Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this matter.

Last Thursday at 11.30 a.m. Ballinagar Bridge, Lixnaw, County Kerry, snapped in the centre and collapsed when a truck weighing 43 tonnes attempted to cross it. The bridge had a carrying capacity of 12 tonnes which was clearly indicated on two signs on the approach roads. The bridge was used extensively by local commuters between Lixnaw and Ballyduff and during the summer by numerous visitors visiting Ratoo round tower and Ratoo Abbey on the Ballyduff side of the River Brick. A number of farmers with land on both sides of the River Brick are now seriously inconvenienced because of the bridge's collapse. They will have to make a ten-mile round trip to access their lands. This will result in further inconvenience and expense next summer when they are cutting silage. In addition, around 100 bog plot holders will be seriously inconvenienced, most of whom come from the Ballyduff side of the river, and who will now have to transport their turf over a distance of ten miles.

The bridge was built by the Army in 1993 and has been the subject of an ongoing saga for some time. I raised this issue on the Adjournment in July 1993 when I stated:

The saga of Ballinaghar Bridge has been going on for some time. In January 1955 a resolution was passed by Kerry County Council that plans be prepared for a new bridge at Ballinaghar. On 6 July 1970 a preliminary report was received and the estimated cost of providing a new bridge then was £62,500, which was considered too expensive. In May 1975 Kerry County Council agreed to finalise plans for a new bridge. The consultant engineer was instructed to proceed with the preparation of a full set of documents. On 23 February 1977 the county secretary was instructed to submit documents to the Department of the Environment for sanction. In February 1978 an estimate of £202,000 was submitted for the all-in cost of a new bridge. On 22 February the Department of the Environment replied to Kerry County Council stating that even though the existing bridge was in an extremely dangerous condition the road was not of sufficient importance to warrant the provision of a new bridge. The suggestion was then made to provide the bailey bridge at the cost of about €32,000. In March 1980 an application was made to the Department for a loan of £190,000, but it was rejected. Kerry County Council threatened to close the bridge in 1992. The bridge was at that stage in extremely poor structural condition. It was erected in four 25 foot spans and was supported by five pairs of tubular steel piles driven into the river bed and filled with concrete. The quality of the concrete in the deck was extremely poor and the steel troughing on which it sits was in very poor condition.

Following that debate on the Adjournment, an allocation was made to provide a bailey bridge. Kerry County Council had about 60 feet of the bailey bridge in stock and had used it for other purposes. The council got the remainder from the Army, which provided the bridge at a cost of about £100,000. There was a limit imposed of 12 tonnes, but over time heavier traffic began to cross the bridge and it was in poor condition. Last week, a 43-tonne truck tried to cross it and it just snapped and collapsed.

I ask the Minister of State to make a special case for this bridge. Two bridges have been provided over the River Feale in recent years, one at the Cashen and the other at Finuge, while a further bridge has been provided going into Abbeyfeale. This is a very important local bridge. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will visit Tralee on Friday. He will be doing many things around the constituency. I call on the Minister of State to ask him to visit the Ballinagar Bridge so that he can see for himself what happened and so that he might recognise the strategic importance of the bridge for the people of Lixnaw, Ballyduff and the greater north Kerry community. As a Deputy from a neighbouring constituency, I appeal to the Minister of State to do everything in his power to ensure the Minister visits Ballinagar next Friday when he visits Kerry.

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. County councils and other major local authorities are responsible for managing and maintaining all non-national roads and bridges in their area. Each year, my Department assesses the non-national roads programmes of local authorities and makes substantial grant allocations towards these programmes. Authorities also have to commit an appropriate share of their own resources for this purpose, and the grants we provide supplement these.

The question of special funding for emergency improvements to non-national roads is regularly raised. The standing approach of my Department is that we do not hold back a reserve allocation to deal with such situations. Such an arrangement would mean a reduction across all local authorities in the road grant allocations to them at the beginning of each year. Instead, the allocations made each year to local authorities are inclusive of such risk factors. In determining the annual grants, the overall objective is to resource each local authority appropriately for their ongoing and special needs.

In January, the Minister announced the 2007 grant allocation for non-national roads, which at over €607.5 million is the highest ever. It represents an overall increase of 9%, or almost €50 million, on the 2006 allocation. In 2007, the initial allocation to Kerry County Council is around €22.282 million, an increase of 8% over 2006. While there are no further funds at our disposal from which we could make a special grant allocation to Kerry County Council for the replacement of Ballinagar Bridge, it is open to the council to fund eligible works at this location from its discretionary improvement grant provided by my Department or from its own resources. This year, a discretionary improvement grant allocation of €1.186 million has been made to the council, which is an increase of 3% on the 2006 figure. The selection of works to be funded from this is a matter for the council.

My Department is also prepared to consider any proposal from the council to adjust its 2007 specific improvement grant proposals, originally submitted in September 2006, to include eligible works at this location. Equally, the council may submit an application in respect of works to the bridge for consideration for funding in 2008 under this scheme. Alternatively, if a suitable formal application were submitted, my Department would be prepared to consider giving approval to the council to proceed with works this year on condition that the scheme would be submitted as a priority on the council's 2008 specific improvements grant list of applications.

Apart from non-national roads funding, general purpose grants from the local government fund may also be used by local authorities to meet their ongoing and special expenditure requirements. In this regard, the Minister has made available increased allocations of almost €948 million in general purpose grants to all local authorities in 2007. Kerry County Council has received an allocation of over €27.6 million in 2007, representing an increase of over 8% on its 2006 allocation.

I understand the bridge collapse is currently the subject of court proceedings. Accordingly, any further comment on the circumstances of the collapse of the bridge would be inappropriate. Deputy McEllistrim has been in touch with the Minister about this matter, but I will also raise it with the Minister on behalf of Deputy Deenihan before Friday's visit.