There has been a welcome and much-needed increase in Government funding for the non-national road network in the last few years. Unfortunately, those increases have been more than offset due to the substantial increase in the costs of road construction and maintenance since 2021. The costs of bituminous overlay pavement products, concrete and aggregates, the main products used in roadworks, have risen dramatically. I would like assurance that in the mid-year review of the 2023 capital programme, priority will be given to a further allocation to local authorities of grant aid for regional, county and local roads. The councils in my constituency, Cavan and Monaghan county councils, have the capacity to put such funding to good use in the best interests of rural communities. This road network needs additional investment this year. Heavy rainfall over the last few months has caused further deterioration and damage to our local road network.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which he raised previously on the non-national roads sector. There is no doubt that inflation has eaten into the available resources. The total allocated this year for regional and local roads is approximately €626 million, €46 million of which is current expenditure and €580 million of which is capital, compared to €597 million overall in 2022. There was an increase this year in capital funding but as the Deputy said, much of that has been absorbed by inflation in the cost of materials in construction more generally. We take on board what the Deputy said about mid-term reviews and to examine what we can do this year regarding different stages of capital being deployed and whether we can deploy more capital for it this year.