I should like to draw the Minister's attention to a matter I have never fully understood. To me, it is one of the principal mysteries of political administration. I refer to the manner in which the Road Fund is administered. Why is it divided in such a peculiar fashion? Why are some counties treated so well and others treated so ill? Why are some areas treated so ill and others treated so well?
Waterford is my constituency; I live in Waterford city.
I am grateful to the Minister for the fact that, when I first came into this House and he was over here on these benches, he tabled a Parliamentary Question on 9th May, 1956, seeking full particulars as to how the Road Fund was allocated. The reply—it was in the form of a tabular statement—was an eye-opener to me. It was probably an eye-opener to the Minister also because he made no further reference to it, and he was never shy of the supplementary question. Presumably he observed how well his native county was being treated by his predecessor, Deputy P. O'Donnell. I am not criticising Deputy O'Donnell too much; neither do I criticise the present Minister. Everybody must look after his own. It is quite normal for a Minister to do whatever is within his province for his native place.
The reason I raise this is that I want to point out to the Minister now that in the year in which he asked this question his native county got something in the neighbourhood of £290,000 in road grants. They were beneficiaries in everything possible. For the upkeep and improvement of main roads—I am quoting from column 280 of Volume 150 of the Official Report of 9th May, 1956—they got £291,000; they got £55,000 in tourist road grants; they got £14,500 for employment schemes; and they got £14,000 for schemes for the improvement of roads in Gaeltacht areas. Waterford got £137,000 for the upkeep and improvement of main roads. Instead of getting £55,000 for tourist road grants—that was the sum a number of counties got—they got £5,000. For employment schemes, they got not £250,000 but £250. I am sure the county councillors went out to celebrate in Dungarvan when they got the good news. I am sure they wondered what they could do with this enormous sum of £250.
The Minister mentioned allocations to be made to Waterford city because of the fact that his colleague, the Minister for Transport and Power, has destroyed the Waterford-Tramore railway line. I have some interesting figures here at column 321 of Volume 193 of the Official Report of 15th February of this year. From 1950-51 to 1960-61, Waterford city got in road grants £41,043. During the same period, Waterford city contributed more than £528,000 to the Road Fund. We will, I am sure, get the usual explanation: the citizens of Waterford use the roads all over the country. That may be so, but we have to pay for the roads all over the country and we do not find anybody from any other county paying for one inch of the roads in our own area.
Deputy Dillon referred to Monaghan not getting the railway road grant. This year in Waterford we are getting a railway road grant. The Minister told me about that also; in 1960-61, we got £6,043; in 1961-62, the amount has been increased to £32,726 in order to build up the roads to carry buses. The Minister is charged with providing money to improve roads for bus traffic because the railway was done away with. I do not think cognisance was ever taken of the amount of money these small railways were losing vis-á-vis the enormous amount of money the Minister now has to provide to improve the roads for bus traffic. In the case of Waterford, there is an increase of £26,000. The railway was losing £3,000 per year. I do not know if the railway in the Minister's constituency was losing, or how much, but the Minister has told us that he has allocated £75,000 per year for five years to Donegal County Council to make good the roads.
It is a dreadful state of affairs to play ducks and drakes with public moneys in this manner. There would have been no necessity to give us the grant for this purpose but we would have liked to get the grant increased in order to put the roads within the city into such a state that they would be able to carry the traffic which is now on them. Why should not the citizens of Waterford get an increased grant to have the city roads either widened or re-metalled, in view of the fact that, as I mentioned, over some ten years they have paid in £520,000 and have got back only £41,000?
The Waterford city rate was struck last night at 57/- in the £. The enormous burden being put on the people down there was mentioned, in view of the fact that they had been revalued in 1926. I would point out to the Minister that the Waterford Corporation, composed of all shades of political opinion, went about their business in a sound and businesslike manner. They struck the rate last night and I would draw the Minister's attention to the fact that that was done at a meeting which did not last more than two and a half hours. When a council as businesslike as that face up to their obligations, as they have done over the years, they deserve a better allocation from the Road Fund.
Waterford county has always been a mystery to me. I even read in our local papers some time ago that there was an increase in the allocation from the Road Fund and that it was good news for us and we would now get £122,000. I do not know how that comes about because in the year when the Minister asked the question of his predecessor, in 1953-54, Waterford city was allocated £142,328 from the Road Fund; in 1954-55, it went down to £141,000; in 1955-56, it went down to £137,000; in 1956-57, it went down to £127,000; in 1957-58, it was again £127,000; in 1958-59, it was also £127,000 and in 1959-60, it was again £127,000. Now, in 1960-61, I read that it is £132,000. I do not know where the local people got £122,000. The official figure is £132,000 and I am quoting from the Adjournment Debate on 19th July, 1960, at Column 1829.
During the years 1954 to 1960, the road allocation to other counties has been substantially increased. I have been continually asking these questions of the Minister because the majority of counties seem to have received increased Road Fund grants while the Waterford grant decreases. It is interesting to see that in 1953-54 Waterford was getting £144,000, while Donegal was getting £249,000. Now, at 31st March, 1960, Waterford got £127,000 in the year ended 31st March, 1960 and Donegal got £431,000. As I say, the Road Fund grants to many other counties have been continually increased. That is only right because the number of motor cars on the roads was increasing each year, but what I could not understand was that while the other counties were getting splendid allocations and much better allocations every year because, as I said, the number of vehicles on the road was consistently increasing, over that period of the consistent increase in the number of vehicles, the grants allocated from the Road Fund to Waterford county decreased consistently.
I would ask the Minister to look at Waterford county with some realism. We get £5,000 as a tourist road grant but we have other fortunate counties which get magnificent sums in tourist road grants. Take the case of Cavan, which gets £10,000. I heard it asked here if that grant, which was supposed to be given to counties with Gaeltacht areas, was given to Cavan, and was consistently kept up, because Cavan had a big Gaeltacht area, or was it because a Cavan man had been Minister for Local Government. Cork gets £55,000; Donegal, £55,000; Galway, £55,000; Kerry, £55,000; and Waterford is down in the "also rans" at £5,000. Only last Sunday, I drove over a mountain road in County Waterford. I had often driven over that road before but never on such a fine day and I saw more beauty and wonderful scenery than I have ever seen in any part of Ireland. That road, however, is a road fit only for testing tanks. Here are we in Waterford paying the taxes and not getting a return for them. I have been on some of the roads in the more fortunate counties and goodness knows where they were going and why they were put there.
I have something to say, too, about these allocations. The allocations are made to the county councils and the county councils arrive at a decision. They put their case to the Minister and his officers who say: "Very well; cut away that turn", and a good deal of good work is being done in this way. I am glad that good work is being done on the way out of Dublin and in areas where there is very heavy traffic, but there are many turns and bends on which hundreds and thousands of pounds have been spent which were not so dangerous at all. I submit to the Minister that he should, as he is constantly being asked to do from all sides of the House, have work done for our own people. We are prepared to build roads, as it says here, for factories which Japanese, Chinese, Czechs, Germans or men from God-knows-where, will build but we will not put up roads leading to the homes of our own people. We should do that. When the Minister is making these allocations to the county councils, he should bear in mind that it is not a case even of the secondary roads. It is not a matter that some people have paid money to have the roads done. These boreens should be done. They would be of great help to the farmers, especially now that there is so much mechanisation on farms and that people have to bring out heavy loads of beet and wheat.
Now that our railways are wrecked, it would be well that the roads were done in view of cattle transportation. I may be asked why should the roads be done for these lorries. This is a convenience for farmers. They would not have to carry stock to the end of the lane or to drag a crop to the end of the lane if the lorries can go up and down these bad boreens. This money could not be spent in a better way.
The Fine Gael Party room looks out on work being done at present by mechanised monsters. I do not know what is being paid for them. These monsters are now on the roads and we are paying for them. However, the monster which can be seen from the Fine Gael Party room has been digging for the past six weeks. The cost of its hire and operation must be extremely heavy. I am sure there are many men still in this country who would be glad to get a job with pick and shovel and who would dig that out faster and cheaper than it is costing to operate one of those mechanised monsters. I have often pulled up my car to look at big machinery at work on big road schemes between here and my constituency.
Calculate the normal capital cost of this machinery. Take into consideration the fact that it lasts only a year or two, with only a few men operating it, and has then to be written off completely. Then bear in mind that there are men walking past it on their way to the labour exchange. Surely that is something to set one thinking? We should call a halt to this. There are many parts of the country where men are available to work at the county council rate and who would be glad to take the work. Too much money is being put into road-making machinery. I would again say to the Minister that I am not altogether criticising him for giving a good vote to his constituency. His predecessor did it in his own Party and his predecessor in my Party did it.