Emergency Roads Funding Will Cover Less Than 100 Kilometres - Ó Súilleabháin

Less than 100 kilometres of storm damaged roads will be repaired under Government funding according to a Sinn Fein TD.

Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin says while the emergency funding of 13.4 million euro was welcome, it was only a drop in the ocean of what was needed.

Engineers in the county has asked for 30 million euro to repair surfaces damaged by Storm Chandra but government officials say Wexford received the highest allocation of money in the country.

Deputy Ó Súilleabháin says it won't amount to much when the funding gets divided up:

"Say if you were just doing tarmacing, you'd cover less than 100 kilometres because a kilometre of tarmac is roughly 150 thousand euro now to get done.

"You'd cover about 20 kilometres per district if you were just doing tarmacing alone. It's far less than what was required."

Deputy Ó Súilleabháin says more funding is needed for Wexford roads and the recent announcement was only piecemeal.

The Wicklow Wexford representative says it was a scary time for people during that storm and it can't be allowed to happen again:

"I know after the storm, there was 5 roads that were closed due to being unsafe to drive on.

"I remember a schoolbus in the Bunclody area which went down into a road in Ballyroebuck and it was like basically sinking into quicksand that's how much the road has disintegrated.

"What we need is a complete rebuilding programme for the structures of the roads."

Local politicians are now being called on to push for at least 10 million euro more funding for roads repairs every year.

Deputy Ó Súilleabháin says Wexford needs almost 200 million to bring the roads up to an acceptable standard and it's time to start thinking long term:

"You'd need around 194 million euro so what we need is basically every Oireachtas member, the public and every county council member and official to really raise our voices on this issue.

"We'd need at least 10 million euro extra a year so we over the coming decade we can start rebuilding the roads of Wexford."

The Sinn Fein man is also asking the Government to live up to its commitments and match the funding for roads put in by local authorities.

He says we should have seen a change to how the system works by now:

"What had been promised to Wexford was if counties put in a large amount of their own resources into doing their roads they were supposed to be compensated for that but the Government never did that.

"However, they did bring in a recent change in the Programme for Government where they said they would match the local government funding.

"We need that extra matching funding over the next decade. We can't just rest on our laurels because we got this 13 million euro recently. That's a pressure that will have to be kept up into the future."

That report was funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.