Contractors and subcontractors across Tyrone and Fermanagh are close to paying off road workers due to the Department for Regional Development's (DRD) practice of funding roads maintenance through unpredictable monitoring rounds money and not the department's budget; according to the SDLP.

SDLP West Tyrone MLA Joe Byrne is calling for a meeting with the DRD Minister Danny Kennedy to highlight the seriousness of the issue.

He said: "Over the past weeks, maintenance roads contractors like Clarke's in Lisnaskea have been told that there are no monies available for ongoing roads maintenance, particularly affecting the Tyrone and Fermanagh area.

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"For the last number of years, road maintenance works has been funded out of the quarterly monitoring round monies decided on by the Executive on an ongoing basis.

"Unfortunately, the June monitoring round, which was only concluded in July, has resulted in severe cuts to monies allocated for roads maintenance. Currently, negotiations on the October monitoring rounds are ongoing but once again roads maintenance allocated contracts will be badly reduced.

"Some roads contractors in Tyrone and Fermanagh are on the verge of laying off many road workers and tarmac squads and this will also affect subcontractors.

"Hundreds of road workers have been given advanced notice of the impending redundancies which are likely to happen before Christmas across Northern Ireland.

"The Department of Regional Development should have been financing roads maintenance work out of its mainstream budget and not depending on monitoring round monies, which is an uncertain and unpredictable practice."

(CD/JP)