Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The most convincing arguments around issues of this nature are the ones that concern safety. Everybody knows that the amount of money available for roads is limited and we cannot just magic up money for every road that needs upgrading. The Senator's argument is compelling. Road safety is important and lives have to be saved so the TII is identifying accident black spots. Following the European court judgment that the TII could not charge VAT, an extra €17 million is now available for these black spots.Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, is being encouraged by my Department to use a portion of that money to deal with accident black spots and address death on the roads. The accidents to which the Senator referred on the road in question are a convincing argument why this should be considered by TII in its commitment to tackle black spots because of this rebate both this year and next year.

As Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, I have responsibility for overall policy and funding for the national roads programme. The planning, design and implementation of individual national road projects is a matter for TII under the Roads Acts 1993-2015 in conjunction with the local authorities concerned.

Ireland has just under 100,000 km of road in its network. The maintenance and improvement of national, regional and local roads places a substantial financial burden on local authorities and on the Exchequer. Due to the national financial position, there have been large reductions in Exchequer funding available for roads expenditure over the past several years.

Within its capital budget, the assessment and prioritisation of individual projects is a matter, in the first instance, for TII in accordance with section 19 of the Roads Act. The Government’s capital investment plan, Building on Recovery - Infrastructure and Capital Investment, provides the strategic and financial framework for TII’s national roads programme from 2016 to 2022. As Minister, I have to work within the capital budgets included in the plan. In turn, TII has to prioritise works on the basis of the funding available to it.

Roscommon County Council is proposing a N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge road improvement scheme which extends from the eastern end of the Ballaghaderreen bypass to Scramoge, a distance of 33 km. Given the limited funding envelope available under the capital investment plan and the primary focus on maintenance and renewal of the network rather than new projects, this scheme is not included as part of the plan. TII has, however, provided an allocation of €700,000 to Roscommon County Council for the scheme this year to enable the planning process to progress. Roscommon County Council has completed the business case for the proposed N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge road project.

All major capital projects are subject to the project appraisal requirements in the public spending code and my Department's common appraisal framework for transport projects, as well as An Bord Pleanála’s development consent process. In this context, a cost-benefit analysis, CBA, for all schemes costing over €20 million is required as part of the business case for the project. In line with the project appraisal requirements, each CBA needs to be assessed by the economic and financial evaluation unit in my Department and then reviewed by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

The CBA for the Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge scheme has been submitted to my Department for evaluation. If the CBA were to be found compliant with project appraisal guidance, a separate decision would be needed on the business case which takes account of the availability of funding for the project. It is not possible at this point to indicate what the outcome of the project assessment process will be.

As regards ongoing maintenance on the route, TII allocates funding specifically for safety works based on its analysis of the network. This year, TII has allocated about €17 million for such works. Under its HD15 programme, safety works are based on an analysis of accident density across the network and those sections of the network with considerably higher than average accident densities are selected for analysis. Sections of road which are amenable to engineering solutions are prioritised for treatment. The road in question should be a candidate for this. In addition, TII operates a HD17 programme based on road safety inspection reports. These reports indicate which issues, for example signing, lining or safety barriers, need to be addressed on different sections of road and programmes are drawn up to deal with the priority issues.

It should be noted good pavements also contribute to road safety and TII has allocated approximately €50 million for pavements in 2017.