Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 June 2013
242. Deputy Tony McLoughlin asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the measures that he has taken to protect the regional and local road network; if he will commit to provide specifically for local improvement schemes funding to local authorities in certain regions of the country rather than the current situation where local authorities are allowed to provide funding under their existing capital budget. [30975/13]
View answerFirstly I would like to explain that the improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads, in its area, is a statutory function of each road authority in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of the Roads Act, 1993. Works on such roads are a matter for the relevant local authority to be funded from its own resources supplemented by State road grants.
I announced the 2013 regional and local road grant allocations in January this year providing €347million to local authorities for works on regional and local roads. I also provided an additional €2.7 million for drainage works on regional and local roads in March this year. More recently, (12 June) I announced an additional €50 million to County and City Councils for regional and local roads bringing the overall amount available in 2013 to approximately €400 million.
My Department and local authorities are working closely to develop new more efficient ways of delivering the best outputs possible with the funding available to them. In this regard, County Councils were provided with additional flexibility this year enabling them to transfer funding from their Restoration Improvement Grant to their Discretionary Grant.
As well as this, from 2014 onward funding for major improvement schemes on regional and local road is being discontinued and the main focus will be on the maintenance and repair of roads.
Under the Local Improvements Scheme (LIS) grant category, grants are provided to county councils for the construction and improvement of non-public roads. Given the financial circumstances priority is being provided to the public road network.
Local authorities may use up to 7% of their Discretionary Grant towards LIS should they wish to do so and it is a matter for local authorities to prioritise their works programme and decide if funding should be set aside from their Discretionary Grant for LIS. I believe that local authorities are best placed to judge the priority of such works and to allocate such funds. In this way, Local Authorities may decide whether they want to operate the LIS in their area or would prefer to put their resources into regional and local public roads. The alternative is that I make a decision to establish a specific fund for the LIS. However, this would involve making a pro-rata reduction to the other road grants headings, and imposing LIS on local authorities that would prefer to prioritise public roads. I do not believe that such an approach would be in the best interests of the road network or local democracy.
