The recent period of bad weather has taken a huge toll on our roads, especially many of our local and regional roads.

I am aware that many Local Authorities are already taking action to repair badly damaged roads. In order to facilitate Local Authorities in their work I have asked the Department to issue instructions to Local Authorities as follows:

1. Local Authorities should now prioritise works on roads damaged in the recent adverse weather;

2. Local Authorities can spend up to 25% of last year’s road allocations immediately under the Restoration Improvement grant, Discretionary Maintenance Grant, Discretionary Improvement Grant and Special Block Grant to address the damage caused by recent severe weather while they await their 2010 allocations;

3. Local Authorities will be allowed flexibility to revise their 2010 Restoration Improvement Programme. Any revisions should be forwarded to the NRA as a matter of urgency.

The role of the Department in relation to local and regional roads is to provide grants to SUPPLEMENT road expenditure by Local Authorities. Some Local Authorities contribute as little as 5% to their total road expenditure from their own resources. Local Authorities need to prioritise increased expenditure from their own resources on their own roads this year in view of the current difficult situation.

The full allocation of €411 million will be notified to Local Authorities in the next few weeks.

I have also asked Local Authorities to submit details of the extra expenditure incurred by them on ‘gritting’ the roads during the bad weather and to report on the scale of the damage caused by recent weather conditions.