Michael Fitzmaurice TD says that a recent report which revealed that up to 10,000 kilometers of rural roads are in need of repair has underlined the need for the Minister for Transport to “come up with a realistic and viable plan to tackle this problem nationwide as soon as possible”.
Commenting on the details of the report Michael Fitzmaurice said “Included in the report is the fact that there are many roads in Roscommon and Galway in need of repair and I am calling on Minister Ross to stand up to the plate on this issue.”
“When the estimates are published in the middle of the year I will be calling for the Minister to put in place a realistic plan in place to tackle these local regional and secondary roads so they can repaired over a number of years. The amount of money allocated for the repair of local roads has been cut in half since 2008 and it is time to put a new plan in place to address this situation” he added.
“There is another and very important aspect to this problem in that the Road Safety Authority are constantly, and rightly, highlighting driver behaviour like speeding, drink driving and other offences which lead to accidents, however the poor state of some of the roads around the country are never mentioned and it is certain that in some cases it is a factor in the cause of accidents too. This is an issue that I will be taking up with Minister Ross at the earliest opportunity” he concluded.