Regional roads to get €618m funding boost

A €618 million package of grants for local and regional roads, the fifth year of record funding for non-national roads, was unveiled yesterday by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey.

But he warned local authorities that next year's grants would be cut if they did not keep up their share of the overall budget of almost €1 billion.

Mr Dempsey was speaking in Athlone, where he named Westmeath County Council as one of the local authorities which had taken up record increases in Government road funding, while letting its own contribution slip below an average local authority contribution of 30 per cent.

"State grants were not intended to replace local investment," the Minister said.

Among the worst performers is Co Leitrim, which this year receives €12.5 million from central Government, but which last year made a percentage local contribution in single figures.

Longford, which this year is set to receive €9 million, did slightly better than Leitrim according to the department, while the contribution of Westmeath was better again at 17 per cent. This year Westmeath is set to get almost €22 million.

Galway, which is set to get almost €37 million between the city and county, and Sligo, which is to receive almost €15 million, were described by department officials yesterday as more poor performers. Full figures for each county were not available yesterday but officials said they had no difficulty in "naming and shaming" councils which had fallen significantly below the average contribution. Officials added such figures would be available in a matter of weeks but pointedly are to engage with local authorities over the same time period to negotiate next year's local contribution. Mr Dempsey added that he wanted to see at least "20 per cent plus" from each local authority.

Another problem for the Department of Transport, which took over responsibility for non-national roads from the Department of the Environment last year, is that despite a decade-long programme of restoration, increased usage has identified a new group of roads which now need major remedial work.

Mr Dempsey said just over half of this year's allocation, some €310 million, would be earmarked for remedial work. Some €225 million of this will go towards road reconstruction while €85 million is to be used for restoration maintenance.

A further element of the programme will be €188 million for strategic roads which make a contribution to the National Spatial Strategy: roads which open up strategically placed landbanks for housing and related development in or adjacent to the most densely populated urban areas; projects which support economic activity.

The latter category includes roads which link to other transport infrastructure and which support agriculture, tourism, fishing and forestry.

Mr Dempsey said his third priority was road safety and in a move which may put him at odds with Cabinet colleague Brian Lenihan said he considered the deployment of "safety cameras" to be still part of the National Road Safety Strategy.