Cork County Council needs €800m to fix roads

Cork City Council workers filling in a pothole in the Glen area of the city. Picture: Brian Lougheed

Cork County Council needs €800m to bring its roads up to an acceptable standard, yet it has received the third lowest funding per kilometre for road repairs of any local authority.

All roads should be given structural upgrading every 20 years, but insufficient funding means the council can only achieve this every 50 years. That means improvements can only be made to 2% of the council's road network every year where the minimum required should be 5%.

The county has the biggest network of roads of any in the country but the government allocated just €6,000 per km to the council this year. Kildare got €11,000 and Limerick €10,000.

Council chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan said if Cork got the same funding per kilometre as Limerick it would have received €50m more. She described the rationale for differing grants per kilometre as "incomprehensible".

While some commentators lay the blame for the shortfall with Transport Minister Eamon Ryan, she said she had pointed out to senior Cork-based ministers that they're in government with him and also shoulder the responsibly.