The Minister, when he came in with these proposals the other day—I think he was followed by Deputy Allen rather on the same lines —intimated that these proposals were only going to be a drop in the ocean. My most serious complaint with the manner in which the Minister has brought these motions to the House is that they are no solution for the problem at all. They are only trying to adopt the lazy way out. We are never going to get over the difficulties that may exist in regard to roads and bridges throughout the country by the method that is adopted here. The effect of the second resolution which the Minister has introduced is merely going to be that it will take something out of the pockets of the people enumerated in it and continue with that system that is bad in itself. The time will come fairly shortly when the Minister will again come to the House with similar proposals, and it is because the Minister has not tackled the job in the radical way that it deserves to be tackled and that it requires to be tackled that I want emphatically to say a few words against the proposals.
The fundamental thing that is wrong with roads here is, of course, that, by and large, the vast majority of them were not built for the type of traffic they have been asked to bear. The fundamental thing that is wrong with the Minister's proposals is that by these proposals he is merely going to continue the similar methods of building roads which are entirely inadequate for the type of traffic that these roads have to bear. We must get down to a new system as regards roads. We must get down to a system by virtue of which there is a proper co-ordinated plan for our roads. We must take advantage and proper advantage of the modern machinery and the modern methods that are available throughout the world. It is quite nonsensical as regards our main roads that we should operate as we do at present, that in driving from Dublin to Cork through the territory of maybe seven or eight different local authorities, we should find that the roads belonging to each of those local authorities are built in a different way, maintained in a different way and to a different standard. So long as we continue to adopt the system which has been there for so long and in respect of which the Minister is making no constructive effort now we are not going to get any real progress in connection with roads.
A directive which the Minister can easily obtain in his Department, was issued by the last Government to set about the inquiries that were necessary for the build-up of a new road-making plan. We must accept the position that the making of roads capable of sustaining and carrying modern traffic is a task that requires very special machinery and is a task that requires very great skill by the people operating in it. The only way in which there will be any real progress in catching up the neglect of generations in regard to our roads and the increased amount of traffic they have to bear is to make sure that there is a proper organisation set up to deal with roads of that nature, an organisation that will recognise in the first place that modern machinery is required to an extent not hitherto dreamed of and that skill in regard to the work is required, so that the people we employ in it will be employed on the basis of skilled operatives rather than that they should be employed as they are at present on what one might almost term a semi-relief basis.
There is plenty of unskilled work that requires to be done in this country if only there was a Government in office capable of mobilising the effort towards it. We were arriving at a situation before Fianna Fáil took over in which we were getting nearer and nearer the picture of full employment. I can understand the people employed on the roads feeling that by moving in more machinery to do the work there is a danger in regard to their employment, but we must realise that there are two different problems before us, one is the problem of building our roads and the second is the problem of ensuring that there will be adequate employment for all our people. The two problems cannot be mingled together. If you are going to utilise your labour pool as, so to speak, relief employment on roads, then you are not going to get the roads that the country wants and the roads that the country needs.
Unless and until the Minister takes some radical step towards carrying out the inquiries which the last Government initiated for the purpose of evolving a proper road-making plan, there will never be any relief for the local authorities and perhaps in a few years' time the Minister will be coming again to the House with a similar proposal for increased taxation. The present Minister will not be coming because long before then his Government will have ceased to be in office.
Deputy Allen tried to suggest that these increases were for the purpose of ensuring an alleviation of rates at the expense of the person who uses a big car and who could well afford to pay. The extraordinary and striking thing about the detailed proposals that the Minister has put before us is that the man with the big car is not asked to contribute more than the man with the small or small-medium car. Both are asked to pay an extra £2 only in regard to taxation. The person who drives around in a high-powered car should be asked to contribute more than the small man who can ill afford the taxation. A consideration of the additional tax that has been put on private cars, large and small, makes it fundamentally clear that there is no basis whatsoever for the suggestion that was made that this is a method of relieving rates.
We all know that the increases in taxation on vehicles that are carrying goods will have one of two effects: either the vehicle will cease to travel on the roads or the increase will be passed on to the ordinary consumer. The Minister has said that he does not expect that any of the vehicles concerned will cease to use the roads as a result of this taxation. I do not agree with him. Some of them will, and there will be some disemployment in that regard. In respect of the vast majority who will continue on the roads, the additional cost in the distribution of the goods carried will be passed on to the consumer, whereas an increase in respect of larger cars would not, perhaps, be passed on to the consumer in the same way but might have the effect that a smaller type of car would be operated, which might be better and more healthy for the country as a whole.
Apart from general problems, I would like the Minister to give me a little assistance in a couple of details. I do not know whether or not the Minister has yet been able to produce the information for which Deputy Costello asked as to why he chose the figure in the Resolution and White Paper in calculating the capacity in respect of the square engine. It bears the impression that it was fixed, not by reason of justice, but because it would bring certain well-known cars just over the margin and into a higher taxation level. If it was fixed from that angle, that is a very bad way to make laws for the particular case.