily give it to the local authorities and they would happily receive it.

The Government has committed £25 million in 2015 and 2016, respectively, to the A5 road project. The elements of the project north of the Border are not proceeding owing to a judicial challenge. This matter must be dealt with and the project needs to start before we can offer more money.

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