With the budget approaching, additional funding for the repair and maintenance of the rural road network should be at or near the top of the Government spending agenda. Since the recession it is estimated that there has been a shortfall of 300 million Euro annually in spending on the rural roads network and now the backlog of works needed could cost up to 3 billion Euro. County councils will admit that the amount of work that have been doing on road repair and maintenance over the past eight to nine years has been cut in half due to funding cutbacks.
Some of the roads in rural areas are now in a desperate state and more money is needed urgently to carry our essential repairs in every county. With various demands being made on the so called ‘fiscal space’ I am proposing that the Government set aside a substantial increase in funding for rural road repair in the forthcoming budget.