Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank Deputy Healy for raising the issue of roads, road maintenance, the quality of roads and, quite rightly, the implications that can have on road safety. The Government has increased the level of funding provided for roads. I will follow up specifically with the Minister on what the Deputy said about Tipperary and the council's submission to the Department.
The budget for regional roads is around €718 million, which is higher than in previous budgets, and I think we allocated to Tipperary County Council just over €49 million as part of that. Quite a lot of it is for the renewal and protection of regional and local roads.
However, the Deputy is not wrong to highlight two challenges that councils are facing through no fault of their own. The first is the significant periods of adverse weather we had. Some parts of the country were more impacted by that than others. On top of that, there is the absolute truth that when commodity prices rise, inflation rises and the cost of doing something increases. We have seen figures out today that show the consumer price index rising again. The war on Iran, apart from to the horrific humanitarian consequences of war and conflict, is not consequence free in terms of economics and costs. I accept that local authorities through no fault of their own are having to deal with this as well.
As a Government, we will continue to keep these issues under review. At the moment we are working with local authorities specifically on the issue of storm damage and have asked for submissions to be sent in by local authorities. They will be assessed as speedily as possible. In my county, significant damage was done to roads as well. There is often a churn, if I can describe it as that, in capital spending, where there is often an ability to allocate and reallocate capital spending to these areas.
We will have to have an honest conversation. I do not mean this to be critical of councils at all but unfortunately rare weather events are not very rare any more. Therefore, as we set out our budgets each year for roads, we will need to be conscious of the proportion set aside or ring-fended for the inevitability of some adverse weather. We need to get a bit better at doing that so we do not find ourselves somewhat surprised by the sadly more frequent adverse weather events. More broadly, on the issue of the impact of the war on costs, this is something the Government is having to review right across the system. We cannot chase inflation. We need to be careful that we do not do anything to worsen the situation but we will continue to do all we can to support State agencies and local authorities in the delivery of projects. On foot of the Deputy raising this, I will specifically ask that the Minister for Transport consider the submissions made by Tipperary County Council and come back to the Deputy directly.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14