With a general election less than 12 months away, I am glad that it is the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dan Wallace, a fellow Cork man, who will reply to this debate, because the single biggest issue in that campaign in Cork will be the condition of the roads. I have rarely seen the level of anger and frustration of local communities all over my constituency and all over County Cork at the condition of the roads and the perception that we are not getting our fair share of the cake. In raising this matter here, I lay the blame fairly and squarely at the door of the Government, the Department of the Environment and Local Government, the Minister and the Minister of State.
The reply to a parliamentary question I tabled late last year shows clearly that Cork County Council has received the lowest allocation per kilometre of public road of any local authority over each of the past five years. Having got that information, I spoke to the Cork county manager, the county engineer and a number of senior executive engineers in the county council and the council sent a detailed submission to the Department on 10 May last. I will deal in some detail with the contents of that submission. The letter from which I wish to quote was sent by the Cork county manager to Mr. Niall Callan, assistant secretary of the roads division of the Department. I am sure the Minister of State will accept that the county manager is not given to exaggeration. His submission is based on facts. The letter states that Appendix A in the submission shows the results of Cork County Council's examination of the county's non-national roads network broken down into the council's three divisions, and that it shows that 53% of the network is substandard and, in its present condition, requires £230.7 million of expenditure to bring it up to standard at current prices.
At the current rate of grant allocation, and assuming that the roads do not dis-improve, it will take between 14 to 22 years in the three divisions to bring the roads up to standard. This council has expended the following sums out of its own resources to fund over-expenditures on the restoration programme rather than cutback on the length of restorations – 1998, £282,000; 1999, £995,000; 2000, £918,000. This expenditure is in addition to the present annual spend of £15.5 million of council's own resources on the maintenance of the non-national road network.
This assessment taken in conjunction with our analysis of the published list of country-wide allocations, shows that Cork County Council is not receiving an equitable proportion of the national allocation. In 2001, Cork County Council will receive only 77% of the national average allocation per kilometre. In 2001, Cork County Council will receive only 25% of the allocation of Kildare County Council.
It is interesting to note that Kildare County Council has a total number of kilometres of 2,086, while Cork County Council has 11,582 kilometres:
Our actual allocation for 2001 is £26.98 million. If Cork County Council had been treated in accordance with the national average, or with three selected counties, its allocation would be as follows: the national average is £4.8 million; Monaghan County Council, £46.4 million; Meath County Council, £55.6 million; Kildare County Council, £109.4 million.
Based on the assessment which the council has carried out, this would mean an annual allocation of £102 million at current prices.
The Minister for the Environment and Local Government wrote to me on 13 February, 2001:
For your information I have recently announced a record grant of almost £27 million in non-national road grants for Cork County Council in 2001. This represents an increase of 15% on the initial road grant to the county last year. I am confident that this substantial increase will provide the necessary support to the county for much-needed works.
The reality is that the allocation is £27 million, the assessed needs are £102 million. Much of the damage is in the Blarney area office, an area well-known to the Minister of State, the Blarney to Killarney route that goes from Blarney onwards to Macroom, the road from Coachford to the Angler's Rest, the road from Cloghroe onwards towards Donoughmore, Crean's Cross to Coachford. The Minister of State knows all these roads, they are in a disastrous condition. The Minister of State's Department cannot continue to discriminate against Cork County Council in the fashion that it has. As a Corkman, the Minister of State's performance has been abysmal and he has twelve months to rectify it.
