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

It is worth pointing out that the €330 million represents the State road grants that come from the Department via the motor tax. Local authorities can add their own resources to that - some are very good and some are very bad. For every €1 that the Government gives Fingal County Council for local and regional roads, that council matches it with €2. Other counties are considerably worse - only matching every €1 from central government with 10 cent. There is a big issue for candidates in the local authority elections to commit to putting more of their discretionary resources into roads, particularly when it comes to the property tax revenues, 80% of which will stay local from next year. I encourage Deputies to make that point to councillors and county managers when they meet them.

The bigger-picture problem here is, of course, that even with the money allocated by the Department and that put in by the local authorities, it is simply not enough. We are well short of where we need to be in terms of road maintenance. I am concerned that because of inadequate resources we are storing up bigger problems for the future.

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