Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I thank Senator Tully for her question. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important topic with Members of the House today on behalf of the Minister for Transport. I understand Senator Tully’s question is on the funding provided to local authorities for the maintenance of local roads, with a particular emphasis on the Cavan region. It is a region I am very familiar with as I represent Sligo, Leitrim and south Donegal and, at one stage, I represented west Cavan. They are the same type of area and they have all had issues with local roads. It might not pertain in other areas but it is very important in Senator Tully's area.

As Senator Tully is aware and as outlined in the 2025 regional and local roads programme, the Government is strongly committed to protecting the existing road network. It is important to highlight that the improvement and maintenance of the regional road network is the statutory responsibility of each local authority in accordance with the Roads Act 1993. Works on these roads are funded from the council's own resources and are supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of works is a matter for the local authority. There has been a significant increase in Exchequer funding in recent years, with an Exchequer investment of €713 million in our regional and local roads this year. This represents an increase of 25% in funding when compared with 2021.

As regards the basis for allocating grants within the budget available to the Department, grant funding is allocated on the basis of grant programmes and not on the basis of the category of road. The allocation of funding across specific roads or across categories of road is a matter for each local authority, having regard to the funding available to it from local and central sources as well as its particular priorities.

The main regional and local road grant programmes are targeted at specific policy objectives, such as restoration maintenance grants for pavement sealing to protect the road surface from water damage, restoration improvement grants for road strengthening based on pavement condition rating to lengthen the life of road pavements, and discretionary grants which allow for a range of activities, including pothole repairs, edge strengthening, renewal of signs and lines and winter maintenance. These three grant programmes account for most of the grant funding and are allocated based primarily on the length of the road network in a particular local authority area.

Apart from a requirement that 15% of the road strengthening grant is spent on regional roads, the allocation of funding to different categories of road is entirely a matter for decision by each local authority. In addition, basing regional and local roads grant allocations on road conditions could result in an uneven distribution of Exchequer funding. For example, local authorities that allocate higher levels of own resources funding to regional and local roads will have a larger proportion of roads with a higher condition rating than those with lower levels of own resources funding.Basing allocations on road condition could therefore disincentivise local authorities from allocating their own resources to funding roads maintenance.

The Department operates the community involvement scheme, CIS, to facilitate local community participation on a voluntary basis in the repair of local roads. The focus of the programme is on the repair of more lightly trafficked public roads that might not be high on the list of a local authority's annual roadwork programme.

The Department appreciates that, within the overall parameters set for the regional and local road grant programmes, local authorities might need to target funding at particular problem areas and there is sufficient flexibility in the structure of the grant programme to allow for this. It is also open to each local authority to allocate its own resources to priority areas. It should be noted that Exchequer funding for regional and local roads is intended to supplement realistic contributions from local authorities’ own resources. As the statutory road authorities for their areas, it is open to local authorities to prioritise investment towards regional and local roads.

I am very familiar with Cavan. It is a rural county and we need to do everything possible and use whatever flexible ways we can to incentivise road repairs. I remember there were pothole candidates in Cavan when I first got involved in politics over 25 years ago. The road network has improved, but the cost of repairing roads has gone up. The Senator made a very valid argument that maybe we needed to increase the funding as well.