I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in relation to the national roads. The construction, improvement and maintenance of individual national roads is a matter for the National Roads Authority. Approximately €1.115 billion will be spent by the NRA on national roads in 2010 and the allocations to local authorities were recently published.
The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is a function of road authorities under section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. The selection, prioritisation and carrying out of works on these roads is a matter for the relevant local authority to be funded from its own resources supplemented by State road grants.
When Exchequer grants for regional and local roads are allocated each year, my Department does not hold back a reserve allocation to deal with weather contingencies, as this would mean a reduction in the allocations made to all local authorities at the beginning of each year. The allocations made to local authorities are inclusive of a weather risk factor. They are expressly advised in the annual road grants circular letter that they should set aside contingency sums from their overall regional and local roads resources to finance necessary weather related works.
I have asked local authorities to provide details of exceptional road related costs associated with the recent flooding and prolonged severe weather, which fall outside the normal financial provision for winter maintenance. I will consider this information when deciding on the allocations, which I will announce shortly. A key priority will be to safeguard the considerable investment in the road network over the past ten years and to carefully target resources to address on a prioritised basis the most urgently required repairs.
