North Tipperary‘s 2009 allocation for local and regional road maintenance has been slashed by more than €4million. Deputy Noel Coonan has expressed deep frustration at this savage cut which represents a quarter of the 2009 grant allocation. Following the April Supplementary Budget, revised allocations were notified to local authorities and the actual figure for North Tipperary has just been revealed.
North Tipperary County Council’s allocation was dramatically cut by €3,731,000. Nenagh Town Council and Thurles Town Council both witnessed a 40% drop from €287,000,000 to €177,000. Templemore Town Council also lost 40% or €78,000 of its allocation. This amounts to a total of €4,029,000.
Deputy Coonan stated:
“The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is determined by Department for Transport resources and yet again the Government is putting lives at risk by another unfair and unsafe budgetary constraint. We needed this money to carry out vital works such as calming measures, road alleviations, flashing lights at schools, bridge improvements and patching of potholes. This move will inevitably cost jobs, a measure we can ill afford in North Tipperary as the Live Register grows steadily. Last February Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey TD unveiled a huge programme to repair Ireland’s network of local and regional roads. At the time he said: “The Programme involves projects in all areas that support employment and economic activity”. Now the Transport Minister has done a huge u-turn to the detriment of North Tipperary roads, many of which have been very badly battered over the Winter. This deals a dangerous blow to road safety across the constituency. The programme was desperately needed to eradicated numerous accident black spots and possibly saved lives as a consequence. I’m extremely disappointed to see these cuts come into place because I know this is of great concern to those living in rural Ireland who are travelling unsafe and uneven roads infested with craters everyday.”
Local and regional roads account for 94% of the Irish network. They carry about 60% of all traffic and 43% of all goods traffic.
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