THE call has gone out from councillors for the proposed 2026 Roads Schedule of Municipal District Works to be prepared to ensure an equal allocation of the budget, per kilometre of road network, across the county.
Speaking at January’s full meeting of Limerick City and County Council, Independent councillor Brigid Teefy told local authority management that the current situation with the roads budget is not sustainable in the Cappamore-Kilmallock area.
According to Cllr Teefy, the costs of maintaining the road network have risen sharply with no funding increase to match financial pressures.
“Each district is responsible for its own network, but the funding allocated does not reflect the scale of what is required,” she insisted.
Cllr Teefy pointed out that the Cappamore-Kilmallock district alone is responsible for 211km of regional roads and 1,063km of local roads – 33 per cent of the Council’s entire network.
“This is an enormous network to maintain with traffic on rural roads increasing dramatically. These routes serve workers, schoolchildren, commercial transport, agricultural machinery, and the daily movement of our communities,” she told the Council.
“Roads that were never designed for today’s volumes and weights are being pushed beyond their limits and we’re expected to maintain them without the necessary investment.”
She raised further concerns about the Council’s own resource contribution to the roads budget, which she deemed “insufficient”. She asked if funds are diverted to other services at the expense of rural roads.
She brought the R513 in particular to the Council’s attention, which she said was in urgent need of overlay as it carries a constant flow of heavy good vehicles and commuter traffic.
“The Council recently received €18million in active travel funding, yet €2.5m only goes to rural areas. For these reasons I am calling on the Director of Services to write to the Department to seek additional funding for our rural roads. The current allocation is not sufficient and the population in the rural areas deserve a good network,” she told the meeting
Independent councillor Eddie Ryan seconded the motion, saying the district is already dealing with in the first heavy rainfall of 2026, which he said is a major factor due to rural terrain.
“We’ve got hills, mountains, valleys, the whole lot, so we do suffer that little bit more than some areas of lower land. These are all factors,” Cllr Ryan explained.
Cllr John O’Donoghue (IND) said that when it comes to Limerick roads – 24 per cent of which are in his own electoral area of Adare-Rathkeale – the funding is not stacking up in the county’s best interests.
“We’re putting on sticking plasters, trying to tar patch, we need to get a lot of them reconstructed but it is not happening,” Cllr O’Donoghue inquired.
Fine Gael councillor Peter Doyle told Council members that he would support the allocation of additional Government funding to help the rural roads. However, he said he would oppose it if it was coming out of the coffers of the Metropolitan District.
“I think it would be better if the motion took into account population, facilities, and needs because there’s a large hospital in Limerick City West, we have a university in Limerick City East. All the people in the county have to travel in on our roads to get to facilities. We also have to provide road resurfacing in housing estates and we too are waiting a long time to get many housing estates surfaced,” Cllr Doyle commented.
Cllr Stephen Keary (Adare-Rathkeale) supported the call for an equal distribution of funds per kilometre of road, and challenged the Council’s Roads Department to act.
“Regarding what Cllr Doyle is saying, I don’t agree with him in any way because for people to get into the city they have to come through the county in most cases, so they have to travel our roads as well. I would say that most of the city roads are asphalted and tarmacadamed where the county roads are all tar and chips, particularly the local roads which are more vulnerable,” Cllr Keary said.
“These roads do need more maintenance so until a time that they can be asphalted and tarmaced we are going to have problems. The monies have to be more evenly distributed between the city and county,” he added.
Cllr Dan McSweeney (FG) deemed the motion from the Cappamore-Kilmallock members as a difficult one for him as someone who proudly lives in County Limerick. The Limerick City West representative said he would not stand over people coming into the Council chamber trying to “raid the coffers off the city”.
“Life would be so simple if we could divide everything up into road length. I can support what Cllr Teefy set out that she wasn’t looking to take money from the city, it was that more money would go into the county, but don’t come and try and rob the city,” Cllr McSweeney hit out.
Council Príomh Chomhairleoir, Cllr Catherine Slattery, reminded county Council members that there’s “an awful lot of housing estates in the city with roads in and out”.
“That counteracts ye as well.”
In response to the proposal, the Council’s Director of Transport, Patricia Liddy, assured Council members that the schedule of municipal works, which also includes applicable grant allocations, is appointed in a fair and balanced manner across all districts.
The distribution, she explained, is informed by criteria, which includes the approved three-year roadworks programme submitted by the Department of Transport, an assessment of pavement condition and maintenance needs, low-cost safety improvement works for regional and local roads, the extent of the roads network and population distribution, and traffic volumes and traffic counts at road locations.
Councillors were also reminded that at the November 2025 budget meeting they adopted the Roads budget for 2026. An additional €400,000 was approved for local roads and, in line with practice, the increase was distributed in proportion to the total kilometres of local roads within each municipal district.
The Metropolitan area, with a 16 per cent share of the local roads network, received an allocation of €64,000, Newcastle West, with 27 per cent of the network, received €108,000, Adare-Rathkeale, with 24 per cent received €96,000, and Cappamore-Kilmallock, with a 33 per cent, share received €132,000 from the additional funding.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme