I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." This is the most comprehensive and far reaching roads legislation to have been brought before the Oireachtas since the foundation of the State. When enacted this Bill will establish the National Roads Authority on a statutory basis, and update the law relating to public roads.
The National Roads Authority will have overall responsibility for planning and supervising the construction, improvement and maintenance of the network of national roads, including the access routes to the principal ports and airports. These roads represent under 6 per cent of total road mileage, but account for about 37 per cent of total road traffic, two-thirds of it work-related. The statutory Authority will be faced with a major task, as will be seen from the review carried out by my Department in 1987 and 1988 which estimated the total long term needs for the development of the national roads at over £3.6 billion — £3 billion for national primary roads and £600 million for national secondaries. The Operational Programme on Peripherality, which was approved by the EC Commission last August, provides a firm policy and strategic framework on which the statutory Authority can build. Over the five years of the programme, State grants for the improvement of national roads are expected to amount to in excess of £715 million, expressed in 1991 prices.
The provisions of Part III of the Bill relating to the statutory National Roads Authority were only drafted after detailed consideration of the views expressed by a range of bodies including the local authorities, trade unions and bodies representing industry. Detailed submissions were received from bodies such as the Confederation of Irish Industry, the Construction Industry Federation, the County and City Managers' Association and the County and City Engineers' Association. The most important submission came from the interim National Roads Authority who were able to look at the issues involved at first hand. Indeed, at this point I would like to pay tribute to the work done by the chairman and members of the interim Authority since their establishment.
The National Roads Authority, to be established by this Bill, will have a general duty to secure the provision of a safe and efficient network of national roads and will be assigned overall responsibility for the planning and supervision of construction, improvement and maintenance works on those roads. The Bill assigns the Authority a number of important specific functions. They will be responsible for the preparation of medium term plans for the development of the national roads: the Operational Programme on Peripherality, covering the period up to the end of 1993, is in effect the first of those plans. They will prepare or arrange for the preparation of road designs, maintenance programmes and schemes for the provision of traffic signs on national roads. They will secure the carrying out of construction, improvement and maintenance works on national roads and they will allocate and pay grants for works on national roads. The Authority will have power to issue directions to road authorities to carry out certain specified functions in relation to the construction, improvement and maintenance of national roads and will be able to carry out the function itself where the road authority fail or refuses to comply with a direction. While road authorities will normally be relied upon to prepare road design and maintenance programmes and enter into road works contracts, the Authority will have the power to carry out these functions where they decide that this would be more convenient, expeditious, effective or economical. They will promote the case for EC assistance for roads. This will include the preparation of the national roads elements of future operational programmes covering the roads and other transport sectors. They will promote the provision of private funding for national roads and for this purpose will have the power to borrow up to £500 million subject to the usual ministerial consents and to enter into toll franchise agreements with private interests.
The Bill also provides that the Minister will have the power to assign additional functions relating to national roads to the Authority or transfer to them any of his functions, roads functions of local authorities or traffic functions of the Garda Commissioner relating to national roads. Any ministerial order transferring additional functions to the Authority will be subject to confirmation by both Houses of the Oireachtas.
I am sure the House will agree that the Authority are being given very substantial powers to enable them to get on with the task of overseeing and co-ordinating the development of our national roads. This development programme will in turn provide valuable support for the Government's overall economic recovery strategy by contributing to a significant reduction in the transport cost disadvantage suffered by Irish industry, particularly our exporters, when compared with other EC member states trading with each other.
The proposed functions of the National Roads Authority take particular account of the valuable work which local authorities have been doing in the construction, improvement and maintenance of national roads. The Bill ensures that their skills and expertise will continue to be availed of and is designed to guarantee continuity and avoid any overlap of functions or duplication of effort. For these reasons the Bill provides that road authorities will continue to acquire land for national roads, prepare road designs and maintenance programmes and enter into road works contracts on behalf of the Authority unless the Authority decide it would be more convenient, expeditious, effective or economical to carry out the work themselves. I expect that road authorities will continue to carry out most of their existing functions in relation to national roads — acting on behalf of the Authority and under their supervision. I have no doubt that the Authority will be looking very carefully at how these functions might be carried out more efficiently and economically. They may, for example, be looking at how specialist skills in road design built up by one authority can be made available to others. The important difference is that the Authority will provide the strategic focus for the development of the national roads. They will provide the planning and supervisory framework within which the local authorities will work and will, as a last resort, have the necessary statutory powers to enforce their mandate.
The Minister of the day will continue to exercise overall policy supervision. He will pay central Government grants to the Authority as a global amount and will of course continue to carry out certain quasi-judicial functions, such as the approval of compulsory purchase orders and motorway schemes. His Department will, however, no longer have a detailed involvement in the day-to-day supervision of the work programme on national roads. This function will, under the Bill, transfer in its entirety to the Authority.
During the drafting of the legislation to establish the National Roads Authority, it became clear that the general law governing the administration of public roads required to be updated and needed as far as possible to be drawn together in a single Act. It was concluded that there was no point in setting up a statutory Authority with substantial powers and then leaving them to operate in an outdated legal framework. You do not give somebody a spade when they could use a JCB. I am conscious that, as a result of this additional work, the statutory establishment of the NRA has not come as quickly as many people had hoped. However, the time has been well used to give us an Authority with a clearly thought-out mandate and a modern legislative framework within which to operate. The Local Government (Roads and Motorways) Act, 1974, and the Local Government (Toll Roads) Act, 1979, are being repealed and re-enacted in an updated form in Parts IV and V of the Bill. Other provisions scattered throughout various Acts are being modernised and some entirely new powers are being introduced.
The following are some of the more significant proposed changes in the general roads law: the classification of public roads is being simplified; three classes are proposed: national, regional and local; there is a clear definition of the local authorities who will be responsible for each class of public road; the power to declare public roads is being modernised and the power to abandon public roads is being devolved to road authorities; the concept of a protected road is being introduced in addition to the re-enactment of the existing legislative provisions for motorways and busways. The protected road is intended as a "halfway house" between an ordinary public road, which has very limited access control or traffic restrictions, and a motorway, to which all access from adjoining land is prohibited and which is also restricted to certain types of traffic; road authorities will now be able to provide and/or operate service areas along motorways and protected roads. Alternatively they will be able to make agreements with private interests for their provision and/or operation; the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation of the European Communities have frequently recommended that European Communities regulations implementing EC directives should be transferred into an appropriate Act when the opportunity presented itself. In compliance with that recommendation European Communities regulations implementing an EC directive in relation to the environmental impact assessment of proposed road development including motorways, busways and certain other types of road construction and improvement are being replaced by sections 48 and 49 of this Bill; road authorities are being given power to provide cycleways; temporary dwellings on national roads, motorways, busways and protected roads are being prohibited as are unauthorised vehicles used for trading and unauthorised signs and advertising hoardings on any public road. Road authorities are being given appropriate enforcement powers; road authorities will have improved powers to deal with dangerous trees and new powers to deal with dangerous structures along public roads; powers to extinguish public rights of way are being devolved to road and planning authorities; road authorities are being given new powers to control road races and strengthened powers relating to the temporary closure of public roads.
I do not propose to outline in detail all the provisions of the Bill. I will, however, draw attention to some of the more important sections. The Bill is in six Parts. Part I is largely procedural and deals with matters such as definitions for the purpose of the Bill, commencement of the Act, repeals and savers and powers to make regulations.
In Part II, I would like to draw attention to sections 10 to 13. Section 10 simplifies the classification of public roads. There will be three classes. National and regional roads will be declared by the Minister and all other roads will be classified as local roads. This system will replace a number of different and overlapping road classifications which exist at present: trunk and link roads under the Minister of Transport Act, 1919, main, county and urban roads under the Local Government Act, 1925, national roads under the Local Government (Roads and Motorways) Act, 1974 and an informal classification of regional roads prepared by my Department which has been the subject of extensive consultations with road authorities.
Section 11 replaces the existing powers in the Local Government Acts, 1925 and 1953, enabling road authorities to declare roads to be public roads. Section 12 devolves to road authorities the power to abandon public roads. Similarly section 69 devolves to local authorities the power to extinguish public rights of way. In both sections 12 and 69, the only exception is that the Minister's consent will be required where a national or regional road is affected. At present the Minister's approval is required in all cases and where there are objectons he must hold a public inquiry or oral hearing. In future the consideration of objections to an abandonment or extinguishment will be the responsibility of the local authority. Section 13 defines which road authorities are to be responsible for each class of public road defined in section 10 and largely reflects the existing de facto position on the ground.
Subject to the powers vested in the National Roads Authority in accordance with Part III of the Bill, the 27 county councils and the five county borough corporations will be responsbile for national roads. These 32 authorities will also be responsible for regional roads, while responsibility for local roads will be given to county councils, county borough corporations, borough corporations and urban district councils.
Part III deals with the National Roads Authority. Section 16 provides for the establishment of the Authority by ministerial order, while section 17 imposes a general duty on it to secure the provision of safe and efficient network of national roads and for that purpose gives it overall responsibility for the planning and supervision of the development of those roads. The section also gives the Minister power to assign additional powers to the authority with the express approval of the Dáil and Seanad. The specific functions of the Authority are set out in section 19. They include preparing or arranging for the preparation of designs, maintenance programmes and schemes for traffic signs, securing the carrying out of works, allocating grants, specifying standards with the approval of the Minister and carrying out or assisting research. Road authorities will normally act on behalf of the Authority in relation to road design, the preparation of maintenance programmes and schemes for traffic signs and the placing of road works contracts unless the Authority decide it would be more convenient, expeditious, effective or economical to carry out the work themselves.
Section 18 obliges the Authority to prepare a plan for development of the network of national roads at regular intervals. The plan will be the subject of a public consultation process and will also require ministerial approval. The Authority will be expected to act in accordance with their approved plan and will have to review its implementation each year.
Section 20 will enable the National Roads Authority to give direction to road authorities to carry out certain statutory procedures, such as the making of compulsory purchase orders and motorways schemes, or to carry out works. Before issuing a direction which would require a road authority to materially contravene a development plan or a special amenity area order, the National Roads Authority will have to give notice to the general public and the relevant road and planning authorities and consider any objections or representations received. This procedure mirrors that for a material contravention of a local authority development plan. Under subsection (5) the National Roads Authority will have a reserve power to carry out the functions specified in the direction——
