Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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108. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if his Department will provide funding to support the local improvement scheme which is presently funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12070/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Since the post 2008 recession a substantial backlog of works on regional and local roads has built up in all local authority jurisdictions across the country. The estimated cost of the backlog is in excess of €5 billion. For this reason, grant assistance from the Department continues to be focussed on the protection and renewal of the public road network. 

It bears restating that the public regional and road network is over 96,000 kilometres in size and while there has been significant increases in grant funding in recent years, it has not been possible to address the backlog of works across the country even with 90% of available funds being directed to protection and renewal works.  For this reason and in view of the funding being provided under a Local Improvement Scheme by the Department of Rural and Community Development, I consider that I need to continue to concentrate funding on public roads.

If I were to consider allocating funding for non-public roads this would reduce the funding available for public roads.  In this context one initiative taken since the Department of Rural and Community Development's introduction of a Local Improvement Scheme is the provision by my Department of ring-fenced funding for the Community Involvement Scheme (CIS).  This scheme is designed to provide for the repair of more lightly trafficked public rural roads, which tend to be considered only towards the end of road authorities’ annual roadworks programmes.  Under this scheme, €29 million approximately was paid to local authorities over the 2 year 2020-2021 period and this year's grants include funding of a further €15.2 million for the CIS.  

All available grant funding for 2022 has been allocated.