asked the Minister for Local Government whether he is aware that considerable unemployment among road workers in West Cork is likely to be caused by the fact that, despite the increases in wages, the road grant for West Cork has been reduced by some £8,000; and whether he will accede to the request of the county council to provide a special additional road grant to prevent the occurrence of unemployment in the area.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - West Cork Road Grant.
27.
The Road Fund grants to county councils for the present year have been allocated and notified in full and there are no funds at my disposal from which supplementary grants can be made available. It is open to the Deputy, as a member of the Cork County Council, to press the claims of the West Cork area with that body in relation to the distribution of the grants made available to the council.
Is the Minister aware that within the area under the jurisdiction of the western committee of the county council, the total grants have been reduced by £7,693? There has also been an increase in wages and in the cost of hiring plant and machinery and the cost of materials. Does the Minister not realise there is bound to be grave unemployment among the road workers of West Cork, unless this additional grant is made available?
In order to get the correct picture, it should be said that a special road grant of £60,000 paid to Cork County Council for a number of years terminated at the end of the last financial year. That £60,000 has been made up for by increases under other heads short of £13,000. What is done within the county, region by region, as to the allocation of the overall grant is something over which I have no control, other than to approve particular schemes as they come up. At the end of the last financial year, in Cork there was an allocation of £100,000 unspent. That might provide a way in which additional money could be found.
Will the Minister agree that the £150,000 arterial road grant provided by his Department could be spent only in accordance with the directions of the Department, and that none could go to West Cork because there are no arterial roads there? This £150,000 is not putting any butter on the bread of the road workers in West Cork when it is being spent in Mitchelstown, 70 or 80 miles away.
The Deputy should rise in his place when putting a supplementary.
I am sure the Tánaiste is very perturbed about West Cork.
What happens in Cork as regards the allocation of these grants is a matter for themselves. It is true that the arterial road grant, which represents an increase of £50,000 on last year, must be spent on arterial roads and that there is no such road designated in West Cork. But there are main roads in West Cork and the increase there is £58,700.
Is the Minister not aware that, as a result of the closing of the West Cork railway, the heavy traffic on the roads of both west and mid-Cork has caused serious deterioration of the surface? This will entail heavy expenditure in the years to come in the maintenance of these roads. The compensation the Minister made available was only a fraction of what he made available to his own county in similar circumstances.
It was never intended to be other than part of the amount required. It was calculated on the basis of additional help related to the overall ability of a county to meet its obligations in regard to roads. The £60,000 given annually for a stated period was of special assistance.
For capital schemes only.
This should be a separate grant.
It was a separate grant. Since that fund has been liquidated over the stated number of years, it means that £60,000 less is being paid in Cork this year than for last year and a number of years past, but five years ago it was known that that grant would end. In spite of that, the total net reduction for Cork out of a figure of £700,000 is a mere £13,000. I direct the attention of those so concerned about the road workers of West Cork to the fact that it appears from the returns in my Department that an allocation of £111,000 remains unspent, or, if spent, has not been accounted for to my Department.
Will the Minister not agree that the number of taxable vehicles in Cork increased by 3,612 last year, with a resultant increase in the Road Fund? Surely the Minister will agree that the position in West Cork is unique, with this big reduction in grants and nothing to offset the increase in wages and material.
There has been an increase from the Road Fund to Cork county this year.
Surely the Minister will agree that this arterial grant should be a special grant.
I cannot allow this to go on forever.
I am trying to get some more money for our people in West Cork.
The Deputy will not get it this way.