An allocation of €15,541,817 was made to Westmeath County Council on January 21 for national roads, a senior official has informed councillors.
Head of finance, Jimmy Dalton, told the council’s finance meeting on Monday of last week that the fund was made up of an allocation of €12,941,838 for improvements, €599,979 for maintenance and €2,000,000 for greenways.
The improvements funds are intended for the N4 Mullingar to Longford (Roosky); the National Cycle Network Maynooth to Galway Cycleway Design; the N52 Cloghan to Billistown Phase 1 and Phase 2; and the N55 Athlone to Ballymahon.
Regional and local roads
Mr Dalton revealed on the that same day, the council received allocations totalling €11,358,181 in respect of Regional and Local Roads – an increase of €1.5m on last year’s figure. Of that sum, €500,000 is for the maintenance of former national roads.
In response to a request from Cllr Tom Farrell on what the maintenance of former national roads plans were, Mr Dalton said that what was significant about the allocation was that it was a new allocation, while director of services, Barry Kehoe, said the allocation was primarily for the old N6, which is still very heavily used.
“It is suffering some distress,” he stated, adding that it takes quite a bit of money to maintain it.
