The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority and Exchequer funding is intended to supplement local authorities’ own resources. In February this year I announced an Exchequer investment of €658 million in our regional and local roads across the State which represents an increase of €32 million over the 2023 allocations. Each local authority received an increase in funding for their Restoration Improvement grant. As regards the basis for allocating grants, within the available budget, the Department's grant funding for the maintenance of regional and local roads is allocated on as fair and equitable a basis as possible to eligible local authorities. In this context, grants in the main categories are allocated based on the length of the road network within a local authority's area of responsibility, with some account taken of traffic. It is envisaged that grants will continue to be made available on that basis.
Basing regional and local roads grant allocations on road conditions could result in an unequitable distribution of Exchequer funding. For example, local authorities that allocate higher levels of own resources funding to regional and local roads will have a larger proportion of roads with a higher condition rating than those with lower levels of own resources funding. Basing allocations on road condition could therefore disincentives local authorities from allocating own resources funding to roads maintenance.
It is important to note that where new road/road improvement projects are being implemented under the Specific or Strategic Grant Programmes, this can result in significant variances between the total amount of funding provided to local authorities with similar networks and this affects comparisons between different local authorities.
My Department and I appreciate that, within the overall parameters set for the grant programme, local authorities might need to target funding at particular problem areas and there is sufficient flexibility in the structure of the grant programme to allow for this. It is also open to each local authority to allocate its own resources to priority areas.
It should be noted that Exchequer funding for regional and local roads is intended to supplement realistic contributions from local authorities’ own resources. As the statutory road authorities for their areas, it is open to local authorities to prioritise investment on regional and local roads.
