Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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18. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if further funding will be made available to County Meath for repairs and restructuring of the roads within the county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23465/15]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, 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.

I am not in a position to provide additional funding to County Meath at present. In order to address the national finances there were substantial cutbacks in the funding available for State grants for national, regional and local road programmes and this has had a major impact across the board.  Funding in 2008 was €2.3 billion while funding this year is around €730 million to cover the entire national, regional and local road network.  I know that it is important to restore over time capital funding for the transport sector to ensure that land transport infrastructure is maintained and renewed to support economic development but as of now my Department is continuing to operate within a very constrained budget.

Within the budget available to my Department I have tried to allocate funding on as fair and equitable basis as I can.  In this context grants in the three main grant categories (Restoration Improvement, Discretionary Grant and Restoration Maintenance) are allocated based on the length of regional and local roads within a local authority area.   

It is important reiterate that State grants are intended to supplement own resources spending by local authorities and in this context I am emphasising to Councils that the commitment of local authorities to contribute significantly from their own resources towards the cost of improving and maintaining the regional and local roads network is essential.