Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I am pleased to have an opportunity to raise this major issue. Every day we can see on our television screens, hear on the radio and read in our newspapers the extent of the adverse weather conditions that have gripped the country for the past few days and, we understand, will continue for quite a number of days to come. Roads, rail and airports are experiencing great difficulties and there are delays everywhere. Primary roads, motorways and national roads are being gritted, but there is great difficulty for local authorities in reaching secondary roads and they may not have enough resources to make sure they are gritted, which is causing major problems.

At present, we need to deal with the initial difficulties that are being experienced. There should have been sufficient warning from last year's experience to ensure the country would be well prepared for adverse weather and that there would be adequate leadership, including the presence of the Minister in the country. Last year no Minister would take charge, but at least the Minister is here this year. It was important to ensure there would be adequate reserves of salt and sand to allow the local authorities to carry out their work. I was in Drogheda yesterday and I travelled the road from the motorway through to Julianstown to get there. The traffic was bumper to bumper for approximately ten kilometres. The roads were not gritted and traffic proceeded at a snail's place to prevent accidents from taking place. However, accidents did occur. Clearly, we are not as well prepared as we should be. It is time to recognise that what was an event that occurred once every 50 or 100 years - this is how it was described by people recently - is now happening every year. What were abnormal weather conditions, whether wintry weather or flooding, are now becoming the norm in the country and it is time this was addressed.

Although the emergency planning task force is in operation and the Minister meets the various agencies on a regular basis, there is not much value in co-ordinating the activities of the agencies and the local authorities unless there is adequate funding to ensure the plans can be implemented thoroughly. Last night during the budget debates the manager of Dublin City Council stated that the council had not received one extra cent for this coming year to deal with adverse weather conditions. That is not good enough. Local authorities throughout the country are doing their best to try to provide services but they have one hand tied behind their backs if they do not have extra funding to pay for the overtime, resources and materials required and the work which must be carried out night and day. Almost all of this work must be carried out in the middle of the night to prepare for the morning such that commuters can move.

I call on the Minister of State to recognise that we have a new dispensation at this point. It is no longer the case that Ireland has a mild, temperate climate and does not experience extremes or polarity of weather. It is rapidly becoming the case that we experience extremes of weather, whether flooding or wintry conditions. While recognising this, the Minister must follow on and not simply provide an emergency task force but also provide the resources essential for the task force to carry out the work. This is where the Government has fallen down to date. This is November and December and January are yet to come. I trust the Minister of State will provide us with some detailed and specific information with regard to what the Government will do to ensure the local authorities can provide the services required to keep the country running, to keep the roads open and to ensure workers can get to work in time. These are important issues the Minister must address.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this important aspect of what is taking place in rural areas on the Adjournment tonight. I hope some action will be taken to address the restriction in place preventing local authority workers from helping communities and people in their own areas. I refer to a simple plan whereby one could have one tonne of grit mixed with salt kept at the end of many roads on which people have difficulty travelling throughout the country. The reality is that non-national roads will never be gritted by the National Roads Authority, NRA, or the local authorities. They simply do not have the ways or means to get around to gritting them. However, there are several communities, farmers, business people and contractors in many constituencies and rural areas who have the equipment, including tractors, trailers, shovels and pick-ups, to grit dangerous stretches of road. This is a practical and simple solution which would add greatly to the work already being done.

There has been much activity from the local authorities on the main roads throughout the country. They are being well gritted and anyone who drove to Dublin today, such as many in this House, will have observed how well the motorways were done. However, the problem is with the small country roads that people must travel on tomorrow morning after a fall of snow or after a freezing night. These are the forgotten people of rural Ireland. If nothing else this simple practical measure should be facilitated.

The Minister of State is from a rural constituency. He will be aware of what I am referring to and I need not explain it to him. The message must get to the Minister for Transport or to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, whichever of the Departments is responsible. It would be a simple measure but it would alleviate many of the problems.

Some 94% of our roads are regional or local and they carry approximately 60% of traffic, including 43% of all goods traffic. This is relevant, especially at this time of the year when there are many goods to be moved around before Christmas. A good deal of transportation is undertaken on many of our roads including feed to be carried to farmers and heating oil and coal to be brought to many isolated houses. There is a significant argument to support the roll-out of this suggestion. It would be cheap, effective and it would have the support of a significant number of workers in local authorities. I understand many engineers consider this to be a good idea. I call on the Minister of State, who comes from a rural constituency, to ask the Minister to allow local authorities to carry out my suggestion to put salt and grit at the end of each road and to allow the locals to carry out the work.

Seán Connick (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank Deputies Costello and Tom Hayes for raising this matter on the Adjournment, which I am taking on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Transport. I will respond to the matters raised by the Deputies. The Government response to severe weather is led by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, supported by all relevant Departments. As part of its role on the Government emergency task force, the Department of Transport reviewed the transport-related response to the severe weather events of last winter and has worked with the task force and other Departments to put in place additional measures to respond to similar events.

What emerged late last year and early this year during the severe and lengthy spell of bad weather was the need to overhaul the system whereby each local authority traditionally sourced its own supplies of de-icing salt. Under that system some local authorities had more than sufficient salt supplies while others had to ration it. The Minister for Transport addressed this issue by tasking the National Roads Authority to be the central procurer of salt supplies for all local authorities and to ensure that adequate salt supplies would be available in future to maintain a prioritised road network.

Day-to-day operations on the national roads network is managed by the National Roads Authority, NRA. The authority also provides support to the Department of Transport in respect of the administration of grants for regional and local roads. Such grants are provided as a supplement to own resource funding within local authorities. As part of the planning strategy, the NRA finalised and published an updated winter maintenance guidelines document in October that addresses the response to severe weather events. In response to its role as the central procurer of salt supplies, the NRA advertised a framework contract in August 2010 for the supply of de-icing salt for the coming winter. The contract is for the supply of 80,000 tonnes with an initial call of 50,000 tonnes and a further 30,000 tonnes in January 2011. This supply was in addition to the 20,000 tonnes of salt stock available since earlier in the year. In addition, local authorities can purchase directly from traditional sources should they wish. The NRA is investing €6 million this year in additional dry storage facilities for de-icing salt and a further €2.5 million for grit spreaders and snow blades and so on, for local authorities.

To co-ordinate the overall response to similar severe weather events, the Department of Transport called on its agencies to liaise with local authorities to ensure access to their services are included in the relevant local authority priority routes being provided to the Department.

In response to the current severe weather conditions, the Department and all its agencies have been meeting on a daily basis since last Friday to monitor and provide information to the travelling public on transport issues. A Government task force inter-agency response group on severe weather met yesterday. The group reviewed reports from the various agencies on issues relating to the severe weather. Met Éireann has reported that there is no sign of the severe weather abating. All local authorities are treating roads on a prioritised road basis. The NRA has confirmed that adequate salt stocks are in place nationally and are being distributed as required to local authorities to meet these priorities. The agreed objective for local authorities during periods of severe cold is to keep the full national road network and other key strategic routes and public transport routes open for traffic. These roads carry an estimated 60% of total traffic and about 80% of commercial traffic. Other roads are dealt with on a needs basis by local authorities, for example to provide access for medical facilities and emergency services, schools and commercial districts.

Local authorities also take a pragmatic approach and respond to specific situations or community events. Local authorities also liaise with An Garda Síochána, the Health Service Executive and voluntary community organisations to address specific issues, including working with the Civil Defence and Defence Forces where appropriate to ensure key services, such as public health nurses, are able to access isolated clients in rural areas, and to deal with specific priorities which are agreed locally.

Regarding the request for additional funding to local authorities for exceptional weather events, the Exchequer grants for regional and local roads are allocated each year by the Department of Transport to the local authorities. The Department does not hold back a reserve allocation, at central level, to deal with weather contingencies. Holding back such an allocation would mean a reduction in the road grant allocations made to all local authorities at the beginning of each year. The allocations made to local authorities are inclusive of a weather-risk factor. Local authorities are expressly advised in the annual road grants circular letter that they should set aside contingency sums from their overall regional and local roads resources to finance necessary weather-related works.

This year the planned rehabilitation works on regional and local roads were deferred and greater flexibility was given to local authorities to deal with the urgent repair of damage to the regional and local road network arising from the flooding and prolonged severely cold weather. A total of €188.8 million was provided under this special improvement grant in 2010. Local authorities were also provided with €111 million in maintenance grants in 2010.

The division of moneys between surface dressing and general maintenance works was rebalanced to give councils increased flexibility in responding to events such as the current severe weather. In this context, the moneys provided for discretionary maintenance which can be used for severe weather works, such as salting, were increased from €30 million in 2009 to €51 million this year. Additionally, the National Roads Authority is supplying grit at no cost to local authorities.

The overall impact of the considerable work by the employees of our local authorities has resulted in the public transport services continuing to operate with some curtailments of bus services in areas over the day. Irish Rail and Luas services are fully operational. Air and sea ports are also operational and access routes are being maintained.

Anyone wishing to travel should check with their service provider directly. Access to travel information is also available on the Department of Transport's website www.transport.ie. Spokespersons on behalf of the transport agencies are providing information to the radio networks and providing customer contact numbers for those without access to the web. Members of the public are reminded by the Garda and the Road Safety Authority to avoid unnecessary travel and to take public transport where possible. Safety advice for road users during severe weather is available from the Road Safety Authority directly at www.rsa.ie. Latest advice on traffic is also available from AA Roadwatch. The Department continues to monitor the situation and will continue to provide information to the public.