Here is a breakdown of the percentage of roads in each county that need repairs

Almost a fifth of the country’s network of regional roads is in need of major structural repair.

A new report commissioned by the Department of Transport has highlighted how 19% of more than 13,000km of main non-national roads were classified as requiring “structural rehabilitation” while 0.5% need complete reconstruction.

The Pavement Condition Study Report provides the results of a detailed review carried out during the second half of 2018 of the condition of the entire length of 686 regional roads extending to 13,150 kilometres.

It established that 30% of all regional roads were in very good condition and only require routine maintenance. Another 28% were classified in good condition but with relatively poor skid resistance.

The report revealed the proportion of regional roads requiring total reconstruction reached as high as 2.4% in Donegal and 1.8% in Mayo compared to the national average of 0.5%.

It said such roads were recorded as having “extremely poor ride quality, very significant structural weakness or extremely poor visual condition.”

Almost 30% of regional roads in Offaly and over a quarter in Donegal, Cork County and Mayo were classified as needing structural repair.

At the other end of the scale, 56% of regional roads in Roscommon were categorised as only requiring routine maintenance.

Other counties where over 40% of regional roads were effectively deemed in near-perfect condition were Leitrim, Galway City, Westmeath, Fingal. South Dublin, Louth Meath and Longford.

In contrast, less than 11% of regional roads in Cork City were assessed as only needing routine maintenance.

All regional roads were analysed on the basis of general condition, skid resistance, roughness, rut depth and surface texture with measurements taken for each 100 metres stretch of road.

Regional roads, which are designated by an “R” prefix provide important links between national roads and motorways and include some former national roads that were reclassified following the development of the country’s motorway network.

Under the control of local authorities, they account for about 15% of the entire non-national road network. Regional roads include the R113 (Belgard Road), R710 (Waterford Outer Ring Road) and R110 (Naas Road).

On roughness regarded as a measurement of “ride quality” Donegal had the worst regional roads followed closely by Mayo, Cork County, Clare and Cork City.

Westmeath, Roscommon, Louth and Kildare had the best surfaces for regional roads.

In terms of structural condition, Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and Cork County had the worst conditions with at least a quarter of all roads in these countries categorised as “poor” or “very poor”.

The regional roads with the best structural condition were found in the cities of Dublin, Galway and Cork where only 1% were “poor” or “very poor”.

On skidding resistance in wet driving conditions, the worst regional roads were found in Wexford, Galway City, Carlow, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Laois.

More than half of all roads in Galway City were categorised as “poor or very poor” on skid resistance.

In contrast, the roads with the best surface to resist skids were in Leitrim, Donegal, Sligo, Roscommon and Galway County.

Comparing the latest results with a similar survey conducted in 2011, the report said there was a substantial improvement in ride quality over the seven year period.

It showed 60% of the network was deemed very good or good in terms of the lack of vibration when driving on such roads with 25% categorised as poor or very poor.

The findings showed former national roads that had been reclassified as regional roads had the best surfaces followed by regional roads in Dublin and other urban areas.

Roads built on underlying peat, which account for a large proportion of the roads in counties like Donegal, Mayo and Galway, generally were in the worst condition.

The Department of Transport said it had provided grant assistance of €416.8m in 2018 and €483.4m last year to local authorities for work on regional and local roads.

It estimates that €630m is needed to be spent each year to keep the regional and local road network “in a steady-state condition”.

“As available grant funding is still significantly below ‘steady state” levels the main focus of grant allocation continues to be on road maintenance and renewal,” the department said.

It said expenditure was focused on specific policy objectives including work to protect road surfaces from water damage, road strengthening to lengthen the life of roads and winter maintenance.

“Some limited funding is available for road improvement schemes,” it observed.

The department pointed out that the National Development Plan provides for increases in capital funding for regional and local roads over the next few years, while current funding is reviewed annually as part of the Estimates process.