Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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1747. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to provide funding under the specific improvement scheme to Cork County Council in the forthcoming budget; if not, when he intends to do so; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24541/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads in Cork is the statutory responsibility of Cork County Council, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on those roads are funded from the Council's own resources supplemented by State road grants.  The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is also a matter for the Council.

In order to protect funding for road maintenance and repair in recent years (including 2016) regional and local road improvement schemes, including the Specific and Strategic Grants Schemes, have been curtailed.  Despite this, my Department provided funding of €119,100 in 2016 to a number of legacy Specific Improvement Schemes in Cork including the R582 Mountcaine Bridge, the R586 Ilen Bridge and the R595 Skibbereen to Baltimore scheme. Unfortunately, the current financial realities are such that the budgets proposed for the Department for 2017 indicate that capital funding will continue to be very tight, and the ability to increase allocations or progress new projects is limited. 

It is however open to the Council to fund Specific Improvement-type projects from their own resources.  The purpose of Exchequer funding is to supplement the own resources of local authorities, not to meet the full cost of schemes.