Louth TD makes plea for additional government funding to help fix roads
Additional funding for the Local Improvement Scheme in Louth
A plea for additional government funding to fix roads badly damaged in flooding in north Louth last year, was made in Leinster House last week by Sinn Féin TD Ruairí Ó Murchú.
He used questions to Minster for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys to ask if she would consider providing additional funding for the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) in Louth.
Deputy Ó Murchú said: “The LIS will be needed to deal with some of the damage that is being done to those local lanes and roads, and it is worse than the usual set of circumstances.”
In response, Minister Humphreys said an additional €1 million will be made available to the LIS in 2024, bringing the total State-wide funding pot to €13.55 million.
She said the details of the scheme will be announced “imminently” and “officials will be in contact with local authorities regarding the detail”.
Deputy Ó Murchú welcomed the additional funding. He said: “We are all aware of the necessary works that have been done and while local authorities will, in normal times, be able to prioritise, the problem with this is that the huge level of damage done by the recent flooding has impacted on a huge number of lanes that even the people who live on them may not have considered until now.
“We have already seen roads that at times were probably dealt with by the CIS where the local authority had no choice but to deal with those.
“Therefore, there is a particular anomaly here and we need to look at funding for those roads damaged by such freak scenarios as the recent flooding.”
Minister Humphreys said she accepted that Louth “certainly has an issue with storm damage” and, having visited Cooley in the aftermath of the flooding, she had seen the scale of the damage for herself.
She said she intends to meet with her officials shortly about the LIS. She said: “I will certainly look at this and consider what we can do.
“If there is any flexibility we can provide, depending on the road in question, the local authority and indeed the Department of Transport may be able to assist as well. However, I do not think I have been found wanting in terms of the LIS.”
The Louth TD also brought up the need for a funding scheme for damage done by flooding to farms. Deputy Ó Murchú said Louth County Council also has a €260,000 application in for initial, post-flood mitigation works.
He said: “As regards the Department of Transport, there is an ask in of €1.6 million because of the huge damage that was done to the local road infrastructure and there are wider works that need to be done in mitigation and drainage, and that is before we even talk about the works that need to be done by Uisce Éireann and others in fixing the drainage system in Dundalk.”
Minister Humphreys said: “My Department is continuing to engage with my colleague, the Minister for Transport, regarding his Department contributing to a jointly-funded LIS so that we can further address the very high demand under LIS, but I understand the difficulties people encounter whenever there is severe flooding like there was on the Cooley Peninsula.”