I requested county and city engineers to take speedy action on potholes when I met them on 12 April last. As one would expect, the response was a very positive one and I was assured that such action would be taken as weather conditions improved and permitted. In particular the engineers agreed to carry out in the following weeks a crash programme to deal with the backlog of urgent repairs.
The cost of works on non-national roads falls to be financed from local authorities' own resources, complemented by discretionary grants from my Department. In 1989, I introduced a new discretionary grant mechanism involving both a block grant for improvement of regional and county roads, and also a block grant for maintenance of these roads.
This was the first time that State road grant assistance was made available for maintenance works on county roads. Prior to that, road grants could not be used for that purpose. There are no proposals to change the present arrangements.