Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 31 Jan 1995

Vol. 448 No. 3

Adjournment Debate. - Border Area Roads Improvement.

Mr. Leonard

I propose to deal with the issues of main and county roads and national primary and national secondary roads. When the peace initiative was taken an order was made for opening Border roads. I congratulate the Department of the Environment on having moved so quickly and providing Monaghan County Council — in whose local authority area the greatest number of Border crossings were closed — approximately 50 — with £340,000 for their repair over the following three months. The Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland is charged with responsibility for bridges and culverts, as our Department is responsible only for the region up to the Border. In the instance I cite Monaghan County Council and the Department of the Environment in the North are to be congratulated on the speed, efficiency and manner with which that work was carried out.

However, it creates problems for Monaghan County Council because some of those 50 roads were mere culsde-sac, in some cases of four or five miles, serving as accommodation roads only for the people living along them. When traffic resumes on these roads we should be faced with a very substantial bill for reconstruction to accommodate that traffic. It must be remembered that practically all the concrete, gravel and stone products for the northern part of the county will be taking the shortest route across those roads. In addition, from the point of view of tourist development and cross-Border trade it is vital that funds are made available to render those roads passable.

The second problem is in relation to the cross-Border Operational Programme for Transport in which, when announced, it had been hoped that the Dublin to Derry and Dublin to Cavan, the N2 and N3 would have been included. We were led to believe that massive amounts of money would be spent on the N3, the Dublin to Derry road, with by-passes of a number of towns in the county, such as Carrickmacross, Castleblayney and Monaghan. Yet it transpires that out of a total of £1,099 million Cavan-Monaghan will receive £14.5 million, or 1.3 per cent of the total allocation. There are indications also of a further programme involving expenditure of £40 million but we will have very little hope of receiving much of that allocation if the same rule of thumb is applied as in the case of the original programme.

The Minister and the Government should urgently rethink this because I do not know how Ministers of any Government could justify funding for cross-Border development with an allocation of 1.3 per cent of the total. Even more blatant was the fact that funding was provided for the east coast, for the Dublin to Belfast and Sligo to Ennis-killen corridor, the national primary route. The national secondary route from Belfast is through Monaghan, Cavan and Galway to the west for which a sum of £275 million was provided under that programme, but not one penny was allocated to my constituency which has the worst roads structure east and west of Cavan town.

This fact belittles all the talk of initiatives, of cross-Border additional funding and the supposed interest in ensuring, with our counterparts north of the Border, that we will be able to develop initiatives in agriculture, tourism, energy or any other sphere. The only way we will be able to do so will be through an adequate roads structure. I appeal to the Minister to re-examine those two programmes.

Minister for the Environment (Mr. Howlin)

I welcome the opportunity afforded me by Deputy Leonard to address the House on this important issue.

Border roads merit priority because of their peripheral location in a national and European Union context and this was recognised in the EU INTERREG I Initiative which benefited certain non-national roads in Border areas. A framework for a joint INTERREG II Programme for Northern Ireland-Ireland has been submitted to the European Commission. The Commission is expected to give approval in principle to this programme shortly. I am confident that substantial funding will be available under INTERREG II. I will invite relevant local authorities to nominate projects for consideration for funding under this programme in the very near future. This programme will offer Border counties a good opportunity to improve deficiencies in their road network and make this region more economically viable.

The speedy reopening of cross-Border roads is an essential part of the peace process and I echo Deputy Leonard's sentiments in this regard. I am glad that good progress can be reported in this regard. By April 1995 it is expected that work will either be completed or under way on reopening the 113 public roads which were the subject of closure orders by the Northern Ireland authorities, with the exception of 14, 12 of which involve the building of large bridges, the funding for which is expected to come from the Northern Ireland authorities.

The reopenings on this side of the Border were made possible by additional grants totalling £677,500 provided by the Department of the Environment to the Border counties last year. The total cost of reopening all cross Border roads — excluding the N3 which is the responsibility of the National Roads Authority — is now estimated to be approximately £1.78 million. I am committed to making sufficient resources available to the Border counties this year to enable the reopening of cross-Border roads to be substantially completed in so far as this side of the Border is concerned.

In the case of national roads, the sole cross-Border route which has been cut because of the Northern troubles is at Aghalane Bridge on the N3. The broad outline of the works and financing for the reconstruction of the bridge have now been agreed between the two road authorities concerned. Funding of the works on the Southern side is a matter for the National Roads Authority but preliminary design work is already in hand. It is expected that construction will commence in 1996.

The aim of the cross-Border dimension to the Operational Programme for Transport is to link with the Northern Ireland arterial road network to provide, over time, a coherent strategic road network for the island as a whole. Road investment over the period from now until 1999 will concentrate on routes included in the trans-European road network which includes a number of cross-Border routes the A1-N1-N11 Larne - Belfast - Dublin - Rosslare, the N16-A4 Sligo-Belfast and the A5-N21-N1 Derry-Dublin roads. There are regular liasion meetings between the two roads administrations to discuss matters of mutual concern and to advance all those issues.

As regards non-national roads generally, responsibility for their maintenance and improvement is a matter for individual local authorities funded from their own resources, supplemented by annual State grants from my Department. I must point out this fact as many people are under the misapprehension that the Government exclusively is responsible for ensuring that non-national roads are maintained to the adequate standard. Therefore, I would encourage local authorities to allocate more funding from their own resources to ensure that the very substantial level of State funding is matched by a realistic level of local authority expenditure.

State funding for non-national roads is now financed generally by way of an annual discretionary grant to local authorities and grants under a European Union co-financed scheme for specific improvement road projects which promote employment and economic activity. In particular, under the latter scheme, co-financed projects must have a significant and quantifiable economic impact, particularly as regards tourism, employment, agricultural and rural development. Local authorities prepare and submit annually to my Department proposals in respect of improvement works on non-national roads which can be considered for funding under this scheme. All proposals received from local authorities for funding in 1995 under the European Union scheme are currently being evaluated.

The Government recognises the need for substantial State funding to supplement local authorities' own expenditure on the maintenance and improvement of non-national roads and will provide support for the Border region consistent with overall budgetary strategy and demands for funds generally. I am at present considering the position in relation to this year's road grants and I will notify local authorities of their allocations at an early date.