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

People in rural Ireland pay road tax, tax on their diesel and petrol and property tax. They are entitled to have decent roads. As the Deputy will know, there has been a significant increase in funding for roads throughout Ireland this year. In the Deputy's county, the regional and local roads allocation, which had been €18.4 million in 2017, was increased to €21.7 million this year. That is in line with increases in the budget for roads across the country. Moreover the local improvement scheme, which is really important for people living on laneways that are not taken in charge, was restored and a budget of €10.8 million was set aside for it.

First, I encourage local authorities that have not spent all their allocation to do so. I know that many have but some have not. The weather is deteriorating, so I encourage local authorities that have not done so to spend the budget they have to improve roads across rural Ireland and in urban areas too. Yes, a further increase in spending on regional and local roads is something we will examine as part of the budget, acknowledging that for many years there was underinvestment in roads, particularly during the crisis period, and we need to catch up on the backlog.

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