Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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664. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide a substantial increase in funding for the non-national road network to local authorities in 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45410/15]

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.  The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is also a matter for the local authority.

In order to address the national finances there were substantial cutbacks in recent years in the funding available for State grants for regional and local road programmes and this has had a major impact across the board.  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 and grant allocations reflect that.

Within the budget available to my Department I have tried to allocate funding on as fair and equitable basis as I can and this will remain the position in 2016.  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. 

I am also emphasising to local authorities that the purpose of State grants for regional and local roads is to supplement the own resources spending by local authorities rather than meet the full cost of schemes and it is a matter for the local authority to select and to prioritise the works that are to be progressed.