[Article] 'Dozens of millions' for road repairs

marmurr1916

From the Irish Times:

A MULTIMILLION-EURO road maintenance and repair programme is to be developed to create jobs in local communities, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar has said.

He was speaking ahead of this morning’s Cabinet meeting which is expected to discuss the forthcoming jobs initiative, tentatively scheduled for May 10th.

Dr Varadkar told reporters yesterday in Dublin his department would be contributing “a number of very positive measures”.

“On one side, I will be diverting some of my budget that has gone unspent this year into maintaining the roads. A lot of the roads around the country are in a terrible mess and there will be several million – it won’t be a small sum, it will be dozens of millions - that will be diverted into road repairs and creating jobs locally.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0503/1224295913187.html

Is it me, or has he just effectively announced a cut in the non-national roads repair budget from hundreds of millions to 'dozens of millions'?

What about the rest of the roads budget?

runway16

I didnt really read it like that.

My own understanding was that this would be a standalone sum, that would be purely for repair of roads damaged, as opposed to the general roads budget, which is used for various things, like new road contruction, signage etc etc.

But that of course is simply my own interpretation of the article.

Cookie_Monster

would be nice if they actually got on and fixed some of them...

The only thing I've seen done around here (Dublin / Wicklow) is all the dodgy bits have been spray painted yellow.

Viper_JB

That's great in theory but the only way I see any of the roads being properly maintained and repaired is to completely remove the local county concils from the repair work, or at least set some standards and guidelines for how the repairs are to be carried out.

Today I seen 5 county council workers shoveling lose tar into a series of pot holes which were being "repaired" for about the 6th-7th time since January, the just don't give a damn. Also on another road locally they just layed tar over an extremely bad section of road without removing the pothole filled surface below - the result a new looking road that drives like the surface of the moon.

A little bit of quality work on the repairs here would go a long way, we get no value for the money we spend on the roads in this country.

NFD100

Viper_JB wrote: »

That's great in theory but the only way I see any of the roads being properly maintained and repaired is to completely remove the local county concils from the repair work, or at least set some standards and guidelines for how the repairs are to be carried out.

Today I seen 5 county council workers shoveling lose tar into a series of pot holes which were being "repaired" for about the 6th-7th time since January, the just don't give a damn. Also on another road locally they just layed tar over an extremely bad section of road without removing the pothole filled surface below - the result a new looking road that drives like the surface of the moon.

A little bit of quality work on the repairs here would go a long way, we get no value for the money we spend on the roads in this country.

+1 I

I agree, I wouldn't let the Councils near them.