Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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601. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if additional funding will be provided for the non-national road works programme for County Cavan for 2015, given there has been a major reduction in grant aid to Cavan County Council for such works over the past four years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27632/15]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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602. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if additional funding will be provided for the non-national road works programme for County Monaghan for 2015, given there has been a major reduction in grant aid to Monaghan County Council for such works over the past four years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27705/15]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 601 and 602 together.

​The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads (RLR) 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.

The economic reality of recent years has meant significant reductions in roads budgets across the board. My Department has allocated a total of €294 million for regional and local roads in 2015, €7.1 of which has been allocated to Monaghan County Council and €8.2m of which has been allocated to Cavan County Council.

The 2015 grants for RLR are now allocated and I am not in a position to allocate additional funding at present.