Funding affects all road users, including those cycling and using public transport. Dublin subsidises other areas while it is left to fund their own road resurfacing.Ministers for Transport announce over 1.5 billion for national,regionaland localroads, said a recent Department of Transport headline, and youd be forgiven for thinking Dublin would get a chunk of it. But the total received by the four Dublin councils was just over 3 million, or 0.2% of the total funding. Its an issue that affects not just motorists but also bus users as they get bounced around on a double-decker, and people cycling as they try to keep away from the bouncing bus and taxi drivers, and private motorists illegally in bus lanes, and on junctions, missing a pothole can do all sorts of damage from putting your bike out of action to leaving you out of action. Maybe one of the worst examples of road surfaces was Castle Street in the heart of the city, right beside Dublin Castle. For years, it remained in the state shown in the picture above, and it was only resurfaced last year. Its surely only a coincidence that it was fixed ahead of the castle hosting most of the event for Irelands Presidency of the Council of the European Union this year. The recently announced road spending includes new roads and the maintenance of existing roads and streets; it includes, for example, a massive amount of resurfacing around the country. While there were some relatively small amounts of funding for national roads, there was almost no funding forregional and local roads in Dublin.Funding for national roads in Co Dublin accounted for most of the 3 million, and of that, street lighting on motorways received the bulk of the funding, with over 1,731,307 over half of the allocation for Dublin. Other higher amounts include the N3 Clonee to M50 Bus Priority Project and Active Project, which was given 500k and the N11/R827 Junction Improvements, which was given 350k.When a North County Dublin TD, Grace Boland (Fine Gael), used her time at the Oireachtas transport committee to raise the funding of an long-planned upgrade of the Naul Road in Dublin from a rural road to an urban one with footpaths, cycle paths and other provision to service develoment the Minister for Transport said it was out of the remit of national funding.Similar roads are funded nationally. The main condition is that they are outside Co Dublin. But its different for the four Dublin councils.Deputy Boland said: The town has expanded by over 200% in 30 years, and theres the Fingal County Council Stevenson industrial site, and, as you know, theres a huge amount of housing planned for Balbriggan, we badly need [M1] junctions five and six, and on the Naul Road, to be upgraded. Yet, we are making no progress. Could you shed any light on a free Minister?Minister for Transport, Darragh OBrien, said: This matter has been raised with me as well. The Naul Road itself, which I know very well, is off the main M1. So the road itself is the responsibility of the local authority.They are a well-resourced, local authority, he said, thanking all the councils for the work that they do, especially after the extra rainfall and flooding in recent months.But added: Theres no funding that we [the Department/national Government] would deploy for the Naul Road upgrades because that sits outside of my own remit because its within one of the four Dublin local authorities.A spokesperson for the Department of Transport confirmed this situation to IrishCycle.com (see their full response at the end of this article).How Dublin subsidises the rest of the country, and the lack of transparency around it, is a source of anything from annoyance for some politicians in the capital. Not only does Dublin not get much funding from the national Government for roads, even when a good chunk of the funding was raised in Dublin, but a section of the Local Property Tax raised in Dublin is also reallocated around the country. At this months South East Area Committee of Dublin City Council, the issue was raised, with road resurfacing among the largest complaints, according to some local councillors. While housing is more often the largest issue in other parts of the city, transport issues take up a large share of attention in the affluent area, which includes Dublin 4. Local councillors acknowledge this difference from time to time.Cllr David Coffey (Fine Gael) said: I just want to clarify some numbers. I think you said that there was a 750,000 increase that came as a result of the Local Property Tax increase that we got out of that this year. So my understanding is that we made about 16 million odd extra out of the Local Property Tax, and I was led to believe that we would have more of that going into the roads programme.Speaking to an official, Cllr Coffey said: The roads program is excellent on the roads that you do. Its just a very disappointing outcome every year, and because its the number one issue I have I know, there are bigger issues across the city, and I appreciate that. But, especially after all the bad weather weve had in recent weeks, its roads, roads [in the messages] to me every week from local residents.Cllr Dermot Lacey (Labour) said: The Government, a couple of weeks ago, announced a 781 million roads programme and Dublin City was allocated 41k. So out of the 781 million allocated nationally, Dublin City got 41,000. [The 781 million figure is only a section of the total funding of the 1.5 billion funding]And the excuse the Government makes is that we are able to self-fund the road program from the Local Property Tax (LPT). Now, if the Government view is born out, we must be collecting hundreds of millions in LPT, because every time we raise an issue of funding, the Government says fund it through the LPT, he saidCllr Lacey has been vocal about this issue for years. He said that he supports Local Property Tax but accused the national Government of stealing funding from Dublin to reallocate elsewhere. This is known as the equalisation fund, where the Government takes funding from Dublin areas and reallocates it to other counties.Its not just Dublin councils; in total, 10 councils were deemed to have a surplus of LPT funding, which was relocated. The ten councils are Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Dn Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council, Galway City Council, Kildare County Council, Meath County Council, South Dublin County Council and Wicklow County CouncilMany counties without cities, where property taxes are lower, gain more from LPT funding. Many counties are receiving more funding from cities than they raise locally; these are Cavan, Carlow, Donegal, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, and Tipperary. Other counties also get substantial funding from the equalisation fund (you can check yours at localauthorityfinances.com/income). Based on the 2025 and 2026 estimates, Donegal was to raise 9-10 million locally but gain over 17 million from cities and their hinterlands. And in each year, both Longford and Leitrim were to take in around 2 million locally, but both were to receive over 8 million from other counties. Its important to highlight that LPT is not just used for roads it also funds other council services throughout the country. At the South East Area Committee meeting in Dublin, an official explained that resurfacing is prioritised depending on the category of the road (everything from a regional road to a purely residential street), the condition as ranked by surveying, and feedback from councillors and the public.The official said that out of the 16m increase in funding gained by councillors agreeing a higher rate of LPT in Dublin City for 2026, roads were allocated 3m, and that was divided up with 700k to each area, like the South East Area.Dn Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is another of the four Dublin councils where councillors see road funding as lacking, but a large chunk of local property tax raised locally is being used to balance the books elsewhere. Another councillor who raised the issue before and talked to IrishCycle.com about it for this article said they expect some level of equalisation, but fairness comes into it.I support the redistribution of central government funds around the country, and there will always be a world where Dublin councils need to self-fund road and path maintenance more than other councils, explains Oisn OConnor (Green Party). I just dont think that 0.3% of funding for Dublin and 99.7% for the rest of the country is the right balance.He said: This lack of financial support doesnt just affect drivers. It affects anybody who walks, cycles or takes public transport in our capital, because the money that should be on local footpath improvements is stretched to cover main road maintenance too.He said the situation puts pressure on Dublin councils to balance the needs of road maintenance vs footpath or cycle path maintenance.Anyone whos ever wondered why a footpath or pothole takes years to repair in our capital city, one of the reasons is that central government sends 99.8% of the maintenance funding to the other 25 counties, said Cllr OConnor.He said: Of course, we would expect Dublin to get less roads funding than other councils, for reasons everyone would see as obvious. But investment from central government in road maintenance is 3 per resident per year in Dublin, and 300 per resident per year across the other 25 counties. This just means the 4 Dublin councils have to spread funds thinly across road maintenance, footpath maintenance, etc.Cllr OConnor said: If we compare Dn Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to Kerry County Council. In 2026, the Minister for Transport announced Transport Infrastructure Ireland granted Kerry County Council 62m for maintaining existing national, regional and local roads, and DLR received 0.9m. DLR has 50% more people living here than Kerry, and significantly more people commuting in from surrounding counties.To keep comparing DLR and Kerry, DLR put 37m of their own funds into transport in 2026 compared to Kerrys 25m of their own money. To put this another way, Kerry fund 29% of their road maintenance needs themselves, while councils like DLR fund 98%, he said.Cllr OConnor adds that he thinks that this funding disparity will grow even wider over the coming years because of the binge planned by the current Government on road-building alongside cuts to public transport.The Department of Transport said that Dublin councils are self-funding for regional and local roads.A spokesperson for the Department of Transport said: The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on those roads are funded from Councils own resources supplemented by State road grants, where applicable.Arising from the arrangements in place in relation to Local Property Tax receipts, the four Dublin councils are self-funding for regional and local roads under the main road grant categories and are required to self-fund their normal road works programmes.Accordingly, these Councils do not feature in most of the grant programmes but are eligible for certain grants such as the training, speed limit signage and road condition survey grants and may apply for monies under the Strategic Grant programme (improvement schemes costing over 6m), the spokesperson said.The spokesperson said: Any road improvement projects proposed by local authorities for consideration for funding under the Strategic Grant Programme are assessed by the Department on a case-by-case basis. All projects put forward by local authorities for consideration must comply with the requirements of the Infrastructure Guidelines and the Departments Transport Appraisal Framework.The department said that it should be noted that there is a limited budget available for projects under the Regional and Local Road Strategic Grant Programme.It provided the following table, which sets out the 2026 regional and local road grant allocations to the four Dublin local authorities: CouncilPSCI: Survey SupportTraining GrantTotalDn Laoghaire-Rathdown5,00033,00038,000Fingal10,00023,00033,000South Dublin8,00025,00033,000Dublin City8,00033,00041,000The full details of the 2026 regional and local road grant allocations by local authority are available atGov.ie.A Department of Transport spokesperson said: In relation to national roads, the Minister for Transport has responsibility for overall policy and exchequer funding in relation to the National Roads Programme. Under the Roads Acts 1993-2015 and in line with the National Development Plan (NDP), the operation and management of individual national roads is a matter for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. This is also subject to the Infrastructure Guidelines and the necessary statutory approvals.The spokesperson added: As part of the national roads allocations for 2026, which were announced on February 17th, funding was provided for Fingal, South Dublin, and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Councils. With the exception of the Dublin Tunnel and short sections of the M50, which are operated by TII, there are no national road routes in the Dublin City Council area.The following table compiled by IrishCycle.com using Department figures shows national road funding for Dublin: CouncilCapitalInvestment Protection &RenewalMaintenance Protection & RenewalTotalDn Laoghaire-Rathdown350,000591,069941,069Fingal500,000617,0811,117,081South Dublin170,000795,183965,183Dublin City000NOTE: Dublin City was given no national funding, as all roads were detrunked (reclassified as regional roads) after the M50 was built, except for the M50 between the start of the Port Tunnel and the junction with the M1, which is under direct control of TII.