Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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193. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if funding will be provided to local authorities in order to treat footpaths in freezing weather conditions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39214/18]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads (including footways and footpaths) in its area, is a statutory responsibility of each road authority in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of the Roads Act, 1993. Works on such roads are a matter for the relevant local authority to be funded from its 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 January this year, I announced the €417m investment programme for regional and local roads in 2018. From this investment, over €70.6 million has been allocated to local authorities under a Discretionary Grant (DG) programme. Councils have discretion in using DG grants for a multiplicity of eligible works which include footway repairs and winter maintenance. It is therefore open to local authorities to fund these types of works either from their DG allocation or alternatively from its own resources should it so wish.

In addition I have recently supplemented funding for the purchase of salt by €700,000 in order to further rebuild salt stocks for the forthcoming winter. Some of those stocks will of course be available to local authorities for the salting of footways.