Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom fáilte mhór a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach inniu. Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis fosta mar go bhfuil a fhios agam go bhfuil a lán oibre á déanamh aige. I welcome the Minister to the House this morning. I thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to be here.

This morning I wish to discuss the issue of the funding of local roads, which are vitally important to everyday life in our communities. The local road network is as important to the people of rural Ireland as the M50 is to the city of Dublin. In County Monaghan and many other counties throughout the country, the quality of local roads is critical to the communities that use them on a daily basis. Again, however, I will give the examples of Monaghan and Cavan and small counties like them.Many small enterprises and businesses are located on boreens off small local and regional roads. They, like the communities who live on them, depend on a good quality roads network in order to get their goods to market and for the people who live in these communities to go about their daily lives.

The Minister is probably aware of a survey conducted by his Department before his time which discovered that the local roads infrastructure throughout the country was in need of substantial funding. Monaghan came across as the worst county in Ireland for its quality of local and regional roads infrastructure. That situation comes from the fact that over the last decade or so the local roads network has been chronically underfunded, which is an issue that needs to be addressed. I welcome the fact that this year the Department has increased its funding for local roads. It is very necessary and important that we get more such funding.

Unfortunately, this year many local authorities have the added burden of dealing with Covid-19 and the restrictions that it has placed on local authority work practices. As a result, many roads programmes have yet to commence. There is a fear among many local authorities, that they will not get their full allocation drawn down before the end of the year. The last thing that local authorities and local communities want is for local road allocations not to be drawn down because of the council's inability to get the works done because of Covid-19 restrictions.

I ask the Minister for two things. I am seeking a commitment that no local authority will lose the much needed funding required for local road repairs because of Covid-19 restrictions. I would like the Minister to issue guidance to local authorities that they are behind schedule with their roads programmes. Perhaps now with the evenings getting long, having longer daylight hours and coming into the summer months, local authorities would use that time wisely to catch up on the backlog of works needed because of Covid-19 restrictions. The last thing that communities and businesses want is to see roadworks taking place in the mouth of Christmas with queues of traffic going into towns. Certainly, after all that people have been through, the last thing that they want is to be stuck in traffic jams on the mouth of Christmas. The last thing that businesses want or need is for their potential customers to be caught in traffic on their way to do their shopping due to roadworks taking place that should have been done earlier in the year but through nobody's fault could not be done because of Covid-19 restrictions. I look forward to the Minister's response.