Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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186. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he or officials in his Department have received a request from the Department of Rural and Community Development to contribute financially to the LIS scheme, and if so, if he will state his response(s) to the request(s); if he will provide an up-to-date response on whether he will contribute to the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18834/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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My Department has not received a recent request from the Department of Rural and Community Development to contribute financially to the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) programme.

The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads which have been taken in charge is the statutory responsibility of each local authority, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on those roads are funded from 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 maintenance of roads not taken in charge by local authorities is the responsibility of the relevant landowners.

The Local Government Act 2001 provides the statutory basis for the LIS. Under that scheme, funding can be provided to local authorities for the construction and improvement of non-public roads (that is roads not taken in charge by local authorities) which meet the criteria set out in the Act.

Up to 2012 this Department did provide ring-fenced funding for this scheme. However, due to the major cutbacks in roads funding arising from the post-2008 financial crisis, it was necessary for the Department to stop providing dedicated funding for LIS in 2012 and there was no funding for LIS in that year.

After that from 2013 to 2017, while there was no separate allocation for the Local Improvement Scheme, local authorities could use a proportion of their Discretionary Grant for the Local Improvement Scheme if they chose to do so. The reason this approach was taken was that it was considered that Councils were best placed to decide whether to concentrate the limited grant funding available on public roads or to operate a local improvement scheme for non-public roads.

In September 2017, the Minister for Rural and Community development reintroduced dedicated funding for the LIS and is continuing to fund the scheme. In light of the significant funding being put into LIS by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the need to direct resources into maintaining and renewing public roads, it was decided that the option of allocating a proportion of the Department's Discretionary Grant to LIS would no longer apply from 2018 and this has remained the position. In this context the major cuts to funding for regional and local roads during the post 2008 recession resulted in the build-up of a substantial backlog of works on public roads across the country. The estimated cost of the backlog is in excess of €5 billion. Cost inflation is also impacting current work programmes on public regional and local roads.