Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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82. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to have a major programme of upgrading works carried out on specific regional routes which carry heavy volumes of traffic and are the key arterial routes for rural areas; if consideration will be given to areas such as counties Cavan and Monaghan which face particular economic challenges due to Brexit with the resultant need to improve infrastructure to assist industry and business to remain as competitive as possible; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5825/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads in Counties Cavan and Monaghan is the statutory responsibility of the relevant local authority, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on those roads are funded from the 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 transport element of the Capital Plan sets out investment priorities to 2022 and was framed by the conclusions reached in my Department’s Strategic Investment Framework for Land Transport. Based on the findings in that report it is envisaged that maintenance and renewal of the road network will continue to be the main priority over the next period and the bulk of the roads capital budget, over €4 billion, is earmarked for such essential work with a further €600 million allocated for implementation of the PPP road programme which is already underway and the balance for the limited number of road improvement projects included in the Plan.

On 24 January, I announced the 2017 regional and local road allocations to all local authorities including Counties Cavan and Monaghan. My Department has to work within the budgets available to it in the Capital Plan and all grant funding for 2017 has now been allocated.