Local TD Denis Naughten has welcomed an additional allocation of funding for regional and local roads in counties Roscommon and Leitrim.

For 2011 an additional allocation of €2,227,000 for Roscommon County Council and an additional €1,310,700 for Leitrim County Council has now been approved by the Department of Transport.

Speaking about the investment, Denis Naughten said: “I welcome this important investment of over €3.5 million by Government in our local and regional roads in Roscommon and Leitrim. While the funding will be used by the local authorities for the maintenance of roads, for surface dressing and safety improvement works, the main priority for this year’s Government allocation is for the local authorities to target resources for urgent repairs required on regional and local roads.

“The maintenance and upkeep of our local/regional roads is imperative as they have an important economic role and have valuable social and community functions. They carry about 60% of all traffic and 43% of all goods traffic. I am pleased that this additional allocation has been provided by the Department of Transport and will supplement the funding already allocated by both Roscommon and Leitrim County Councils in this important area of maintenance and road rehabilitation work.

“As a result of this investment road works that were planned for 2012 can now be brought forward for upgrading to the current year. Priority will be given by the Councils to ensure the upgrade of the roads presently with the poorest road surfaces,” concluded Denis Naughten.

Copy of Ministers announcement below:
Dear Deputies,

Minister Varadkar asked me to bring this to your attention. As part of today’s Jobs Initiative, County Councils are being provided with an additional €60 million for the Regional and Local Roads Investment Programme. This funding is being provided under the Restoration Improvement Programme.

Under this Programme, County Councils have submitted a three year programme (for the period 2011 – 2013) identifying the roads most in need of improvement in their area. The additional funding being provided under the Initiative will enable local authorities to bring forward works on roads which were not scheduled to take place until 2012. The funding will bring about an improvement in the condition of approximately 650km of regional and local roads at 554 different locations throughout the country.

The additional funding being provided to each of the county councils is set out below. I have attached the provisional list of roads which will be funded across all the local authorities. This is broken down by specific local authority. This list sets out the projects that the additional funds will allow to be carried out in 2011 rather than 2012. This however is a provisional list, and there will be scope for county councils to prioritise other roads which may be lower down their existing lists.

No provision was made for city council areas as they get a discretionary block grant for roads which was not cut in 2011. A further €15m has been provided for smarter travel and public transport infrastructure projects mostly in the cities. €1m has been allocated to refurbish 20 commuter train station around the country (a low cost measures). Further details will be announced in due course.

In the region of 1,000 jobs will be created through this combined investment.

Kind regards,

John

John Carroll
Policy Adviser to Minister Leo Varadkar

2011 Restoration Improvement (RI) Grant Allocations