Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Question 366: To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to provide funding for footpaths in the town council area as has been provided for the past number of years. [13435/11]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads, in its area, is a statutory function of each road authority in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of the Roads Act, 1993. Works on such roads are a matter for the relevant local authority to be funded from its own resources supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of projects to be funded is also a matter for the local authority.

Earlier this year the 2011 Regional and Local Road Grant Allocations were announced with a total of €375,176,000 being provided to local authorities for the improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads. While no separate allocation for footpath repairs was made in 2011 (the 2010 provision for such works was €4.1 million) the Discretionary Grant made available to county councils for 2011 was increased by €4.2 million to €55.2 million. This simplified the number of grants and at the same time gave local authorities increased discretion in prioritising repair/rehabilitation works which were to be carried out on roads and on footpaths within their functional areas. More recently I have allocated an additional €60 million to county councils under the restoration improvement programme which will allow these councils to undertake addition strengthening/rehabilitation works on regional and local roads in the current year.