asked the Minister for Local Government if he will state whether experiments have been carried out by his Department to discover the relative merits of concrete surfaces as against tar-bound roads; and, if so, if he will state the results of such experiments.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Road Surfacing.
No such experiments have been carried out by the Department directly, but considerable experience has been amassed in the supervision of the various types of road works undertaken by local authorities and from the study of technical publications on the subject. Certain research is at present being undertaken on the initiative of the Department by the authorities of University College, Dublin, into the causes of the deformation of roads constructed on bog foundations. It would not be practicable to assess the relative merits of concrete and tar-bound surfaces without reference to the special factors affecting each particular project, such as availability of materials and money, relative costs of construction and of maintenance, nature of existing foundations and so on.