Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I offer the Senator and the House best wishes for the new year.I thank the Senator for raising this matter as it gives me the opportunity to perhaps give a wider perspective on what has happened to the transport infrastructure across the country. I will also be doing so in the Dáil this afternoon.

As the Senator is aware, the most extensive impact of the weather to date for the transport sector has been on the road network and within that I include the kinds of bridges to which the Senator refers. It has caused very serious disruption to daily life in many areas and led to the cutting off in some cases of small communities and households from others. The priority of local and national agencies to date has been public safety and there has been ongoing communication between local authorities, State bodies and residents in affected areas to ensure people were aware of the safety messages that issued relating to travelling in flooded areas and road closures or diversions. An Garda Síochána and local authority staff, along with other relevant agencies, have worked closely to ensure that warning signs have been put in place, diversion routes organised and signposted, with information and advice made available to the public via websites, social media and local radio. The Road Safety Authority has been very active over the past month in supporting and disseminating safety measures for all road users.

With regard to the scale of damage and responding to the issue raised by Senator MacSharry, local authorities and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, have advised my Department that it is not possible to get a comprehensive view of damage to road pavements until the floods fully recede and investigations and assessments are carried out. Bridges damaged as a result of flooding and storms, including bridges mentioned by the Senator, will need to be inspected, with a detailed assessment of the damage undertaken. TII has engineering consultants on a bridge framework available to commence inspections once flooding has subsided. Underwater inspection is a specialist area and only a limited number of consultants have the capability to undertake such inspections. The chief executive of TII has written to local authorities offering the services of the framework consultants if there are non-national road bridges of concern that they consider need to be inspected. In certain cases, it may be months before full information is available on the cost of repairs whereas in other cases, where water levels have receded more quickly, the timeframe will be shorter. In any event, my officials and those in TIl will engage with local authority officials to minimise the timeframe associated with critical repair works.

The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has been taking the lead in responding to the immediate needs of local authorities arising from the storms and flooding and provided funding to local authorities to allow them to deal quickly with the clean-up and measures needed to protect public safety. That Department has also sought submissions from local authorities setting out both the estimated short-term costs and the costs related to damage to infrastructure, including transport. This is to give a full picture of the full cost, and I am working on putting that cost together.

So far, 25 of the 28 local authorities have reported on their estimated infrastructure damage costs and my Department is now reviewing these estimates. The capital budget for my Department for this year is very tight and I have asked my officials as a matter of urgency to assess areas - such as those referred to by Senator MacSharry - where funding can be reprioritised or reallocated in order to deal with the consequences of the storms. The scale of the damage incurred and the overall cost will be very large and require a response across the Government and I am working with Ministers on that. The infrastructure mentioned by the Senator is an example of the kind of work that I accept we will need to respond to in the coming months.