Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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1022. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the availability of emergency funding for roads damaged by recent flooding due to heavy rainfall in Gort and Loughrea municipal areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2993/20]

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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1050. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the availability of emergency funding for roads damaged by recent flooding due to heavy rainfall in the Gort and Loughrea municipal areas, County Galway; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2988/20]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1022 and 1050 together.

As the Deputy is aware, the improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads 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 Council's own resources supplemented by State road grants.

I announced the 2020 Regional and Local Road (RLR) allocations earlier this year and all grant funding available to my Department has now been allocated. Details of the regional and local road grant allocations and payments to local authorities are outlined in the regional and local road grant booklets which are available in the Oireachtas Library.

In line with established practice, local authorities are advised by my Department that a contingency provision should be reserved from the overall resources available to each authority for regional and local roads so as to deal with damage caused by severe weather conditions, including flooding.

In addition, local authorities may carry out repairs from the RLR grants available to them and from their own resources and in this context, it is open to each Council to determine and reprioritise its work programme following severe weather events.