A request for emergency funding to repair bridges in Co Kerry damaged by winter flooding has been turned down by the Minister for the Environment.
Dick Roche's secretary said that requests for weather-related road repair were a regular occurrence but the department's approach was that it did not hold back money "to deal with weather contingencies".
The maintenance and improvement of non-national roads "including bridges" was a matter for Kerry County Council. Funding was to come from its own resources, supplemented by State grants from the department.
The more than €27 million in the 2007 non-national road grant was "inclusive of the weather risk factor", the secretary wrote in a letter to the council on behalf of Mr Roche.
Local authorities were regularly advised to set aside contingency money for such works, but they could also use general purpose grants, she added.
With several peninsulas and rivers and a high percentage of non-national roads, Kerry has more than 3,000 bridges on the non-national road network.
The county has one of the highest number of bridges in the State. Extensive repairs to those that have been damaged by floods and heavy goods vehicles will prove "a major drain" on resources this year, the head of the county's roads section has warned.
Winter weather had led to the collapse of one ancient stone bridge at Gaddagh, near Beaufort, while another bridge collapsed under a truckload of pigs in the north of the county.
The 3,000 bridges on the non-national network urgently needed more money, said Paul Stack, director of services for roads in Co Kerry, before writing to the Minister.
It is estimated that four alone will cost almost €2 million to repair.