Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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505. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he has received requests for funding from Cork County Council, east Cork municipal district or any other body for the provision of a zebra crossing in Rostellan village in East Cork; and if not, if he will commit to releasing funds to provide such a zebra crossing as was laid out in local area plans since 2011. [18272/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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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.

As regards measures to address safety hazards, my Department operates a Safety Improvement Grant Programme whereby local authorities submit a list of schemes in order of priority for consideration for funding.  Within the constraints of the overall roads budget, allocations are made to local authorities for the scheme each year.  The application received from Cork County Council for 2016 did not include a project at Rostellan.  All available funding has been allocated for this year.

When allocating grant funding my Department has emphasised 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 and that full consideration needs to be given to utilising the Local Property Tax to boost own resources expenditure on regional and local road maintenance and renewal.