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

This question relates to the conduct of audits and studies on the road network. As Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in respect of the national roads programme. The construction, improvement and maintenance of individual national roads is a matter for the National Roads Authority, NRA, under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2007 in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. As regards national roads, therefore, assessment of the condition of the network is the responsibility of the NRA.

In line with the requirements of EU Directive 2008/96 on road infrastructure safety management, which was transposed into Irish law in 2011, the NRA has put in place comprehensive guidelines on road safety management procedures for national roads in Ireland, including network safety management, temporary inspection of safety measures, road safety inspection, road safety impact assessment and road safety audit procedures. The NRA anticipates that the first round of road safety inspections will be completed by the end of 2013 in compliance with the directive.

The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority. Works on those roads are funded from local authority resources supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is a matter for the local authority as well. State grant payments are administered by the National Roads Authority on my behalf.

My Department and the NRA commissioned Pavement Management Services Ltd. to carry out a pavement condition study on the entire regional road network in 2011. The pavement condition study involved the use of machine surveys to collect road condition data, skidding resistance data and digital imagery on the regional road network. The main objective of the study was to establish, by county and nationally, the lengths and areas of various categories of regional road requiring various types of remedial works. This information is required to quantify the current status of road conditions within counties and nationally and to provide a benchmark measurement against which the future actual road conditions can be compared. Where comparable, the roads were measured against the results of a previous study in 2004, and the results indicated that there had been a considerable improvement in ride quality over the seven-year period. In addition, the study indicated that nationally the percentage length of the regional road network requiring road reconstruction had dropped significantly from 24% in 2004 to 15% in 2011.

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