The Fiji Roads Authority has a limited budget to upgrade Irish crossings to bridges in the short to medium term.

There are a lot of Irish crossings around the country which poses risks during flooding and there’s a need to upgrade it to bridges.

Chief executive, Jonathan Moore, was responding to questions sent by FBC News on complaints from residents of Boubale in Labasa who say the bridge and road in their area floods whenever there is heavy rain.

Moore says while they regret the inconvenience caused to the community, it is an inevitable reality during rainy season for the place to be flooded.

Moore says the Boubale crossing is not the only one that experiences this problem as the crossings at Dreketilailai, Lekutu Levu and Urata also face the issue.

He says the current budget and workloads are stretched just to treat the existing aged, overloaded and deteriorated bridges.

Moore says the priority for them is to ensure the bridges servicing tens-of-thousands of people daily are attended to first, then they can progressively address rural low volume communities.