Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 September 2019
181. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to allocate specific funding to local authorities in the remainder of 2019 to carry out essential road repairs due to flood damage; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37946/19]
View answerThe improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of the relevant local authority in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on those roads are funded from the Council's own resources supplemented by State road grants. Details of the regional and local road grant allocations and payments to local authorities are outlined in the regional and local road grant booklets which are available in the Dáil Library.
I announced the 2019 Regional and Local Road (RLR) allocations in February and all grant funding available to my Department has now been allocated.
While there is no dedicated RLR funding for flooding, local authorities may carry out repairs from the RLR grants available to them and from their own resources. In this context, it is open to each Council to determine and reprioritise its work programme following severe weather events.
