County Tipperary has more than 5,900 km of road and, based on the current pavement surface condition index ratings, it would cost more than €300 million to bring all the road network to a good standard, that is to the Department's rating of at least seven. According to Department of Transport guidelines, Tipperary County Council should treat 5% of the road network or 295 km under the road improvement programme annually and another 5% under the road maintenance programme. That is a total of 590 km. In the past five years, the council has only been able to treat an average of 300 km each year, or 5.1%, only 50% of the Department's target. To achieve the 10% target, a doubling of the Government allocation from €23 million to €46 million would be required.

The Department of Transport discretionary road grant has remained static since 2020 and the Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, grant has also plateaued. In the same period, from 2020 to 2025, costs have increased dramatically with road construction and road maintenance inflation of more 30%. The result is that the roads output has reduced by more than 20%. It also means that in a county with limited public transport where people need cars to go to school and work, roads have potholes and are substandard, with many stretches bordering on being unsafe.

On top of this bad situation, things have become significantly worse due to the illegal US war on Iran. As the Tánaiste will be aware, fuel prices have gone through the roof and this will cost Tipperary County Council roads department a further €400,000 in 2026. Bitumen prices have similarly soared, costing the roads department an additional €410,000 in 2026. The price of stone, concrete and Macadam have also soared sharply. A further significant cost has arisen from the damage done to the road network during the severe winter, which cost the council more than €600,000.

The council has lodged a submission with the Department of Transport seeking funding to cover this. Tipperary County Council roads department is urgently seeking funds to cover these unexpected costs of close to €1 million arising from the war in Iran and €600,000 for costs related to the severe winter weather.

I thank Deputy Healy for raising the issue of roads, road maintenance, the quality of roads and, quite rightly, the implications that can have on road safety. The Government has increased the level of funding provided for roads. I will follow up specifically with the Minister on what the Deputy said about Tipperary and the council's submission to the Department.

The budget for regional roads is around €718 million, which is higher than in previous budgets, and I think we allocated to Tipperary County Council just over €49 million as part of that. Quite a lot of it is for the renewal and protection of regional and local roads.

However, the Deputy is not wrong to highlight two challenges that councils are facing through no fault of their own. The first is the significant periods of adverse weather we had. Some parts of the country were more impacted by that than others. On top of that, there is the absolute truth that when commodity prices rise, inflation rises and the cost of doing something increases. We have seen figures out today that show the consumer price index rising again. The war on Iran, apart from to the horrific humanitarian consequences of war and conflict, is not consequence free in terms of economics and costs. I accept that local authorities through no fault of their own are having to deal with this as well.

As a Government, we will continue to keep these issues under review. At the moment we are working with local authorities specifically on the issue of storm damage and have asked for submissions to be sent in by local authorities. They will be assessed as speedily as possible. In my county, significant damage was done to roads as well. There is often a churn, if I can describe it as that, in capital spending, where there is often an ability to allocate and reallocate capital spending to these areas.

We will have to have an honest conversation. I do not mean this to be critical of councils at all but unfortunately rare weather events are not very rare any more. Therefore, as we set out our budgets each year for roads, we will need to be conscious of the proportion set aside or ring-fended for the inevitability of some adverse weather. We need to get a bit better at doing that so we do not find ourselves somewhat surprised by the sadly more frequent adverse weather events. More broadly, on the issue of the impact of the war on costs, this is something the Government is having to review right across the system. We cannot chase inflation. We need to be careful that we do not do anything to worsen the situation but we will continue to do all we can to support State agencies and local authorities in the delivery of projects. On foot of the Deputy raising this, I will specifically ask that the Minister for Transport consider the submissions made by Tipperary County Council and come back to the Deputy directly.

I thank the Tánaiste. Good road conditions are vital for County Tipperary. It has limited public transport and is largely a rural county. People who work in any of our towns such as Clonmel, Tipperary town, Cashel, Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir, Thurles, Roscrea or Nenagh must drive to work and people who go to third level institutions in Clonmel or Thurles must drive. People who shop in any of those towns or go there for entertainment must drive. Poor quality road surfaces contribute to road traffic accidents causing injury and death. As I already said, road conditions have deteriorated in the past five years because of static Government grants and inflation. The war in Iran has increased costs significantly. Will the Tánaiste confirm whether Tipperary County Council will be compensated for those unexpected costs, which it has no control over?

I can confirm this morning that we are working our way through the various impacts of the storm damage and we will continue to engage on that. I also acknowledge that the Government has been increasing public funding. I am not directing this at the Deputy but I hear public bodies speaking as though they are speaking at a time of reduction, while public spending has only gone in one direction and that is up. I absolutely assure the Deputy that Tipperary County Council has received more support across a variety of funding heads from this Government than it did in previous years. I also acknowledge the funding we provided for the main street in Tipperary town and the ongoing works on the N24 from Cahir to Limerick. I think €2.7 million was allocated to that.

However, the Deputy referenced specific issues, including storm damage and the impact of the war. We need to work our way through these in a methodical fashion. However, I have to make the point - and it is not specific to Tipperary - that we cannot have a situation where local authorities find themselves surprised by adverse weather, climate change and storms. Sometimes things can be worse than we expect but we need to get better at planning and factoring into our roads budget and other budgets that damage can happen to infrastructure due to adverse weather. I will ask the Minister to come back to the Deputy.