The Green Party are out, and now more funding is already going to roads — that’s according to reports in the two most-read national daily newspapers and what has been reported on RTE, but it’s not based on reality.
The announcement on local and regional road funding — which largely relates to maintenance roads and upgrades of some roads — was made last week, but it was set as part of the last government’s last budget. The significant funding source is also not open to maintenance and upgrades of roads in the capital.
The Irish Times article on this year’s local and regional roads funding allocation ran with an online headline “More than €700m for new road projects as Healy-Raes claim ‘the people want tar’”. At the same time, the Irish Independent used the headline “How much of €713m post-Greens splurge will be spent fixing your country’s roads” in print (but the Green part not used online).
RTE.ie reported that, while speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Michael Healy-Rae, “said it meant the Government was listening to the people of Ireland.”
On Drivetime, junior Minister Healy-Rae said: “This Government has given a very clear commitment in the Programme for Government, and in this announcement today, by stating that the people want tar, and this Government will give it to them.”
The Irish Times reported on a “the Healy-Rae brothers” press release which said: “It is the dawning of a new era, the increase in the national budget for roads in such a short time of this new Government represents a sign of intent going forward, the people want tar and that is what we will give them.”
However, a spokesperson for the Department of Transport confirmed to this website: “Yes, the €713 million that was announced for regional and local roads was set as part of the Budget 2025 process.”
The Budget 2025 process was finalised last year, ahead of the election, when the Green Party was still in government.
A Dublin-based Green Party councillor, Cllr Oisín O’Connor, posted the Bluesky: “I’ve seen these ‘post-Greens roads splurge’ headlines off the back of last week’s announcement of road funding for councils outside of Dublin who don’t fund their own local road maintenance. This is standard annual funding that was increased every year by the last Minister for Transport too.”
Cllr O’Connor posted a GIF that includes screenshots of similar announcements from when Shane Ross and Eamon Ryan were in government.
Speaking to this website, Cllr O’Connor said: “I had to laugh reading the headlines and some of the commentary around the 2025 funding announcement for road maintenance. Some news editors seem to have pre-decided how they’ll frame funding announcements like this, regardless of what the facts are.”
“Looking at some of it, you’d think that the new government have suddenly magicked up millions of euro for local authorities that don’t allocate enough of their own resources to fix their roads,” he said.
Cllr O’Connor said the reality was that it is a “bog standard annual funding announcement” that has gradually increased each year, varying with factors such as construction price inflation.
“The €713m announced last week would’ve been secured by the Green transport minister under Budget 2025 negotiations, an increase on the €525m annual grant from the last FG-Independent government in 2020,” he said.
Cllr O’Connor added: “It’s also worth pointing out that 99.96% of this bumper funding for regional and local roads is spent on the 27 local authorities outside of Dublin. There’s no equivalent central government grants for repairing our capital city’s road and path network. Our roads and paths are maintained by the taxes that Dublin residents and businesses pay towards our local councils, and we make do with what we have.”
Headline local and regional road funding
| Year | Total funding | % increase | % of construction inflation |
| 2018 | €417m | NA | |
| 2019 | €483m | 15.8% | |
| 2020 | €525m | 8.7% | |
| 2021 | €555m | 5.7% | 12-13% |
| 2022 | €607m | 9.4% | 5-6% |
| 2023 | €626m | 3.1% | |
| 2024 | €658m | 5.1% | |
| 2024 (extra) | €30m* | NA | |
| 2024 (total) | €688m | 9.9% | |
| 2025 | €713m | 3.63-8.3%** |
* extra funding for regional and local roads announced in May 2024
** cannot be compared fully until next year in case there is extra funding this year too
Breakdown of funding when announced
| 2021 | 2023* | 2024 | 2025 | |
| road pavement strengthening | €260m | €298 m | €303m | €330m |
| preventative surface dressing work | €72m | €75m | €75m | €75m |
| maintenance and strengthening works for which local authorities have discretion in the selection of roads; | €84m | €84m | €84m | €84m |
| Specific and Strategic Regional and Local Roads Projects | €24m | €70m | €70m | €70m |
| bridge rehabilitation works | €18m | €16m | €16m | €18m |
| safety improvement works | €19m | €11m | €11m | €13m |
| drainage works | €20m | €20m | €18m | €18m |
| Community Involvement Schemes | €16m | €13m | €13m | €15m |
| completion of Active Travel projects (carryover from July 2020 Stimulus funding. | €13m | na | na | na |
| climate change adaptation/resilience works | €23m | €16m | €16m | €16.5m |
| Minor Improvement Works | €4m | |||
| signage | ??? | ??? | €1m | ??? |
| severe weather works | ??? | ??? | €22.5m | ??? |
| Former National Roads | ??? | €12m | €12m | €12m |
| Miscellaneous grants are also provided for a number of pilot initiatives, salt purchase, training, asset management and conducting pavement surveys | €12m | €11m | €16.5m | ??? |
I don’t understand why Cork city council received €11m in funding out of this, but Dublin City council and the other Dublin councils all received less than €200k
As far as I know, it’s a long-term policy of national Government. Up untill recently the local property tax collected in Dublin wasn’t fully staying there.
Apparently they’re now just cutting other funding to Dublin instead. Such a pointless system.
“Now the council is working on its 2025 budget, and has found that although the central government’s going to let it keep all its local property tax (LPT) this time – it’s going to reduce other funding to the council.”
https://dublininquirer.com/2024/11/20/demands-for-better-services-are-legit-but-council-cant-do-it-with-current-funding-says-city-ceo/