Debate contribution: Road Maintenance

Debate contribution by Mr Stephen Dunne on 16 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Stephen Dunne

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

16 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Road Maintenance

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5391176

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The roads network across Northern Ireland has reached crisis point. The poor, dangerous and, often, shocking condition of our roads affects every corner of Northern Ireland. It is not confined to one constituency or, indeed, one council area. From city centres to country lanes, from commuter routes to residential developments, the deterioration is visible and worsening day by day. That is the case in my constituency of North Down and right across our country. I am sure that many of my colleagues will reaffirm that during the debate. The pothole pandemic needs a cure, and this Minister does not seem to have one. Our constituents are paying the price in repair bills, damage, insurance excesses, lost time and personal injuries. That is simply unacceptable and cannot go on. They deserve better than this Department for failure. The current Minister has blamed everything: the weather, the Tories and cuts. The only thing that she will not do is take responsibility and fix our roads. The amendment claims that the draft roads maintenance strategy sets out a clear vision. The reality is that the document is as clear as mud and lacks the ambition that is required. The amendment, tabled by Sinn Féin, the Minister's party, says to the public, "Nothing to see here", which is certainly not the case on the roads network right across Northern Ireland. That is why we cannot support it. Recently, storm Chandra, the winter freeze and heavy rainfall have left their mark. In the past three months alone, almost 50,000 defects were recorded on our roads, and I am sure that that figure, even in the past week, has been added to considerably. That is close to half the total for the whole of the previous year. Let us not pretend, however, that the crisis began just a short number of weeks ago with one storm. We had Storm Éowyn, a significant storm, just over a year ago, we have had many more in the past and no doubt we will have many more in the future. The weather has, however, exposed weaknesses that have been building for years across the roads network. Last year, over 127,000 surface defects were recorded, with almost 100,000 of those being potholes. That is not routine wear and tear; that is systematic deterioration and failure. For over a decade — we are now in the eleventh year — the Department has been operating what it calls a limited maintenance service. It is limited in ambition, limited in intervention and limited in outcome and very limited in delivery. Only the highest-priority defects are repaired, and even then, only the minimum work necessary is carried out to remove the immediate safety risk of potholes of over 50mm. That has left its mark.

No, not at this stage. There is one hour and 45 minutes for the debate, so there will be a good opportunity for everybody to contribute, and we look forward to hearing remarks from right across the House. Eleven years of limited service inevitably produces limited results and, ultimately, failure, and we are now living with the consequences. It is the public who are living with the consequences, and they deserve better. The maintenance backlog has tripled in the past five years and now sits at over £3 billion. Public liability claims alone for vehicle damage and personal injury have more than doubled since 2019-2020, only a few years ago. Those figures come from the Department's draft roads maintenance strategy, and they are a stark admission that the current model has failed and is failing again and again. Yes, we welcome the £7·85 million winter recovery fund that was announced recently by the Minister after considerable lobbying, certainly from these Benches. However, let us be honest: that cannot simply be another sticking plaster approach as we have seen to date. Temporary repairs that have failed or will fail after the next downpour or period of frost are of no use to anyone and only cost money and staff time, and they frustrate the general public. With a transport budget of over £850 million, lack of money alone cannot be an excuse. Yet £85 million is earmarked for schemes such as cycle lanes to nowhere in some cases, and my colleagues will highlight examples of those in their constituencies. If money is the issue, that funding should be prioritised for maintaining the basic roads network. The Minister and her Department really need to get to grips with poor repairs. The Minister continues to remind us that her Department does not have enough money, but how can her Department have no money to deal effectively with the issues facing our roads while having no reservations about spending taxpayers' money on unwanted, unnecessary Irish language signage, such as that in Grand Central station? It is clear where the Sinn Féin Minister's priorities lie: unfortunately, to date, they have not been on fixing our roads. It is more important than ever that the Minister properly resources her Department to deal with the crisis that we face. It is not just an inconvenience issue; it is a real road safety issue. Indeed, the dangerous condition of our roads compromises the important road safety messaging from her Department. For motorists, a pothole can mean a burst tyre, wrecked wheels or damage to suspension or alignment. However, for cyclists and motorcyclists, it can mean much more, and, often, the consequences can be more severe. A deep, unmarked pothole has the potential to throw a rider into the path of oncoming traffic, and the potential consequences are lethal. That links into other forms of active travel: for pedestrians, including our older residents, uneven surfaces and broken carriageways present a real risk of falling and personal injury. The Department subjects vehicles to rigorous annual roadworthiness tests and expects cars to meet high standards of quality and safety, yet the roads that they are driven on fail the most basic tests themselves. We must also address an important factor that is often overlooked: the significant role of utility companies and the mark that they leave and toll that they take on our roads. Across urban and rural Northern Ireland, we see repeated openings of carriageways for water, gas, electricity and telecoms works. Those works are necessary, but, often, the quality of reinstatement leaves a lot to be desired and is substandard. Poor reinstatement leads to further break-up and, ultimately, surface failure. There must be much stronger oversight and quality control by the Department. Reinstatement standards must be improved, and follow-up inspections must be routine, robust and meaningful. Despite a 2024 Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) report into road openings by utility companies, the very draft strategy that is being hailed as a game changer makes absolutely no mention in its 18 pages of the role of utility companies. That is very disappointing, but there is an opportunity for the Minister to address that. The utility companies should be held accountable and required to put the situation right at their own expense rather than at the expense of the taxpayer. The draft road maintenance strategy speaks of governance structures and enhanced metrics, but it lacks ambition and what really matters, which is a detailed action plan, detailed costings and time-bound delivery. That is what the public want and rightly expect to be done, and that will be the measuring tool for improved roads. We also need to have an honest conversation about the balancing of budgets. When our core roads network is crumbling and we have so many potholes — 100,000 in a single year — across the country, it is legitimate to question whether the balance is right or whether the pendulum has swung too far. That needs to be considered in such debates and across the country. I recently discovered that the Department for Infrastructure has spent £5·4 million on external consultants in the past five years alone as part of its active travel plan, £4 million of which was spent within the past two financial years. There are certainly more questions to be answered on those matters. We need to see a major reset. That is what led to our proposing this important motion. The Minister has an opportunity, which she has not taken to date, to get a grip on the issue. We need to end the decade-long reliance on limited maintenance as the simple default position. We need to look at permanent, higher-quality repairs, utilising technology and best practice from across the globe. We need deliverable targets that address the Department's workforce pressures, strengthen enforcement around utility reinstatements and deliver improved inspections and real accountability. We also need to restore balance in the transport budget and get the basics right. The public rightly expect safe roads. They expect that, when a problem of this scale is identified, decisive action will follow. The pothole pandemic will not fix itself: it is time for action beyond warm words and short-term funds.

Minister, fix our roads. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

1,511 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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