Today the Minister for Local Government replied to a Question——
Adjournment Debate. - Allocations from Road Fund.
If I may interrupt for a moment, Deputy Coughlan stayed on under the impression that a Question of his was to be debated on the adjournment tonight.
I was under that impression. The last day here——
The Deputy must give notice of his intention to raise a Question on the adjournment on the day that he intends raising it.
I was told specifically in the House last week that I would be allowed to raise the Question today.
The Deputy was told he would be allowed to raise it today, but he should have given notice today. Notice must always be given on the day a Deputy intends to raise the matter.
If the Deputy wants consideration of it he can give notice tomorrow?
He may do that.
I put down a Question to the Minister for Local Government last week, Question No. 27, asking him the number of motor vehicles licensed for road use in Dublin city and county, including Dún Laoghaire, in 1960; the amount paid in road tax, the amount received by Dublin City from the Road Fund; and if he would give similar details for the counties of Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway and Kilkenny. The Minister very fairly gave detailed figures in reply to that Question. Today I had a further question asking for information on the number of road vehicles licensed for road use in each city and county not mentioned in his reply to the earlier question. I further asked him, in Question No. 78 today, the amount paid in road tax by each area and the amount allocated from the Road Fund to each area. I also asked him if he would now treat Dublin City and County on an equitable basis, having regard to the number of motor vehicles registered in these areas, by an appropriate increase in the allocations from the Road Fund.
The Minister's reply was as follows:
The statistical information requested is in the form of a tabular statement which, with your permission, A Cheann Comhairle, will be circulated with the Official Report.
Road Fund grants are not based on the number of motor vehicles registered in each area, but on the mileage and condition of roads in each case, subject to the overall limit on the amount available for distribution. Both Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council have received a substantial increase in their Road Fund allocations in recent years. The total amount of these allocations for 1961-62 will be about £376,000 more than in 1959-60. Furthermore, the major part of a special provision of £500,000 for the arterial roads leading out of Dublin has not yet been taken up. I cannot agree in the circumstances with the suggestion that the areas in question are inequitably treated as regards Road Fund grant.
Needless to say, with such detailed figures it would only confuse the House if I went into too much detail so I intend, in a general way, just to give some example of the way those figures work out. Let me take two places for a start. We have the contributions to the Road Fund from Dublin City and County which amount to £2,121,149. There were 85,297 vehicles registered. The average contribution per vehicle was approximately £22 10s. and the amount allocated from the Road Fund out of that £22 10s. per vehicle was approximately £4 15s. per vehicle to Dublin City and County.
If we look at another figure we will see that the allocation from the Road Fund to the city and county of Dublin was approximately frb5/4fred. in every £ contributed. We come down then to Galway Corporation and Galway County Council to show the very big difference. First of all, I should like to point out that I have noticed, for the country as a whole, a fair average allocation of about £20 per vehicle registered. That is about the average road tax, taking into consideration the heavy lorries, the light cars and the very light motor cycles. Taking Galway County Council, there are 10,660 vehicles registered. We see that Galway Corporation and County Council received approximately 31s. out of every £1 contributed in the form of motor vehicle tax. In fact it works out at something like an annual allowance of £36 per vehicle from the Road Fund, compared with £4 15s. per vehicle in Dublin City and County.
There are other examples I can give. Take Cork County Council. They got 28s. back from the Road Fund for every 20s. contributed. Limerick County Council received over 20s. out of every £1 contributed. That, of course, balances out fairly well. We can then take Carlow where, having contributed an average of 20s. per vehicle, they received back 15s. per vehicle. We come to Clare where they got 60s. back for every £1 contributed. Donegal received back £2 for every £1 contributed, Leitrim got back £3 for every £1 and Longford got back £2 for every £1. But Dublin City and County got back only frb5/4fred. for every £1 contributed in road tax.
I know the Minister would argue that there is a longer mileage in these places but I am asking the Minister to consider basing the grant from the Road Fund on the weight of traffic, the number of vehicles registered in any licensing authority. It would be much fairer than the present system. People coming into Dublin City on the various roads of Dublin county criticise Dublin County Council because its roads are not modernised but it has taken Dublin County Council all its time to keep the existing road surface in a fit condition to carry that heavy rate of traffic and it has not received enough money to enable it to modernise its roads and bring them up to the standard which exists in other areas where very generous allocations have been made. Imagine some counties getting 60/- for every 20/- subscribed while Dublin City and County get only frb5/4fred. for every 20/- subscribed.
Considering that there are 85,000 vehicles registered here in the city and county it is only fair to expect that Dublin City would get a greater allocation. If that greater allocation were made available, it would in the long run mean a considerable saving to the ratepayers of the city and county. It seems that the central authority are making a profit of £1,500,000 out of the registration of motor vehicles in Dublin city and county which is then available to give other places three times more than they subscribed in the form of motor vehicle tax. Nothing like the profits made from other areas is made in Dublin city and county. Apart from the unfair distribution of the funds collected, not all the payments in respect of motor vehicles is given back toward road construction and maintenance. The Central Fund makes a handsome profit from road tax and some of that money, as the Minister knows, is used for other purposes.
In view of the fact that in most other counties they either break even or get much more back in the form of road grants than they contribute in the form of motor vehicle tax, I am asking the Minister to change the system so that grants will be made according to the weight of traffic carried per mile on any road. A count is often carried out on the roads coming into Dublin city to show how many vehicles per minute or per hour pass along those roads. The weight of traffic carried on a mile of those roads could, therefore, be compared with that carried on a mile of any other road in the country.
It is obvious that Dublin City and County are not being fairly treated if we consider the weight of traffic that those roads carry. Everybody knows that it is the weight of traffic that affects the condition of any road surface. We saw, for instance, where a heavy vehicle came out of Dublin on to the Naas road and the imprint of the wheel of that vehicle is still there in the middle of the road. If 100 vehicles per hour pass over one mile of road and only five vehicles per hour pass over another mile of road, it is obvious that the road carrying the heavier rate of traffic should get a more generous allocation towards its upkeep and maintenance.
I have no complaint to make against the Minister who is operating the system. As he said himself he has increased the grants in recent years available to both Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council. However, in view of the handsome profit that is being made at the expense of the motor vehicle owners in those areas, I am asking him to change the system in the manner I have suggested. It is all very well to give a grant per mile. Take Cork County, which is a huge area. In driving from Dublin to Cork City, when you have just gone inside the Cork County boundary there is a long journey to Cork City, and driving across from Cork City into West Cork entails another long journey. Those are very long roads but they are not carrying anything like the weight of traffic or the number of vehicles per mile that Dublin City or County is carrying.
Dublin County Council on several occasions made the case to the Minister for Local Government and his Department that we should be more generously treated. People coming into the city are critical of the county roads and it is obvious we need a more generous allocation.
As Deputy Rooney was quite well aware and as I have said in my reply here today, road grants are allocated on the basis of mileage and not on the basis of the number of vehicles registered. While we might find there are certain adjustments that could be made here and there, not necessarily in Dublin City and County, I think, overall, this system in relation to county road authorities, which was introduced in 1949-50 by the Coalition Government, of which Deputy Rooney's Party formed the large majority, has worked reasonably well since then. If a change were to be made it certainly could never be conceived that it should follow that all of the tax collected annually in a place such as Dublin City should be spent within the actual local authority area in which it was collected.
If we were to follow that to its logical conclusion in regard to all other taxes we should wind up with a number of small republics approximating to our county boundaries and city boundaries throughout the country with a completely different standard of social and other services being given to our people and the county boundary would be the deciding factor. I do not think anybody can conceive such a development. If followed to its logical conclusion this would lead to such an eventuality.
Let us deal with the case made here by Deputy Rooney—in all good faith, I have no doubt—in regard to how the County and City of Dublin have fared with the grants they are getting from the system as it has been operating for the past 12 years. The present situation is that Dublin City's and County's total overall additional grants this present year are no less than £376,000 more than they were a couple of years ago. Taking Dublin City again on its own, its share, heretofore, has been £90,000 a year. This year, they are empowered to spend £400,000 and they have been told that they may have the same amount for the next two years as well so that they may have continuity of planning and execution of their works.
The most amazing feature of all is— Deputy Rooney is aware of this and, if not, he must be after today—that, as far back as 1947, the special problem of the arterial roads leading in and out of Dublin was recognised. Special recognition was given to that problem and, under a Fianna Fáil Government, £500,000 was allocated for these very laudable purposes. Deputy Rooney and some of his colleagues know even better than I do why over all these years that £500,000 is still unspent to the tune of £330,000 and why no works to consume all this money have been forthcoming in the sense that £330,000 out of that £500,000 is unallocated, not alone unspent.
I deprecate some of the approaches to Dublin. I know the northern approach best, for which, I am sure, Deputy Rooney has a soft spot. It is no credit to the local authority area in which it is. Yet, we know that money could be got and was available to do that type of work. Some start appears to have been made in some places. Those starts and the cutting of the bends and the widening of the roads, particularly at Collinstown, are still very evident with the briars and brambles growing across what was once started and never finished. I am happy to know that, after all these years and this neglect and the fact that the money was available, some effort is now being made and £170,000 of that £500,000 has now been called upon by way of allocation for works proposed to be done or, in some cases, that are at this moment being done.
It is worth noting that Dublin County and City areas have all of their roads dust free. In other words, they are tarmacadam or concrete surfaces. The national average of our roads throughout the country so dust free is only 43 per cent. Are we to build roads, and to build roads beside roads, merely to expend money because it is collected in Dublin City while, down the country, there still is a justifiable clamour for more and more road improvement and while only 43 per cent. of the entire road system outside the Dublin area is in that condition to-day? Many millions of pounds will be needed for many years hence to make a real impression on that problem. To talk of making a profit out of the Road Fund is ludicrous when we consider this very brief résumé of the position of the Road Fund for some short few years back.
In 1954, the Road Fund was in debt something under £2 million. By 1957, that debt had risen to over £4 million. This year and, at the moment, the debt on that Fund has been reduced to approximately £3 million. We are still in debt. We are more in debt but we are trying to pay off some of that debt. Far from making any profit for the general Exchequer from this particular matter, the Deputy and the House are well aware that even in the recent past £1 million additional money was made available from the general Exchequer to supplement the then somewhat down and out Road Fund in order that we could give the special railway closing grants to various counties.
The Deputy will also remember that it is not so very many years ago, when there was an order to maintain even the progress that was being made on our roads, the Fund was in such a deplorable financial mess that somewhere in the region of £900,000 had to be got from the general Exchequer in order that over 4,000 road workers would not be forthwith paid off. That is the situation in regard to the profit-making capacity of this Fund. If that Fund is there for as many years as either Deputy Rooney or I will be in this House, and if it continues even in its present state, every last penny that will come into it will be required if the roads throughout the entire country are to be brought to anything approaching the standard generally obtaining in the Dublin City and County areas which are now being complained of. I say that to the Deputy in the full knowledge that he naturally would like to see more money and more road works in his constituency. So would we all. But our claims elsewhere are so much stronger than are the claims of Deputy Rooney's constituency, as everybody can see who traverses these roads, that there just does not seem to be, on the face of it, any real case to be made.
The council have made representations to be received by me. They have made representations in the past to be received by other Ministers. I mean no discourtesy to them when I indicate that I see no purpose in meeting them in the circumstances. I am only following what has been the practice in these matters for some time past and by various Ministers in the past because, to receive one county in this matter, we would have to receive them all. What county, local authority or road authority in the country is there that has not a case it could make and, I would say, a better case than can be made by Deputy Rooney, for higher grants? We have a certain Fund there. The Fund has in many cases been jeopardised. It has been put into bad condition. We have brought it back to a fair sense of balance. It is limited and every penny going into it is being used and used for road purposes. We have not any further moneys. Therefore, what is the point in meeting these people?
Dublin County and Dublin City have had £500,000 lying at their doorstep for the past 14 years and they did not spend it. Why urge now that they in particular should have a special case? How they expect to establish it, I do not know.
I promise the Deputy that any representations he may make to back up what he has said here tonight will be carefully considered by me. If found to contain something of substance, which I may think of importance, they will get full consideration and, who knows, we may even better their lot.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 7th December, 1961.