Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Louise O'Reilly. The Labour Party supports this Fianna Fáil motion but we take issue with some of what is called for in it.

I will deal with those at the end.

In the past two decades, the motorway network has come on in leaps and bounds, drastically cutting journey times between Dublin and major towns and cities. That has to be acknowledged. More needs to be done to connect other cities with one another but it can be said that great progress has been made on our motorway network. In many ways, we can be proud of this today.

Unfortunately, however, the focus on our large motorway system has been to the detriment of our local and rural road networks. Local and rural roads are the roads used by local people undertaking ordinary, everyday tasks, such as going to work, going to the shops, attending church, dropping the kids to school and socialising. These roads are deteriorating year on year. Councils remain under-resourced in tackling these problems, and people living in the regions and rural communities feel further isolated and left behind as they see resources going towards the capital and being devoted to connectivity to the major cities.

My constituency in Dublin, Fingal, is a microcosm of the disparity between major transport infrastructure and the roads in many rural areas, which are neglected. We have one motorway, the M1. We have the DART and suburban rail. I hope that, in the not-too-distant future, we will see work on metro north begin. These are all big pieces of transport infrastructure. They are vital and, in the case of metro north, essential. There are rural areas in Fingal, however. They include Moonlone Lane, Killalane, Tobergregan, Pluckhimin and Magillstown. These are rural areas that one might see in rural counties such as Cork and Donegal and elsewhere in the country - areas where the road network is neglected, suffering from under-investment and left behind. The road safety concerns relating to these defects-ridden roads cannot be underestimated, nor can damage to motor vehicles. In most of the affected areas, there is no public transport.

As with all Deputies who represent rural areas, I am contacted regularly by residents regarding potholes and poor road surfaces. The council may be able to fill in and patch up potholes but any wet or icy weather can undo that work. People see it as the council throwing good money after bad, and this can go on for many years before the council is in a financial position to carry out proper remedial works. These essential, longer-term road-surfacing works always seem too far down the priority list in the affected communities. This is why we need increased funding.

People whose families have been living for generations in the rural areas in question expect and deserve a fair crack of the whip. There is scope for expanding the local improvement scheme, a very welcome scheme introduced by the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Michael Ring, in the past year. There is scope to expand it particularly in the area of flood relief. The financial benefit for the taxpayer would be very good. We believe the scheme is worthy of further investment and development. I realise it is under the remit of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

With regard to the motion, we recognise the importance of the speedy delivery of the planned upgrade of our national road network for the economy and more balanced spatial distribution. The N24 links ports at Foynes, Waterford, Cork and Limerick. This is crucial national road infrastructure that needs to be upgraded and developed. The Government needs to take a strategic approach to this investment. We have not seen this approach yet.

While we support the call to increase the regional and local roads budget in the context of the capital investment plan, we question the call to review the management of funds at local authority level. This, according to the motion, is to "ensure that funds are being used in the most efficient and effective manner possible and provide additional administrative supports where they are needed". In our experience, local authorities are the best authorities and have the best administrative resources for road repair and maintenance. We should trust local authorities in this regard. The Government looking over their shoulders regarding their area of expertise would be a waste of its resources. It should just fund the local authorities to do the work. They were always able to do it once the resources were provided. Reporting mechanisms within local authority democratic structures are sufficient to allow us to know where the money is being spent. I have yet to see a local area committee within a local authority let any under-expenditure on roads maintenance get past it. I trust my council, Fingal County Council, to improve the network without the micro-management envisaged in this motion.

The Department, in its strategic framework for investment in land transport, has estimated that an annual investment of €580 million is required each year to do the job in question. If it has fallen short in the order of €163 million this year, it will require €580 million plus €163 million next year. Each year it falls behind, we will fall further behind. Therefore, we need to put a stop to the shortfall, catch up quickly and increase the expenditure.

We support the motion. I have not read the Sinn Féin amendment but I am sure we will look favourably on that also.

See this speech in context