Bhíos ag éisteacht inniu leis an Rúnaí Parliaminte, an Teachta Ó Donnabháin, agus é ag caint i dtaobh an méid oibre atá le fáil in mo chontae féin. Dúirt sé go rabhamar i gcrua-chás má bhíomar ag brath ar an airgead i gcóir na mbóithre chun an chuid is mó den obair sa chontae do sholáthar. Táim chun freagra a thúirt ar an duine sin anois.
In the course of this debate, the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Donovan, questioned me in a statement in which he said that if we had nothing for the workers in Westmeath except road work, we might throw in the sponge. These were not his exact words, but it is the best interpretation I can put on them. We employ on the average from one end of the year to the other, apart from the engineering staff, a minimum of 700 men on the roads.
I remember being a member of a deputation to the late Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Davin, on a matter pertaining to the roads. He paid a tribute to the amount of work we did in the county all the year round. Therefore, I want to answer the Parliamentary Secretary by stating that providing work for the unemployed and those who offer their labour for hire is a big consideration with us in Westmeath. The curtailment of the grants will seriously affect these men at the end of the financial year.
He also referred to the fact that we should concentrate on agriculture. In the course of the debate to-day, Deputy Morrissey referred to the continental roads. I do not profess to know much about the Continent. I had the honour of being a member of a parliamentary delegation in Austria, with Deputy Morrissey. I covered a good deal of Denmark last year. It is a small country like ours. I state categorically that, having regard to my experience there, in Holland and other places, Deputy Morrissey's statement is a misstatement of fact.
The roads are better than ours. They are better laid out and provision is made for pedestrians and cyclists. The principal reason for the concentration on roads in the lowlands is to ensure that agricultural produce will be brought to the market in the most economic, cheapest and quickest way. That is what we are concerned with, is so far as the rural roads in Ireland are concerned.
The people in these areas are taking to mechanisation rapidly. Deputy Smith, in the course of the debate on the Local Government Estimate, referred to a period 25 years ago when the farmers came to the county councils in deputations and said: "You are making roads that our horses will fall on and you are making no provision for the horse and cart." The very same farmers are at every county council meeting all over the country asking now for good roads—tarmacadam roads and dust-proof roads. That is why we rural Deputies get up here and make the case for good roads.
That is why I yesterday gave facts and figures which I got from the Department about the long period it will take to bring our 39,000 miles of county roads up to the standard of the roads on the Continent. After all our efforts over the years, we have only 8,000 miles of these roads done and we are only doing 800 miles a year. With rising wages and costs that figure is likely to drop.
The people we make the case for are the people who pay into the Road Fund. Whether they have a car, a tractor, an autocycle or whether they walk or have a pedal cycle, they all pay into the Road Fund. Every man who has a cwt. of eggs pays for the conveyance of these eggs and every man who sends a barrel of oats and wheat over the bad roads to the mill is paying taxation in respect of the car, lorry or van used. Everyone who goes on an excursion, let it be anywhere you like, is a contributor to the Road Fund because those making the charges take into account the road tax they have to pay.
I would say to the Minister for Finance, through the Chair, that he has the biggest revenue spinner in transport of all the sources from which he gets revenue. Excise or customs duty or anything else compares in no way to the revenue the Minister gets from transport whether it be the new taxes he put on vehicles or the old taxes which applied to them or the taxes on tyres coming in on new cars or the taxes on petrol and oil or the road tax. The Minister should not kill the goose that lays the golden egg. He should mind this. It is the biggest source of revenue which the State has.
We were all led to believe, and it was the unanimous view here four years ago, that the money coming in through motor taxation would be devoted to the roads. Now it is being taken from them. We, rural Deputies, should fight every inch of the road to prevent this being done because if the Minister gets away with this the danger is that, as it is such an easy source of revenue, the fund may be raided again. There is a grave danger in this whole thing.
Deputy O'Leary was concerned about people going to church. I said that the old people in the country places who were unable to walk to church, Mass or meeting now avail of transport services, and rightly so, and get a cheap seat. That is happening in the Deputy's constituency in Wexford. There is not a chapel or church in County Wexford where old people, like people everywhere else, do not take a seat and pay for it; they may pay two shillings or one shilling. Deputy O'Leary may say they do not do it but they do. They are entitled, and even the individual who has to walk is entitled, to as good roads as the Dubliner or the man in Cork City. They are entitled to as good a footpath as the man in Limerick City. If we are to preserve rural Ireland and arrest the flight from the land we must have the same social services and the same amenities for the rural population that the city people enjoy.
Deputy O'Leary is not as innocent as he pretends to be. He has been boxing shadows all the evening. He spoke as if we were standing for the transference of some of the Road Fund to the main roads. That is not in dispute at all. If the Minister decides at the last minute to give back the £500,000 to the county councils they can devote it all to the county roads and we will say "Hear, hear" to them. The relative merits of main roads versus county roads are not in dispute here this evening. The question in dispute is that as so much has been paid in by the motorists to the Road Fund—£5,500,000 and expected to reach £5,750,000 this year—and as the people were led to believe for the past four years that the whole yield would go towards making good roads, it is unjust that £500,000 is now being taken by the Government.
I challenge Deputy Morrissey on this matter. Yesterday I gave figures about the amount of county roads done in our county; I shall confine myself to my own county. There are approximately 823 miles of county roads in County Westmeath. At present, 92 miles of that number are dust free. Would anyone get any country this side of the Iron Curtain and get the same areas as Westmeath where there is only that amount of county road done or what is comparable to county road? I will not labour the point very much but you have the position there of a Bord na Móna works employing at the peak period 400 to 500 men. Let us leave the motorist out of this consideration altogether now. These men have to cycle a distance of five miles from Multyfarnham to their work through pot holes, and back again, and they have to cycle to and from my little town; similarly with regard to the village of Coole. That would not happen in a coal-mining district in England or anywhere else. Here we have a similar industry and, apart from the inconvenience to the motorist or the lorry man, the ordinary worker has to go through pot-holes on his bicycle all the winter. He is entitled to a better road.
There has been talk about autobahns and autocrats travelling in their high-powered vehicles. I do not see any of these autocrats in their high-powered motors. God knows, the levels in Ireland are fairly even. The rich are very few. There may be a number in Deputy Larkin's constituency in Dublin City but they do not exist in rural Ireland. We do not see these autocrats with their high-powered cars and everything else.
I heard a Deputy from the poorest part of Galway challenge a Deputy from Donegal and ask him if they raised the rates and he was having a race as to who would have the highest rates. I wonder was there anything in Deputy Morrissey's contribution about the sanity of having a national approach to our finances, our credit and everything else? Deputy Morrissey should not throw stones when he is in a glass house. We are all very much concerned with the finances of this country. We do not want to put the last straw on the camel's back. However, whether it be local rates or general taxation, you will find that, if it comes to the last extreme, this Party will not be found wanting in standing behind the nation to see that its finances are sound. It is not a case of sabotage or wrecking; it is a case of sanity and of a right approach to this matter.
If we have taxpayers and ratepayers in Westmeath, Leinster and the rest of the Twenty-Six Counties, then we must make Westmeath, Leinster and the rest of the Twenty-Six Counties a place fit to live in where the amenities will be the same as are obtainable in the more favoured parts of our country. That is why we say that the motorist in the Twenty-Six Counties and every taxpayer whether he be in a labourer's cottage or in a flat in Mullingar should get the same consideration and that this very important thing which is recognised as a necessity in our age, good roads, should be provided and that the progress which has been made should not cease now.
On the subject of the relative merits of the main roads and the county roads, as I calculate it, the Minister for Local Government made a transference of more money for the county roads as against main roads. The sum total, however, on the 31st March, 1955, was that, adding the miles of main and county roads, there were 19.54 less miles done than in the year before.