John O'Mahony (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. I welcome the increase in capital spending and the new projects which he announced yesterday. I did get the list of the named roads, but as the Minister said, there is a cut in the actual maintenance of roads. The difficulty is that as a result of the severe weather, with frost, low temperatures and almost torrential rain, there has been a significant increase in the breakdown of the surfaces of local roads in rural areas. If those roads are not on the list that has been outlined by the Minister, then the local authorities have a problem. I am requesting the Minister to create an emergency fund to deal with the havoc resulting from the weather conditions in the past month to six weeks. That is my main point. Were the Minister to give me some hope that he will address this issues with the local authorities, I think everyone would be happy.