May I share time with Senator Buttimer? This was agreed by the House earlier today.
Road Network.
I can allow it.
I thank the Minister of State for attending the House to address this Adjournment matter. Since the two previous motions also referred to flooding, it is not surprising he is answering all of them. Obviously, my motion is more specific, in that it deals with the impact of the recent adverse weather on the primary, secondary and local road networks. The Minister of State will understand that many roads have disintegrated and are now in a terrible state. The weather conditions could not have been better for breaking up roads. First, there was flooding which was followed by a serious freeze, a thaw and then more flooding. Water lodged under roads and disintegrated them.
County Waterford, from where I come, has experienced particular problems, especially on high ground. There was a considerable snowfall on the mountains and when the snow thawed, the water from the mountains added to the heavy volume of rainwater. The Minister of State can imagine the serious flooding and damage this caused in the creation of potholes and channels and removal of culverts. There have been road closures in county and city areas. Owing to damage to the edge of roads, they have become almost impassable.
The Minister for Transport and the Taoiseach have stated no additional funds will be provided for local authorities. This is a disappointing stance to adopt. If roads are allowed to disintegrate and fall below a certain standard, reinstating them will prove costly. If we do not halt the damage — we are not yet out of winter and further freezing is predicted — reinstating roads will prove difficult. In County Waterford we have always prided ourselves on the local authority's investment in road maintenance, but that work has suffered a significant setback because the roads are disintegrating and subsiding.
I appeal to the Department and the Department of the Taoiseach. The road network is vital to the farming economy and business communities and in allowing children to get to school. If we do not invest in it following this serious damage, we will pay the cost in the future. Since September, Waterford County Council has had applications with the Department in connection with 30 to 35 normal reconstruction and restoration schemes, but it has not received approval from the Department. Applications in respect of the damage caused recently are adding to the backlog. Therefore, we need adequate investment if we are to undo the damage caused to the roads. While the Department has given approval to local authorities to use at their discretion existing funds, they would prefer it were they allowed to invest capital funds in the road network. I ask the Minister for Transport to consider this request to enable local authorities to invest now when the money is required.
I thank the Minister of State for taking this Adjournment matter and look forward to his response.
I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing me to table this motion and Senator Coffey for sharing time. The motion is simple — additional funding is required by Cork city and county councils and all other local authorities. The roads are in a dangerous condition, badly need to be reinstated and, as Senator Coffey stated, upgraded properly. I call on the Government to stop failing citizens and provide the required funding as soon as possible, as it is imperative that we repair the road system to make it safe. People should not be afraid in driving on them that they will cave in. Dykes and culverts should not be blocked.
This week I received from Cork County Council a reply to information I requested about its roads programme for 2010. It informed me by letter that it could not make a commitment to roads resurfacing or renewal because it had not received budgetary information from the Government.
We have had a period of unprecedented flooding, snow and ice, with the net result that our road system is in absolute tatters; it is in rag order. We now find there is no plan by the Government to assist local authorities or put in place a plan to fix the roads. It is an appalling failure and indictment of the Government.
Why do we not have an additional commitment for funding? What will we tell the people in Cork South-Central, those in the city and county? What will we tell the people in Grange Frankfield, Waterfall, Rochestown, Carr's Hill, Maryborough Hill and Carrigaline who are in gridlock every morning because they are avoiding potholes, roads that are flooded or because routes have caved in? Are we to tell them the resurfacing and road renewal programme is on hold and although the surface has taken a battering, it will be fine? We will have a 21st century country on one level and an 18th century road system.
I have made numerous representations on behalf of the constituents of Cork city and county councils regarding non-national roads. Estate roads are in poor condition and potholes litter roads in the Minister of State's constituency and others. We need a plan to improve the road conditions. Why can we not be creative and take people off dole queues? We could give engineers and labourers work in repairing and renewing our roads system.
I call on the Government, with the Minister of State as its representative, to provide additional money for cash-starved local authorities which do not have resources to fix the problem. Otherwise we will have a major difficulty in three or four months. As Senator Coffey noted, winter is not over yet. I look forward to the Minister of State's reply.
On behalf of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, I thank the Senators for raising this important matter. The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on those roads are funded from local authorities' own resources supplemented by State road grants paid by the Department. The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is also a matter for the local authority.
When road grants for regional and local roads are allocated each year, the Department does not hold a reserve allocation at central level to deal with weather contingencies. Such an arrangement would mean a reduction across all local authorities in the road grant allocations to them at the beginning of each year. Instead, the allocation made to local authorities is inclusive of the weather risk factor. Local authorities are expressly advised that they should set aside contingency sums from their overall regional and local roads resources to finance necessary weather related works.
The amount of money provided in the 2010 Estimates for funding regional and local roads is €411.177 million and this year's allocation will be based on that amount. The Minister hopes to announce these allocations by mid-February. In the meantime, the Minister has issued a circular to local authorities reminding them that with regard to local and regional roads, the role of the Department is to provide grants to supplement road expenditure by them. Some local authorities contribute as little as 5% to their total road expenditure from their own resources. Local authorities need to prioritise increased expenditure from their own resources on their own roads this year in view of the current difficult situation.
The Minister also asked in that circular that local authorities give priority to the repair of damage to regional and local roads caused by recent weather and he authorised them to incur expenditure under certain grant categories of up to 25% of the amount allocated for these categories in April 2009, pending the allocation of the 2010 grants. The Minister has also allowed the local authorities flexibility to revise their 2010 restoration improvement programmes.
The Department has asked local authorities to provide an assessment of the additional road costs incurred by them as a result of the November flooding and of the recent severe weather, over and above their normal winter maintenance expenditure, and to identify the principal components of the additional costs. The Department has received some information on the impact of the November flooding but the collection of information on the effects of the recent cold weather is ongoing. The Minister appreciates that it will take a while to establish precise costs as the damage is still becoming evident and being quantified on a daily basis.
The Minister has asked all local authorities to provide information as soon as possible. This will enable him to assess the full impact of the severe weather when deciding on the 2010 regional and local road grant allocations. In allocating those grants the Minister will prioritise expenditure to deal with damage caused by the recent exceptional weather. Considerable resources have been spent in recent years on both the national and regional and local road networks — some €5.6 billion since 1997. Every effort therefore must be made to safeguard this investment.
Our response to recent events will have to carefully target the available resources to address the most urgently required repairs, taking account of key factors such as safety, the strategic importance of the particular road, traffic levels, etc. For national roads, the National Roads Authority generally fully reimburses local authorities for their expenditure on winter maintenance on national primary and national secondary roads. The Minister is aware that this expenditure has also increased substantially owing to the bad weather. The NRA will be reviewing its expenditure priorities for 2010 in the light of the damage caused to national roads by the recent bad weather.
I would like to make a quick response. With due respect, the Minister of State has told us, more or less, what we already know. These are unprecedented times and we have had unprecedented weather. Everybody rightly expects an unprecedented response from the Government. The Waterford city and county local authorities have always invested in their roads network but nobody could have forecast the damage done by the recent adverse weather conditions.
Road users are paying substantial road tax and are entitled to expect some assistance from the Government. The Minister has not answered my question. Will the Government provide funds additional to those which have already been allocated in the roads budget? I know the normal funds are being considered by the Department and should be expected in mid-February. Will the Government provide additional funds because of the extra damage caused to our road network? It is essential.
I have a question. Although this does not pertain to the Minister of State's Department, his reply was disappointing. He said that the NRA generally fully reimburses local authorities for expenditure. Will the NRA assist, through Government funding, local authorities which will now have to spend extra money on the maintenance of roads to rectify damage done by inclement weather? I hope the Minister of State agrees that it is now necessary for the NRA, the Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to devise a plan to assist local authorities. If they do not, we will not have any roads left.
I will reply briefly to the two points. I specifically stated that the Department had engaged with the local authorities to identify the additional costs associated with the severe weather. The Senators mentioned the NRA as normally reimbursing local authorities but my final comment was that the NRA would review its expenditure priorities for 2010 in light of the damage caused. The important factor at this point is the new damage which is becoming evident every day. The Department is still collating that information from local authorities and a considerable amount is still due to the Department.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.40 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 27 January 2010.