Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 66: To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to make central Government funding available to local authorities to repair ramps which have been damaged due to bad weather conditions. [8616/11]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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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 these roads are funded from local authorities' own resources and are supplemented by State road grants. However, the initial selection and prioritisation of projects to be funded is also a matter for the local authority. In February this year it was announced that a total of €375.176 m would be provided to local authorities for the maintenance and improvement of regional and local roads in 2011. In addition, the Restoration Improvement Programme was reintroduced to provide local authorities with flexibility to change their programmes if necessary, given the period of severe weather in late 2010. Furthermore, a Winter Maintenance Grant category has also been introduced which local authorities may use for treating roads during periods of cold weather. To provide increased expenditure flexibility to local authorities the Discretionary Maintenance Grant and the Discretionary Improvement Grant schemes have been combined as a single Discretionary Grant and this may be used for maintenance and for strengthening type works on the road network. Similarly, very considerable flexibility has been given to local authorities in respect of the utilisation of the Department of Transport 2011 Grant Allocations for regional and local roads.

It is also particularly important that local authorities do not reduce expenditure from their own resources in respect of roads this year in view of the current difficult situation and that they carefully reassess their planned road programmes for 2011 in the light of the impact of the bad weather on their road networks. In addition I have directed that the overall transport budget is assessed to determine what scope exists for allocating additional funds for the repair and maintenance of regional and local roads. Any additional funding made available to local authorities as a result of this process will be subject to the normal assessment criteria relating to State grants.