Vol. 488 No. 3
96 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the proposals, if any, he has to give direction to those authorities with responsibility for upgrading, improvement and enhancement of national, primary, secondary, main and country roads; whether he has or will award funds to these authorities for the purpose of the implementation of plans in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6081/98]
The National Roads Authority has been assigned overall responsibility for the planning and supervision of works for the construction and maintenance of national roads. In that capacity, the authority is responsible for issuing guidance and direction to local authorities and for allocating grants.
The maintenance and improvement of non-national roads in their areas is a matter for the road authorities concerned, to be funded from their own resources supplemented by annual grants from my Department. These grants are allocated subject to general conditions and guidelines as set out in the memorandum on grants for non-national roads 1996-1999, which issued to all road authorities in June 1996, and in subsequent circular letters. As the Deputy will be aware, I recently allocated a record total of almost £200 million in non-national road grants to road authorities for 1998.
