€557m to be spent on local roads upgrade

Cork County Council is to receive €50.5 million towards the cost of improving non-national roads this year.

The payment, part of a €557 million payout by central Government to upgrade the State's lesser roads, is the largest amount payable to any one local authority.

Waterford City Council will receive the second largest amount in 2006, at more than €32 million; Meath County Council will get almost €30 million; Galway will get almost €29 million and Kildare is to get get almost €27 million.

However, local authorities which have been using record Government funding to reduce the proportion of finance they provide themselves, may get less money next year, the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, has warned.

Announcing the 2006 non-national road grants which are administered by his department, Mr Roche warned local authorities he would not tolerate them using extra Government money to reduce their share of the cost.

He was speaking after the town council in his home constituency of Bray, Co Wicklow, revealed it was to spend just €57,000 from its own budget on roads in 2006, while the Exchequer "top-up" amounts to €600,000.

Elsewhere, Cork County Council's contribution has gone from €10 million, with a Government subvention of €12 million about a decade ago, to €17 million, with a Government subvention of €40 million, according to Department of the Environment figures.

While local authorities have been receiving record year-on-year increases in funding for local roads - the actual amount has quadrupled to €557 million since 1994 - commercial rates levied by the local authorities have also been rising faster than inflation - to about 4 per cent last year. In addition, development levies payable to local authorities have risen to a high of €333.7 million in 2004, the last year for which figures are available.

And while National Development Plan spending on local roads is ahead of target, the Government is concerned that cash- rich councils are no longer spending as much of their budget on roads as they did previously.

Mr Roche said he was planning to display the level of funding contributed by each local authority, contrasted with that supplied by the Exchequer, on his department website.