Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 69: To ask the Minister for Transport the preparations he has made in the extent of extreme cold weather this winter; the reason that almost half of the money allocated to repairing local and regional roads after last year's bad weather was not spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42746/10]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act, 1993. Works on those roads are funded from local authorities own resources and are supplemented by State road grants. In January 2010, my Department carried out a review of the transport response to the severe weather during the period November 2009 and January 2010 and established a Review Group to carry out that task. In this review, my Department has recommended that local authorities and the National Roads Authority should work together to put in place framework contracts with a number of salt suppliers and that local authorities should draw down their supplies under these framework contracts and they should continue to be responsible for the implementation of the response on the ground.

The Review also recommended that local authorities should draw up lists of priority routes for treatment during severe weather.

Local authorities were asked to publish their Winter Maintenance Plans on their websites in advance of December 2010. This would allow the public to be aware of what routes will be treated in the case of severe weather and the type of intervention envisaged.

In February this year I announced an allocation of €411.409 million to local authorities under the 2010 Regional and Local Roads Investment Programme. From this allocation, a total of €111.409 was allocated to local authorities for maintenance works on regional and local roads, including repairs to roads damaged by the severe weather in late 2009 and early 2010. As of 19th October 2010, (the last date for which figures are available), €87 million or 78% of this maintenance allocation has been drawn down. It should be noted that by now further work will have been completed by local authorities but not yet claimed for. It is expected that the remainder of funding will be fully drawn down by the end of the year.