He said: "I am allocating a further €50 million for repairs and restoration of regional and local roads. The work will be carried out this summer and autumn. This funding will be provided directly to local authorities, which can start work on the repairs as soon as they receive the grants,” Minister Varadkar said.
"This additional €50 million will be a welcome boost for the road improvement programme and will allow repairs and renewal of road surfaces on an extra 600km of roadway. The proposed funding will be allocated to councils for use primarily on the restoration of road pavements (road surfaces as opposed to footpaths). This comes on top of the €350 million which was allocated to pavement works at the beginning of the year.
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"My Department is very conscious that two successive severe winters have taken their toll on the road network. While resources are limited, there is a risk that roads can deteriorate quite rapidly and are expensive to repair if repairs and maintenance are not carried out. This additional funding will help to address the shortfall in this area.
"At this point, I would once again like to remind local authorities that they also have a responsibility to allocate their own resources to road maintenance as they have primary responsibility for these roads under the Roads Acts. For this reason, local authorities will be allocated funding based on the length of road in their county as before, but with a top-up for councils that have a good record of investing their own resources in road maintenance in recent years."
(CD/MH)
