Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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673. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if funding will be allocated to the National Roads Authority this year in respect of necessary upgrading of the east-west route from Cootehill, County Cavan through Shercock and Carrickmacross to Dundalk; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6622/14]

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 those roads are funded from local authorities' own resources supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is also a matter for the local authority.  

Cavan County Council was provided with over €2 million between 2007 and 2013 from my Department in connection with this project under the Strategic Non National Road Grants Scheme in order to bring this 75 km route to preliminary design stage. A further allocation of €100,000 is being provided this year to facilitate completion of the preliminary design.  

Due to budgetary constraints it will not be possible to progress the project further at this point as available funding has to be concentrated on the repair and maintenance of regional and local roads.  The construction cost for a scheme of this magnitude would be in excess of €150 million.