Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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273. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide funding in 2015 to upgrade the Cootehill/Shercock/Carrickmacross/Dundalk route, in view of the heavy volume of traffic on this road and the urgent need to have necessary improvement works undertaken, and taking into account the substantial preparatory work, planning and design that have already been undertaken; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13851/15]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As outlined in my reply to PQ 34820/14 of 17 September 2014, 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 was provided in 2014 to facilitate completion of the preliminary design.

Allocations for 2015 have been made and no further funding is available.  Due to budgetary constraints it will not be possible to progress the project further at this point. The construction cost for a scheme of this magnitude would be in excess of €150 million.