Vol. 409 No. 6
130 Mr. Flanagan asked the Minister for the Environment if his attention has been drawn to the very poor state of repair into which all public footpaths have fallen in the town of Mountmellick, County Laois; and the proposals, if any, his Department had to provide extra and additional funding to Laois County Council in order to enable necessary improvement works to be carried out.
The cost of maintaining footpaths on the national secondary route N80 in Mountmellick would fall to be financed from the grant of £166,000 allocated to Laois County Council for ordinary maintenance works on these routes in 1991. The programme of works to be undertaken with this grant is primarily a matter for determination by the local authority. There are no proposals before my Department for improvement works to footpaths on the N80 in Mountmellick. Any such proposal submitted by the local authority will receive full consideration.
The repair and improvement of footpaths on other roads and streets in Mountmellick is a matter for the local authority with the cost being met from the local authority's own resources supplemented by the discretionary grants allocated annually by the Department for regional and county roads. In the current year these grants to Laois County Council amount to £1.745 million.
The allocations already notified to local authorities absorb the total of the funds available to me for road grants in 1991 and there are no further funds at my disposal from which additional road grants could be provided at this time.
