Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 November 2020
207. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Transport if correspondence (details supplied) will be reviewed; if his attention has been drawn to losses of vital funding to local authorities; his plans to review the matter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38344/20]
View answerThe improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads (RLR) 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 Council's own resources supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is also a matter for the local authority.
As a consequence of the local authority restructuring process in 2014, my Department reviewed the approach to allocating funding to local authorities to take account of the changes. The conclusion reached was that the best approach was to add the mileage of the former Town and Borough Councils, which used to receive Block Grants, to the mileage figures for the relevant county and the result would determine each county’s share of road programme allocations. This is now the basis for grants to each local authority. A factor taken into account in adopting this approach was the anomalies that had arisen over time in relation to the treatment of different towns and urban areas.
There are no plans at present to revise the existing arrangements.
It should be noted that the start of year grant allocation to Monaghan County Council in 2014 was €6.9 million as compared with €14.5 million in 2020.
