Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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723. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if landowners have ownership and responsibility for trees verging road ways; if they are responsible for the removal of these trees if they fall on the roadway; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8985/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is a statutory function of each road authority in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Section 70 of the Roads Act 1993 sets out the responsibility of landowners to take all reasonable steps to ensure that trees, hedges and other vegetation growing on their land are not, or could not become, a danger to people using a public road and or interfere with the safe use of a public road or the maintenance of a public road.

This section also allows the relevant road authority to step in where a landowner fails or is unable to take action to remedy a hazard.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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724. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if in view of the recent comments pertaining to the appalling decisions that had been made in the past by planners and politicians, if he will reconsider the sanctioning of €140,000 for further preliminary work on the Limerick Northern Distributor Road Phase 2, which traverses one of the River Shannon's most important flood plains; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9325/14]

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.  It is important to note that works on such roads are a matter for the relevant local authority to be funded from its own resources supplemented by State road grants.  

Phase 2 of the Limerick Northern Distributor Road project was proposed by the local authority concerned, Clare County Council and supported by the Limerick Councils.  The planning of the project, including route selection, is therefore a matter for Clare County Council in association with the Limerick Council.  Grant funding was provided by my Department to facilitate the route selection phase of the project and the €140,000 allocated this year will bring this phase to a conclusion.  My understanding is that this work is being undertaken to enable the Councils to take decisions on the preservation of a route corridor for the northern distribution as part of the long term future planning for the city.  

Realistically, given the overall cost of the proposed project which is in the order of €120 million and the scarce resources available for investment in roads for the foreseeable future, this project is unlikely to progress any further than route selection for some time.  If and when the local authority decides to proceed to construct this road, it will have to submit its plans to An Bord Pleanála for consideration.  As part of this process, an Environmental Impact Statement would be required which would consider a wide range of issues, including matters such as flooding.