Taxpayers across the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon borough have picked up a £3.5 million roads‑claims bill in just five years – with costs in the most recent year alone rocketing past £1.5 million.
And the bulk of that bill is linked to personal injury cases with a hefty slice of this money being swallowed up by legal and other associated costs.
Over the last five financial years, payouts have been rising exponentially.
In 2020/21, the sum for ABC was £242,461.59. The following year that figure rose to £387,132.16.
In 2022/23 the payouts totalled £505,292.98 while the figure was £837,782.02 in 2023/24.
And last year that figure rose dramatically to £1,549,416.76 – a six‑fold increase in five years. Across the whole of Northern Ireland, that figure for the 12 months was £7,986,968.05. Over the last five years it has been a staggering £32.73 million. The legal and other associated costs – £12.1 million.
The ABC borough alone, over those years, racked up a bill of £3,522,085.51. This does not include figures from April 2025 until the present day which will be calculated after March 31.
The largest share of that money has been spent on personal injury cases (around £2.85m), with vehicle damage claims just under £560k and property damage just over £107k.
For the most recent financial year (2024/25), the total cost of compensation was £1,075,761.54 but other costs were £473,655.22.
Newry & Armagh DUP Assemblyman Gareth Wilson received the statistics following a question lodged for Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins, and said: “I was keen to understand exactly what the compensation picture looked like not only locally but across Northern Ireland and the picture should be alarming to the Infrastructure Minister.
“With almost 20,000 claims received over five years and almost 14,000 claim payouts running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds, it really is time a major effort was put into road maintenance rather than reactive compensation claims.”
He added: “If potholes were repaired in quicker time, the likelihood of vehicle damage and with it compensation payouts would reduce, and also if defects in pavements were repaired in a quicker fashion it would reduce the likelihood of personal injury.
“I encourage anyone who has had their vehicle damaged to submit a claim as that is the correct course of action in light of inaction from DFI in allowing defects to go unrepaired.
“Surely the weight of evidence in these statistics points to the Minister needing to do a full overhaul of her maintenance departments to avoid this situation growing and becoming even more costly. The figures are not accounting for this immediate term where potholes have been at record levels – this will undoubtedly mean many more thousands in payouts over the winter period, the Minister must act!”
Elsewhere, local TUV councillor Keith Ratcliffe has started a petition urging the Minister for Infrastructure, the Minister of Finance and the Northern Ireland Executive to take action on NI’s roads which have “reached a crisis point”.
“The long-standing approach that focuses on only the highest-priority defects and often carries out the minimum work needed to remove immediate danger, rather than addressing deterioration in a planned, preventative way, is clearly not working,” said Councillor Ratcliffe.
“With DFI having to pay for damage done to vehicles because of the state of the roads, the system has collapsed.
“We need a strategy that is measurable — clear priorities, properly costed actions, and time-bound delivery.”
Councillor Ratcliffe has called on the Executive to launch an emergency, time-limited “pothole blitz” programme focused on the worst-affected routes and areas, with publicly stated targets (repairs completed per week and average time to fix reports).
He and his party are also urging the Department to provide transparent reporting: a monthly dashboard for every council area showing defects recorded, repairs completed, average repair times, resurfacing completed and outstanding backlog.
And to shift from just patch to planned maintenance, prioritising resurfacing and structural repair where repeated patching wastes money.
“Northern Ireland cannot function with roads that damage vehicles, delay workers, threaten cyclists and endanger pedestrians,” continued the Cusher councillor.
“We pay to use this network every day — and we are paying again through repair bills, lost time and avoidable accidents.”
You can sign Councillor Ratcliffe’s petition – “demanding a clear plan, real funding, and visible improvement” – here.
