The Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Childers, gave us some information of a very elaborate road plan that is being prepared at the present time. It appears that we are contemplating the provision of double tracks and bicycle tracks and means of by-passing towns, the ultimate idea being the speeding up of traffic generally. The Parliamentary Secretary gave us a good deal of information on that matter but he was reluctant to give any idea of the cost. We got no indication of the estimated cost of this elaborate trunk road policy for the whole country. Evidently the Parliamentary Secretary was prepared to do everything but pay for the work. I suppose on another occasion we will get detailed information about that aspect of the scheme.
In the matter of road planning, the Minister for Local Government should bear in mind that elaborate plans must be related to the national income. The first consideration is the preservation and improvement, where possible, of the national income. We must pay for elaborate road development out of the national income. Therefore such plans are to a great extent in the air until we can be satisfied that we are in a position to provide the necessary capital for construction and maintenance.
The Parliamentary Secretary informed the House that in some counties the work involved would be much greater than in others because the roads are narrower in some counties than in others. The Parliamentary Secretary indicated that the Minister was not prepared to accept the motion, to make the construction and maintenance of main roads a national charge. I do not think his arguments in that respect were very convincing. He tried to argue that they served mainly individual counties and, for that purpose, he was rather wise in selecting counties in the West of Ireland, such as Mayo. I suggest that counties in the vicinity of a big city like Dublin act as corridors, carrying huge traffic to and from the city. The volume of outside traffic passing over these roads is far greater than the volume of internal traffic is likely to be.
I think the 1926 Act is completely obsolete in regard to the financing of the reconstruction and maintenance of roads. The local authority secures grants on the basis of the amount of money that is spent on maintenance and development and they have no authority to direct that sums of money allocated for road development should be spent on the smaller roads, the byroads and link roads in the county. That would not indicate that the requirements of the individual county so far as road provision is considered in this respect. One can understand that when the 1926 Act was passed the roads were in a shocking condition and road reorganisation was an urgent problem. The Act proposed to develop main arteries first. While Deputies from the West complain that even their main roads are still in poor condition they fail to appreciate that the counties that are best served at the present time are counties that availed of the 1926 Act to the fullest extent to reconstruct, develop and maintain their main roads, and that the counties that neglected to develop and reconstruct at that time and that have been carrying on, more or less, on a maintenance basis, did not get the full benefit of the Act. I suggest that the Act is, in our present circumstances, more or less obsolete and that new legislation is required in respect of roads. The financial conditions that applied at the time of the passing of the 1926 Act do not apply to-day because of the development that has taken place.
In considering this matter, we might anticipate a much heavier volume of traffic in the post-war period and, of course, we must plan in anticipation of a substantial development in vehicular traffic. We may find that Córas Iompair Eireann may switch over to road traffic to a greater extent in the post-war period. We must realise the tremendous advantage, in a small country like this, that road traffic has over any other form of transport. It is more expeditious and far more flexible than any other form of traffic. Goods can be collected at the point of production and delivered direct to the consumer, eliminating handling charges and expediting delivery. Although road transport may be the most costly method, it is certainly the most expeditious and most flexible method. Rail services may be far cheaper over very long distances but for short distances road transport has all the advantages. It is not at all unlikely that the new company may develop road transport to a far greater extent than pre-war. That all goes to show that it is a national service which is likely to develop and that you cannot justify, in the development of national arteries to carry that national transport service, one particular section of the community bearing the charge.
I should like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary, too when he talks about the Road Fund, that a substantial portion of that Fund has been consistently appropriated by the Minister for Finance from year to year to help him in his Budget difficulties. Surely when we tax motor vehicles, motor fuel, etc., that taxation ought to be devoted in its entirety to road maintenance and development. I fail to see how anyone can justify charging the national highways against a particular section of the community, particularly the agricultural community. I would be inclined to go very much farther than the motion and say that we should not tax land at all; that land is the most precious raw material we have in the country. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to point out one other instance where the raw material of any other industry is taxed.
Here we have a very heavy tax on the raw material of an industry. Why should that raw material be taxed? If we expect maximum production from and maximum use of a particular raw material in the national interest, surely it is injudicious to burden it with a heavy tax. I am referring to the local rates which are predominantly subscribed by the agricultural community. They are a direct tax on land. Very often the taxation bears no relation at all to the income accruing to the individual farmer. Again, if you compare, in many cases, the charge arising out of local taxation on a certain type of agricultural holding with the income from that holding and compare that again with the income earned by other citizens living in houses with nominal valuations—very often a big business is carried on in a rather small house in rural Ireland— or by professional men living in houses with a nominal valuation and using the roads sometimes to a greater extent than the small farmer uses them, there is no relation at all to the imposition so far as the local rates are concerned. There is no justification for a man living on the land and using the raw material of the land in the national interest being mulcted in a special way for the upkeep of the national highways. As I say, I would go much farther than the motion if I were putting down a motion on this particular matter.
We have been talking about production and selling our surpluses and about using our surpluses as an exchange medium for essential imports. We have to sell in a market up against our doors in competition with British farmers and Northern Ireland farmers whose land is free of taxation. That is a very considerable advantage in a world where competition has made prices so keen and where profit margins are invariably narrow, and any extra burden placed on one competitor as against another very often has the effect of knocking out one of the competitors. We should bear that in mind. While I think the agricultural community generally should bear their fair share of the cost of local administration and the cost of maintenance of roads, there should be an equitable distribution of the charge necessary for local administration and road upkeep. I do not think the present method is an equitable method of financing road services. We support the motion. I think that we should remove any sort of charge that is a direct tax on the land, and that is what local rates are.