Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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638. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the criteria under which each council was allocated funding for road improvements as announced recently; the amount requested by each local authority; the amount granted; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5999/15]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Firstly I would like to explain that 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. I announced the 2015 regional and local road grant allocations on 3rd February providing €294 million to local authorities for works on regional and local roads.

The three main road grant categories are the Restoration Improvement, Discretionary Grant and the Restoration Maintenance grant programmes. All of these grants are allocated based on the length of regional and local roads within a local authority area. In the case of counties/cities that experience higher road traffic than the norm, a factor is applied to the kilometre length within the county or city. In the case of Meath and Kildare a factor of 1.3 is applied, while a factor of 2 is applied to the cities of Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. A factor of 1.0 is applied to the remaining counties which receive funding. The three Dublin councils and Dublin City are no longer funded under these programmes as they have become self-funding under the new Local Property Tax arrangements.

Details of the 2014 regional and local road grant payments to local authorities are available in the Dáil library.  Details of the 2015 regional and local road grant allocations to each local authority are also available in the Dáil library.