When I reported progress on the night before last, acting as night watchman, I had concluded my remarks in relation to housing but before I leave the subject I should like to thank the officials of the Department of Local Government for the courtesy they have always shown me. As the Minister knows, there are many small snags and difficulties in relation to housing which are hard to clear up. I have always had the greatest co-operation from the officials of the Department of Local Government in helping me to get around these difficulties and to secure the grants due to my constituents.
In his opening address on this Estimate the Minister referred to bathing sites and also to derelict sites. I understand the policy of the Government is to provide facilities for people to swim. That of course is very desirable from the point of view of health, life saving, and so on, and I somehow associate the two things, derelict sites and the bathing site programme of the Government. In Dublin there are dreadful eyesores in the canals in that they are full of weeds and dirt of every description. If anything constitutes a derelict site, it is the Dublin canals. Every year they become more cluttered up with weeds, rubbish, bits of bedsteads. Two problems could be dealt with simultaneously. It should be possible to provide bathing places on the canals for the citizens of Dublin and the cleaning of the canals for that purpose would eliminate the eyesore that they at present constitute.
The programme of the Minister for Local Government for the provision of swimming pools seems to me to be rather ambitious. He envisages the construction of swimming pools in various parts of the city. There are various places which for the expenditure of a small sum of money could be converted for that purpose, thus providing facilities for the citizens of Dublin and saving the State considerable expense.
I come now to the question of roads. The Minister admitted that there is a great deal more money coming into the Exchequer from roads than heretofore. He indicates that there would be a slight transference of the money being expended on main roads to secondary and county roads. I am never very clear as to what exactly a county road is. Not being a member of a local authority, I am a little bit vague on this subject. The greater part of the expenditure on roads has been on main roads. I have always felt that the main road schemes are very ambitious and very expensive. Anybody who doubts that might motor from Dublin to my constituency, Wexford, and he will find that during the last 12 months there has been nothing but major reconstruction schemes going on.
The mentality of those who preside over such schemes appears to be to remove any sort of corner that exists, regardless of expense, and alter the road so as to make it as straight as possible. There are three schemes in progress between Dublin and below the borders of Wexford, the expenditure on which must be running into many thousands of pounds. The whole surface of the road is being rooted up and the whole route is being altered. In fact, the road is going through fields at certain points. In one case they filled up an enormous quarry to take the road over it. That seems to me doubtful expenditure of public money.
In continental Europe and in Britain one of the difficulties people are faced with is that these very long straight roads are a source of danger, particularly at night, when there are long avenues of traffic going in either direction and headlights beaming. It does not make for safety to have a long straight road. If the Minister or his officials would care to investigate the position in Germany, France and other European countries they will find that large sums of money are being expended there to do the reverse of what we are doing here, to create artificial bends for the safety of the motoring public. They are also concentrating on road signs, for which they use luminous paint. I fail to see why we should not carry out a similar programme here.
Admittedly, there are very bad bends here and there which it may be desirable to alter. If we were to try to straighten the roads in Donegal, in the Minister's constituency, it would cost several millions of pounds. I do not think there is an excessive number of accidents in that county and there is a good deal of traffic there because as far as I can see tourism is concentrated mainly in Donegal. If my suggestion were carried out there would be a lot of money available for expenditure on secondary roads. The argument always is that we must have first class roads for tourists. That is nonsense. The object of the Road Fund is to give everyone a fair return. A great deal of the revenue paid into the Road Fund and subsequently distributed to the various counties comes from the people living in the highways and byways.
People have come to me to tell me that there are ten or twelve families living on a country road, each one of which is paying tax on a tractor and a car and that they are getting literally no return whatsoever. Equality of treatment is essential. These country roads should be properly reconstructed. I know of one road where there are 31 houses and on which a farmyard cart would be shaken to pieces. Under the regulations it is classified as third or fourth-class and therefore cannot be repaired or resurfaced. The only thing that would save this road would be if it connected two villages, which it does not. It connects two counties—Wicklow and Wexford. The people living on that road, despite the heavy taxation they pay, have to endure the bumps they get when driving on that road which would shake a farmyard cart to pieces in no time. The Minister ought to give consideration to these matters.
I come now to a section of the Minister's Department which gives grants for certain roads for tourist purposes. As far as I know, and speaking subject to correction, the amount of such grants received in County Wexford is nil. I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that Wexford is an avenue of entry to this country. The Rosslare-Dublin road is one of the main roads. Many cars come in through Rosslare. There should be a well-surfaced road there. That is not the position. To my knowledge no money has been expended on that road in the past four or five years. In addition to resurfacing, the road should be widened. A considerable volume of traffic uses the road. I cannot think of anything that would give a worse impression to tourists than to drive over a bad and narrow road, in many places so narrow as to be dangerous. I suggest to the Minister that it would be far better to expend money on improving such a road rather than on removing corners where that is not necessary or desirable.
I do not propose to say very much in regard to water supplies because if I started to talk on that subject no other Deputy would get in at all today. It is a controversial matter. The difficulty about a piped water supply in Ireland is the layout of the country as a whole. Traditionally, for centuries, people have lived in isolated districts. It is quite different from the position in other countries. In other countries there is almost invariably a concentration in the towns and villages. The farmers live in collective units in the villages and small towns. That is not the pattern in rural Ireland. No doubt the Minister has given a great deal of consideration to this problem. I know that he is very interested in the idea of giving a piped water supply to the entire country. That would greatly facilitate the Minister for Health in his fluoridation scheme. We could then give fluoride to everybody instead of just 40 per cent. of our people. However, that is by the way.
I should like to draw the Minister's attention now to the fact that the regional supply for South Wexford has been on the stocks for 10 years. I came in here in 1951. It was on the stocks then. I have no idea how long before that it was on the stocks. I have persistently pressed to have that scheme implemented. I am happy to relate that water will be switched on in certain areas at the end of this month. It took 10 years to reach that point. I do not know if that is anybody's fault in particular. There may have been some extra correspondence between the Minister's Department and the local authority. I know that some delay was caused because the legal position had to be established. Pipes had to be laid through people's lands. A particular type of machine had to be imported for pumping the water. I am told we had to wait for something like two years to get the requisite machinery from Britain. It is very easy to make a speech down the country and say: "I will give rural Ireland a piped water supply." That cannot be done by waving a magic wand. Apart from the fact that it will cost millions, it will also take a considerable time.
I have seen plans in my own county for certain water supplies. Some of them are feasible, such as the proposed extension from Gorey to Courtown. Courtown is a very popular holiday resort. We are a warm-hearted people in Wexford and we are glad to welcome others to our midst. That scheme is feasible and one that could be put into effect fairly rapidly. Other schemes would take years. Some Deputies may think that I do not want people to get piped water. That is not so. There is another side to the picture. Many people have expended considerable sums for the purpose of giving themselves a proper water supply. Others are in the process of equipping themselves in like manner. They cannot afford to wait for four or five years.
The farmers in South Wexford must have a water supply because of the new cheese factory. They must produce first-class milk for manufacture into cheese. That cheese, incidentally, is for export. Those who supply themselves with water will, if this scheme comes into operation, find themselves forced to pay increased rates. It is no use pretending the scheme will not cost money. It will cause a considerable rise in rates. I do not wish to negative improvements. I admit that if a Deputy criticises projects adumbrated by the Government he should, at the same time offer some constructive suggestions.
I believe, because of contour and the lay-out of villages, towns and farms, a group water supply is the proper answer to the problem. We have a very active engineer in Wexford and he is very keen on local schemes in which 10 or 12 people group together to equip themselves with a proper water supply. They have the benefit of a Government grant. I believe such schemes are more appropriate in rural Ireland than an enormous scheme such as that suggested by the Minister. There are areas where a piped water supply on the lines suggested might be desirable and necessary. In areas in which it is difficult to get water it would be an admirable scheme. In areas in which the water is in some way unpalatable it should be an admirable scheme. I should like the Minister to consider these aspects before sanctioning a scheme which will cost millions and which will have the effect of increasing the rates very considerably.
The rates are high enough already in rural Ireland. An increase in rates will hit not only the big man and the middle man but the small man and the cottier as well. Everybody will have to pay. The proposed scheme might well mean an increase of 2/8d. in the £, if it stops at that.
Recently we had quite an extensive discussion here on the Road Traffic Bill. Many suggestions have been put forward for making the roads safer. The area in which traffic is most dense and in which congestion is an enormous problem is the City of Dublin. It is due mainly to bottlenecks and to streets being made even narrower because of parking. Could not the Minister in consultation with the Dublin Corporation build parking places, either overhead or underground, to help to solve this traffic congestion? That has been done in other cities. The charge made more than pays. The Dublin streets were constructed in an era in which there was no possibility of congestion. There is not a street today that is not choked with traffic. That is one of the reasons for the jams and the delays. These hit not only the citizens but also the people coming up from the country, people who may have only a few hours to spend in the capital.