Vol. 450 No. 6
I move:
That Dáil Éireann, mindful of the severe economic deprivation being caused, the unacceptable hardship caused to many families and the damage being done to local agriculture, tourism and manufacturing industries by the rapid disintegration of our county roads infrastructure, condemns the Government for the reduction in funding for non-national roads and calls on the Government to recognise the crisis and increase the level of funding for these roads.
I wish to share my time.
I am sure that is satisfactory and agreed.
When I received word about the notification last week of the allocation of moneys to non-national roads, I was absolutely astounded. Although the Budget Statement had indicated that only an additional £8 million was being provided for this I could not believe that the Government had become so far removed from the people in such a short space of time that it would actually reduce the amount of moneys to be spent on non-national roads this year.
My incredulity turned to anger when I realised the reality of the allocations announced last week. Despite what the Government's amendment might say, there is a 4 per cent reduction, from £107 million to £103 million, in the overall total of the 1995 figure. When I examined the figure more closely I discovered that the INTERREG funding was also being raided, not to provide the additionality it is supposed to provide but to replace Exchequer funding of £8 million. Therefore, the total being provided by the Government this year is not £103 million but just over £95 million, a reduction of 11 per cent on last year's allocation. The fact that the Border counties are being cheated of additional funding, which the Minister for Finance referred to in the House last week as being additional, is a point I will leave to my colleagues from the Border constituencies to develop but it is one worth noting.
I mentioned my anger at the realisation that the Government had actually cut the allocation for non-national roads for this year but I am angry for a number of reasons. I am angry principally because this particular announcement signifies the end of a seven-year period during which the problems of non-national and county roads were being treated seriously. During those seven years serious efforts were being made to address what was always admitted to be a major problem for many areas but particularly rural areas. The cut in this allocation signifies also a total abandonment of the commitments made by successive Ministers during those seven years to solve this problem.
I do not believe in overnight solutions to major problems. In fact, I do not believe in overnight solutions to many of our minor problems because such approaches do not work. In this instance I do not believe any Minister can resolve such a major problem with one year's allocation of funds. The most recent estimate of funding that would be required to address this problem is a little over £1 billion. I did not expect the Minister to wave a magic wand and solve all our problems this year but the policy pursued by successive Ministers since 1987 was having some effect and was at least containing the problem. The public, many of whom were impatient and angry, accepted that some progress was being made and had some hope that the problem would be tackled over a period.
Last week's announcement of the allocation dashed any hopes the public might have had of a continued commitment by the Government to improve non-national roads. It sent a signal to communities around the country that there was no policy to try to bring non-national roads up to reasonable standards. By its actions the Government has sent a clear signal that it is abandoning the planned programme initiated by the then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Michael Smith, last year. He told local authorities that funding would remain at the higher level for three years in order to tackle the deteriorating condition of our roads. At various local authority meetings he spelled out what was required of those bodies. He engaged in a good deal of straight talking as to whether what they were doing was right or wrong. In giving a commitment that the level of funding would remain the same for three years I assume he took inflation into account.
The Government is insulting the intelligence of the people when it talks about the exceptional once-off allocation in 1994 and the fact that the 1995 figure represents a record level of funding. That should not be included in any proposed amendment. A total of £107 million was allocated last year, £103 million is being allocated this year and if one takes the INTERREG figure out of the calculation, the total is £95 million.
The commitment made last year has now been abandoned. What will make people even more angry is the fact that this was done at a time when the outgoing Government left the incoming one a balanced budget but this Government did not want to accept it and borrowed £300 million for day-to-day spending. It was not willing to allow even 1 per cent of that borrowing to go towards the funding of our county roads.
It is even more annoying that the cut in funding for our non-national roads is equivalent to the amount of money this Government spent on programme managers, advisers, personal assistants and the creation of two additional Ministers of State. I spoke in this House when those additional positions were being debated and I referred, in particular, to the Government's new-found concern for the west. I note Minister of State Carey did not have much of an effect on these road allocations in that the counties in the west, for which he has a special and direct responsibility and where roads have been flooded for several months, are actually £2 million less well off than they were last year. Perhaps, by reducing the roads allocation, the Government is trying to make up for the Minister's salary and those of his advisers and programme managers.
What we are seeing is a return to the policies of the 1982-87 Coalition Government — the syndrome of borrowing money for non-productive purposes and not investing in long term development. The cut in expenditure is even more inexplicable when one considers the weather conditions of the past four months. Rainfall has been double the average in that period on top of what Deputy Avril Doyle referred to last year as "the wettest 12 months on record". At that time she was denouncing the Minister for increasing by £30 million the allocation for non-national roads.
Many of our roads have been under water for months and there has been a rapid disintegration of the infrastructure of county roads because of the weather. This has had a serious effect on industry, tourism and the day-to-day existence of rural families. While I am angry about the reduction in the allocation, there are many families in Meath and other parts of the country who are even more angry. I do not live at the end of a class 3 road; I live on the edge of a regional road and, therefore, this measure does not affect me directly.
A firm in Meath is in danger of losing business because of the state of the roads in the vicinity of the industry. This light engineering firm produces goods for the German market and for the last six months the owner of the firm has been making excuses on why the purchasers of his equipment in Germany should not come to Ireland to see his facility — he does not want them to see the state of the road leading to his firm. Several industries not only in Meath but throughout the country have been affected by bad road conditions. Local economies are affected because lorries cannot travel some routes to collect milk. Tourism, a key sector for employment creation, is also affected because many of our tourist sites are at the end of county roads, or class 3 roads. Some beauty spots and places of interest are virtually closed to tourists because of the bad state of our county roads.
Like Deputies from all sides of the House, I know many families whose lives are seriously disrupted because roads, which are the lifeline of rural and urban communities, are impassable. Deputies have received many representations in their clinics about the hardship caused by this problem. I know of several instances in Meath where children have to wear wellingtons to walk from their houses to the end of the lane to get the school bus. They then leave their wellingtons in a neighbour's house from where they collect them in the evening. People are unable to cycle on these roads and one person confined to a wheelchair is virtually a prisoner in his home because of the bad state of the roads. Hundreds of elderly people are afraid to venture on these roads, particularly at night, for fear of falling.
Last year in this House Deputy Enda Kenny said that citizens who pay high insurance and taxes are entitled to decent roadways. Since Deputy Kenny is now Minister for Tourism and Trade one would have expected he would have pushed for an increase in the road allocation, considering he was so concerned last year. Why has he not used his new found influence to do something about this problem?
This reduction in funding comes after seven years of consistent investment in non-national roads by previous Governments. Between 1983 and 1987 when Fine Gael and Labour were in Government not one penny was paid by the State for maintenance work on county roads. In the five years 1989-93 grants paid to county councils for non-national road maintenance and improvement totalled £336 million. Taking account of the contributions from local resources, total expenditure on non-national roads in the past five years was in excess of £600 million. In 1994 £107 million was allocated for non-national roads, £30 million more than in 1993. That was an all-time record level of expenditure for maintenance and improvement of non-national roads. It is absolute nonsense for the Government, in its amendment, to state that its allocation is a record.
Between 1986 and 1994 State grants for non-national roads, including urban roads, increased from £40.48 million to £107 million, an increase of more than 160 per cent. In view of the recent bad weather one would expect the Government to build on the work of the last Administration, but instead it cut the allocation by 4 per cent. Account was not even taken of inflation. The least that should have been done was that last year's level of expenditure should have been increased by the rate of inflation. If that had been the case the figure allocated would have been about £110 million. Government Deputies are busily trying to shore up the damage throughout the country by telling their local authorities and newspapers that the full amount has not been allocated, that the £8 million provided for in the budget is not included in this figure, but I have checked this matter with officials in the Department of the Environment who have made it clear that the £103 million is the total amount available this year for non-national roads.
Failure to take account of inflation and the use of INTERREG funds means the Government's spending on non-national roads is down by £15 million. This contrasts sharply with the 8 per cent increase in other areas of Government expenditure. While funding for non-national roads in Dublin has increased, and that is very welcome, it must be asked why that was not done for rural Ireland. Does the Government plan to treat the people of rural Ireland, where there are third class roads, as third class citizens? I call on the Minister to restore last year's level of funding, taking into account 2.7 per cent inflation. That is the minimum that should be done. I reject the Government's amendment to this motion. It is an insult to people's intelligence to state that "when exceptional once-off provisions made in 1994 are excluded, the 1995 grant provided for non-national roads is at a record level". It was at a record level of £107 million last year; £103 million is not a record level.
I am very glad to support the motion in the name of Deputy Dempsey. The decision by the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party to table it demonstrates our anger at the news contained in the announcement of the Minister for the Environment last week on road allocations. The allocation to County Cavan has been reduced substantially, from the 1994 figure of £4.641 million to £4.085 million for 1995. This allocation is totally unacceptable. The provision is even worse when one considers that within the £4.085 million there is an INTERREG element of £1.3 million. Thus the real reduction in the 1995 allocation amounts to almost £1.9 million, or 40 per cent of the allocation received from the Department of the Environment in 1994.
All along we were given assurances that the INTERREG funding would be additional to the normal allocation from the national Exchequer. It is totally unacceptable that the Minister should dramatically slash allocations to the Border counties and then restore in part some of those cuts with INTERREG funding, which was intended in the first place as additional funding for the Border counties. The allocations show a total unwillingness by this Government to address the serious roads problem in counties such as Cavan and Monaghan and also its lack of commitment to build up the economy of the Border counties. During the past few months we received assurances from members of the Government, Departments and State agencies that funding designated for development in the Border counties would be additional to the normal Exchequer contribution. Since the cessation of violence in Northern Ireland a new urgency has been attached to remedying the serious infrastructural deficiencies in the Border region. We believed that the INTERREG II programmer and the Delors package would be additional to normal national funding. On 28 February the Minister for Finance during Question Time said, "It is my intention to ensure that the moneys will be additional". To our extreme disappointment we learned last week that at the first opportunity presented to the Government to honour its commitment, it has substantially reduced the allocation for regional and county roads to local authorities in Cavan and Monaghan and used the new funding from INTERREG II as a partial substitution for the inexcusable cutback in the national Exchequer contribution.
The road allocation announcement was very disheartening news to many people who had fervently believed that the promised additional funding for the Border region would bring about a rapid improvement in my county's road network. The people had every reason to expect a substantial increase on the 1994 allocation in view of the very healthy state of the public finances, the increase in public expenditure, the public commitments made by the Government and the European Union to a regeneration of the Border economy, the additional mileage of road needing substantial repairs as a result of the reopening of formerly closed Border roads and the continuing bad weather, with its adverse effect on the condition of roads. The news was even more disheartening when the Minister talked about making the necessary improvements in road conditions during the next ten years. He stated also that the Government had decided a report was necessary. Cavan County Council has drawn up a very substantial report on the existing condition of regional and county roads and the funding needed to bring them up to an acceptable standard. I am sure the necessary data is readily available to the Minister and his Ministers of State in the Custom House. Talk about the need to draw up a report is only an effort to buy time.
When this Government published its programme, A Government of Renewal, the first item I sought in the document was the reference to the infrastructural and road network. To my utter amazement, the only reference I could find to it in that document was on page 26. The total interest of the parties who contributed to and signed that document, namely the Fine Gael Party, the Labour Party and the Democratic Left Party was summed up in one line —“We will provide additional resources to upgrade and adequately maintain county roads”. I suspended judgment at that time on the Government's likely attitude and financial contribution to the elimination of the road problems. Unfortunately my worst fears came true last week when the allocations reflected the cursory mention of roads in that document. The lack of commitment shown in A Government of Renewal to the much needed improvement in the non-national road network is a continuation of the policy of Fine Gael and Labour in Government in 1985 when it produced the paper, Building on Reality, where there was not even a mention of the importance of the non-national road network.
Every public representative welcomed the fact that Fianna Fáil in Government ensured that provision was made in the National Development Plan for the partial funding of the non-national road network from Structural Funds. Previous Ministers for the Environment accepted that the Border counties experienced particular problems and that counties such as Cavan and Monaghan had a special case for funding. With increases during recent years progress was made on the strengthening and improvement of the non-national road network and it was expected that further substantial progress would be made.
A number of factors contribute to the road network problem in counties such as Cavan, the weak saturated drumlin soil covering approximately 77 per cent of the total area of the county, the increased allowable axle loadings under European Union legislation, intensive agricultural activity, with in excess of 15 million tonnes of material being transported along the regional and county roads network annually, the large volume of cross-Border heavy commercial traffic and the lack of a railway system which has led to increased heavy axle loadings. There is an unanswerable case for increased investment in regional and county roads. Such investment is absolutely necessary to reduce costs for industry, agriculture, tourism and general road users. Unfortunately we have had continuous heavy rainfall this winter which has contributed substantially to further deterioration in most road conditions.
It has been accepted in the country and in the European Union that the Border areas suffered immeasurably over the past 25 years because of the political difficulties on its doorstep. It was particularly difficult to attract inward investment, to encourage tourism to provide employment locally. It was promised that the cessation of violence would give the six northern and the six southern Border counties a real economic peace dividend. With the rescinding of the orders in connection with closed cross-Border roads Cavan County Council has received only £121,000 towards the reinstatement of the first six roads to be reopened. This allocation is totally inadequate. Minimal work has been undertaken at each Border crossing. The access roads have become derelict and will remain impassable through lack of funding. It is totally hypocritical of Ministers to speak about the reopening of closed cross-Border roads and the benefits to local communities on both sides of the Border when the funding to make those roads passable is not made available to the relevant local authorities.
Co-operation in the tourism industry on an all-Ireland basis has been accepted as necessary to ensure we develop the industry to its optimum. The very roads that tourists become most familiar with are those minor roads and laneways giving access to the waterways of the area. Those involved in the tourism industry know that the totally unacceptable condition of some access roads is the principal complaint of many tourists and this is causing serious damage to local tourism. I ask the Minister for Finance to direct Government Departments to honour the commitments that he and other members of the Government have made. I refer in particular to his reply to my parliamentary question on the structures he had put in place to ensure that the Delors package and INTERREG funding would be additional. He answered that an additionality requirement would apply to all those initiatives.
I appeal to the Government to reconsider the total allocation made in respect of regional and county roads and give the people of rural Ireland the roadways to which they are entitled.
Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis an Teachta Hughes.
Is léir ón méid atá ráite ag na cainteoirí a chuaigh romham nár éirigh leis an Aire an méid céanna airgid a fháil do bhóithre sa bhliain 1995 agus a fuair an t-iar Aire anuraidh. Ní léir go fóill cén fáth gur tharla sé sin ach is cúis ionaidh é mar is ón Pháirtí céanna an tAire Airgeadais agus é féin. Tá sé ráite agus tá sé inchreidte go bhfuil beartas déanta ag Páirtí an Lucht Oibre aire a thabhairt do dhaoine sna cathracha, go mór mhór i mBaile Átha Cliath, agus muintir na tuaithe a thréigint. Is cinnte go bhfuair na comhairlí i mBaile Átha Cliath i bhfad níos mó ná mar a fuair na comhairlí san iarthar. Ní fheadair cad a cheapann lucht leanúna Fhine Gael faoi sin.
In the year following one in which the Minister for Finance balanced the books for the first time in 27 years, hopes were high that extra moneys would be made available to county councils to rebuild, repair and maintain county and regional roads. Virtually every council had made a strong case to successive Ministers to do this and every public representative drew attention to the need to address the problem. This view was strengthened by the knowledge that extra Structural, Cohesion and INTERREG funding would come on stream to bolster national finances. Instead there is less money in the kitty for 1995, substantially less when INTERREG funding and the rate of inflation are taken into account.
It is a matter of surprise that the Minister for the Environment was not able to obtain more funding for roads from his party colleague. It seems to confirm the view that the Labour Party is merely interested in Dublin and constituencies in bigger cities and have decided to let rural people look after themselves. It is even more surprising in a year in which Government spending increased by 8 per cent that no extra allocation was made for roads. The figure for last year was not even matched.
The 1995 allocation for roads will lead to serious hardship for rural families and communities. I studied total road grant payments to County Clare over a ten year period. The 1995 allocation is by far the worst in real terms since the mid-eighties. It shows a drop of £1.3 million on the 1994 figure for non-national roads. National road grants have been slashed from £6.620 million in 1994 to £3.017 million this year, less than 50 per cent of the allocation last year. This spells disaster for the roads programme in County Clare in 1995 where substantial increased funding is required after the worst flooding in living memory.
The Minister cannot say he is unaware of the problems. Even if members of his own party or of the Government have not drawn his attention to them, this is the fourth occasion in over a month that I have drawn attention in the Chamber to the problems. I have raised them by way of parliamentary question and drawn attention to the need for extra funding.
The effects will be serious for county councils. It will lead to short-time working and other serious problems. It will give rise to extreme difficulty for rural communities and families going about their daily business, getting children to school, bringing milk to the creamery, going to work etc. Most rural roads in County Clare and the surrounding area have been very badly damaged as a result of the recent flooding. Unless funding is provided urgently, county councils will be forced to abandon large stretches of roads and tourism will be badly affected.
I call on the Minister to introduce a supplementary budget. The Clare county engineer prepared a report in which he pointed out the need for £1.5 million——
The Deputy made no such calls when he was on this side of the House.
Up to the entrance of the Minister of State we had a most orderly debate and I want to keep it so. He will please desist from further interruptions.
The Ceann Comhairle will understand Deputy Carey's extreme embarrassment because he will be aware that the highest allocations were made to County Clare in the last two years.
Let us not personalise the debate.
So much for promises. How will they stand up?
Despite his embarrassment and interruptions I call on the Minister to provide extra finance and take note of the report prepared by the county engineer. I ask him to have some care for rural communities who will suffer as a result of this allocation.
By the very nature of the debate, speakers will deal with incontrovertible figures and statistics. We know the exact road mileage in our constituencies and the amount of money provided. I cannot understand the Government amendment to Deputy Dempsey's motion which states that when one deducts the proceeds from the amnesty the figures this year are at a record level. I can only speak for my constituency in Mayo. A sum of £3.8 million was allocated to Mayo in 1994 and £3.062 million was given this year. That is a reduction of £800,000 if we take out the amnesty proceeds which were welcomed by local authorities in 1994. If we add back the amnesty proceeds we are down 14 per cent on the moneys allocated this year. Those are incontrovertible facts and figures. If we ignore the amnesty money, the funding is reduced by 20 per cent.
The Minister should investigate why bitumen prices, ex works, rose from £134 per tonne in 1994 to £174 per tonne in 1995. Bitumen figures are tendered to the Department of the Environment in dollars and the dollar has been fairly stable. I cannot understand why local authorities are to be penalised to the extent of paying £174 per tonne this year. That will increase the surface dressing cost per mile by 10 per cent.
The allocation for 1995 has been reduced by 40 per cent and bitumen costs have risen. The cost of chippings, an essential ingredient, has risen by 7 per cent to 8 per cent this year. This will affect the amount of work carried out. In County Mayo, despite the fact that we had a former Minister for the Environment, 92.5 per cent of the roads comprise county and regional roads and 66 per cent of the traffic is carried on them. I join my collegues in asking the Minister to do whatever is possible between now and the passage of the Finance Bill to ensure that the full allocation is restored.
I want the Minister, his Department and the Government not to follow the suggestion of the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Jim Higgins, to introduce a carbon tax or, let us call a spade a spade, an increase in the price of petrol. The same Minister of State said recently in County Mayo the Government was considering an increase of ten pence per gallon to supplement the shortfall in funding. The Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Carey, will be aware that such an increase would further marginalise industries operating on the west coast who already incur additional transport costs approximately 7 to 15 per cent vis-à-vis other European countries. We must get our goods to those markets.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:
"Dáil Éireann notes the major financial commitment of the Government in supplementing local authorities' own expenditure on the maintenance and improvement of non-national roads and, in particular, notes:
— the substantial level of grants provided by the Exchequer in 1995;
— the provision of £94.898 million made for such roads in the Estimates for 1995;
— the additional £8 million provided in the budget for such roads, bringing the overall provision for State grants for non-national roads to almost £103 million in 1995;
— that when the exceptional, once-off provisions made in 1994 are excluded, the 1995 grant provision for non-national roads is at a record level;
— the Government's initiative in commissioning a report on the overall state of the county road system and its intention to put in place a coherent and integrated plan to achieve the necessary improvements over the next ten years"
I wish to share my time with Deputies Boylan and Ring.
It was quite amusing to listen to Deputy Dempsey attempt to put across the story that all the country's potholes appeared suddenly with the change of Government and, in a very simplistic way, attempt to say that moneys spent on the programme manager of the Minister of State, Deputy Carey, were eroding the funds being allocated to road maintenance.
I have not a programme manager.
I hope Deputy Carey will listen to the Minister of State's speech more attentively.
The Deputy might at least be factual. Deputy Carey does not have a programme manager.
We might get the Committee of Public Accounts to investigate the carryings-on of Deputy Dempsey when he was Government Chief Whip.
Deputy Carey, please give your colleague a fair chance.
A Cheann Comhairle, I think the Minister of State, Deputy Carey, made an allegation he should withdraw.
Let there be no personal allegations. I heard no such allegation.
He said he would get the Committee of Public Accounts to investigate my activities as Government Chief Whip. I want him to withdraw that remark.
I can still do that.
Is the Deputy withdrawing the remark?
No. Why should I?
As I said earlier, we have had a very orderly debate. We now have a conflict of personalities.
Excuse me, a Cheann Comhairle. I do not want to be disorderly. I withdraw any offensive remark but I am very upset——
I am sorry, Minister——
——that Deputy Dempsey would draw untrue analogies in order to substantiate his case.
Deputy Carey should read my speech.
Will the Minister of State please withdraw the remark unreservedly?
I do not have advisers either.
If Deputy Carey wishes to intervene in this debate I am sure time will be provided for him. In the meantime, he must contain himself in quietude.
Deputy Dempsey was not the only Fianna Fáil Member to have picked on me this week.
Please, Deputy Carey, we have had this problem since you entered the Chamber. It is disorderly and cannot be tolerated. The Minister of State, Deputy Allen, to continue without interruption from either side of the House.
Those were not the only inaccuracies Deputy Dempsey introduced into the debate. He was mistaken about the commitment of previous Governments involving his party. For example, Fianna Fáil in Government cut the State grant provision for non-national roads from £82.5 million in 1990 to £79.3 million in 1991 and reduced it by a further £4 million in 1993. The last figure I gave included £2.4 million in INTERREG payments. The House will clearly see that many problems were inherited owing to lack of funding and mismanagement of our road operations on the part of his Government, which responsibility he should accept.
Has the Minister of State the 1994 figures?
I will give the figures if the Deputy wants them.
We have them here.
Will I revert to 1987?
No, go back to 1983, 1984 and 1985.
The Minister of State should go back to when his party wrecked them.
Let us hear the Minister of State.
Is there democracy in this House or are we just dealing with rabble? In 1987 £50.03 million was provided; in 1988, £47.68 million; in 1989, £62.19 million; in 1990, £82.5 million; in 1991, £79.3 million, in 1992, £79.3 million; in 1993, £75.3 million; in 1994, £107 million, including the tax amnesty. For 1995 the figure was £102 million. The provision has risen from a figure of £75.3 million in 1993 to £102 million in the current year.
These are the facts.
The Minister of State without interruption, please.
In responding to the motion tabled by Deputy Dempsey. I might make a few preliminary comments. This motion is opportunistic and misleading——
Is the Minister of State promising more?
——particularly in its central contention that funding for non-national roads has been reduced by this Government in 1995. The reality is that, when certain exceptional, non-recurring elements are removed from the 1994 grants package, the 1995 grants will be seen to be greater not only than the underlying 1994 level but also greater than in any previous year. It is disingenuous for the motion to suggest otherwise.
It is premature, given the experience of funding in 1994, to draw any definitive conclusions on how expenditure in the current year will compare with that in 1994.
A quote from Deputy Michael Smith's speech of last year.
The motion, by implication, suggests that responsibility for non-national roads rests with the Government, whereas in fact, as the Fianna Fáil Party is aware, the legal and financial responsibility vests in the local authorities. The Government is well aware of the problems affecting our non-national roads and has already made two significant responses to deal with these problems. It has provided additional funding in the budget and asked for a comprehensive report on the state of the network so that a proper plan can be in place and implemented over a reasonable period. I suggest these are not the actions of a Government avoiding reality or turning its face in the opposite direction when confronted with a difficult problem — quite the contrary.
Before getting down to the substance of the motion. I would like to stand back from the detail and place the present debate in a broader context. The non-national road network is of particular economic importance because industrial development is widely dispersed throughout the country. Tourism, which accounts for 7 per cent of GNP, is dispersed by its very nature. Agriculture is of much greater importance than in the rest of the European Union, accounting for 22 per cent of exports. To put it very bluntly, if we are to develop urban and rural communities and provide alternative sources of income for our rural population, we must improve our non-national roads.
However, this places a particularly heavy financial burden on our society as, by European standards we have a very extensive system of public roads. For example, for every 1,000 people we have over three times as many kilometres of road as Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. This, combined with the low density of our population and our relatively low level of urbanisation, inevitably means that maintaining our public roads system in general, and the non-national element in particular, creates very significant demands on our resources. As a society we must face up to this and take whatever action is appropriate to upgrade the network to an acceptable standard over a reasonable period.
There has been a huge increase in recent years in the volume and nature of the traffic using our non-national roads, many carrying traffic loads greatly exceeding their limited structural capacity. These loads arise, for example, from bulk milk tankers, oil delivery vehicles, timber extraction operations; heavy agricultural machinery, lorries carrying agricultural produce such as beet and grain as well as traffic serving industry.
Very little of the regional and county road system was "designed" or purpose-built. Most of the network has water-bound macadam, broken stone or gravel bases, over which one or more surface dressings have been provided to seal the surface and prevent water penetration. Many county roads have received one surface dressing only. The width of much of the network is inadequate to accommodate a heavy goods vehicle and an opposing vehicle, with the result that large vehicles over-run the payement causing severe damage to its support.
Weather and ground conditions both affect road condition. Freezing and thawing cycles can break up perished or cracked road surfaces and cause total foundation failure if reaching the subsoil beneath the road. Many rural roads have no satisfactory drainage and water penetration through cracked surfaces which are not drained leads quickly and progressively to potholing and major road damage. The large reduction in essential maintenance operations, such as surface dressing and clearing of drainage outlets, as a result of cutbacks over the years in local funding and reductions in maintenance operatives has made all of these problems even worse and accelerated the decline in the condition of regional and county roads.
There has also been a steady increase in the size and weight of the heavy goods vehicle fleet. The situation has been aggravated by EU directives which provided for increased vehicle axle weights and dimensions and by increases in the number of such vehicles on our roads; goods vehicles over eight tonnes have increased four-fold over the past 30 years and are believed to account for more than 90 per cent of road payement damage. The consequences of increasing vehicle weights and axle loadings, therefore, accelerate the process of damaging road surfaces and bridges, particularly on roads having little structural capacity to withstand such loadings.
A further element which has to be taken into account and to which I will return later, is that there had been a general pattern of decline in the overall funds raised by local authorities for the maintenance and improvement of non-national roads. In fact, the contribution from local authorities' resources as a percentage of total expenditure on these roads declined from over 70 per cent to just 36 per cent in the past ten years. This reduction led to the lengthening of the period between surface dressing applications and other essential maintenance operations.
Due to these factors, the Government sought a report as a matter of urgency on the overall state of our county roads, including changed traffic patterns, methods used for repair, future planning, etc. The aim will be to put before the Government an up to date review of the state of the network, the extent and nature of the problems and the cost implications of bringing the network up to an acceptable standard over the next ten years. When this report is available to the Government — I expect this to be in about two months — the question of funding will be considered further. The Government is fully committed to improving our county roads system and when it has had an opportunity to consider the overall situation, a realistic plan will be put in place to achieve this. The financial implications of implementing the plan will be an integral part of the exercise and the Government will play its part in ensuring that the plan can be properly implemented.
The 1995 grants to local authorities for non-national roads amount to almost £103 million, over £1,900 for every mile of network. This level of funding represents a very significant contribution on the part of the State. It would be useful to outline briefly for the information of the House the main features of the grants package so that Deputies will be aware of the nature, importance and extent of the assistance being provided by the Government in this area. In so far as the grants package is concerned: county councils will receive a total of £91.8 million for non-national roads, including discretionary grants of almost £51 million; urban roads will get a total of £8 million in block grants, in the case of some urban authorities this will be supplemented by receipts under the EU co-financed scheme of specific grants; £8 million is being provided in grants under the new EU INTERREG II programme which will benefit Border counties and certain maritime areas; £1.13 million will be provided to substantially complete in 1995 the re-opening of cross-Border roads on this side of the Border and £34.33 million will be available under the EU co-financed scheme of specific grants for road improvements on non-national roads.
The overall funding for non-national roads in 1995 at £102.898 million may appear to compare unfavourably with expenditure in 1994, but the overall 1994 allocation of £107 million included a provision of an exceptional, once-off nature, namely, an additional £15 million provided in the 1994 budget from tax amnesty receipts. The source of this funding, the tax amnesty, was accepted to be a once-off benefit to the Exchequer and categorical assurances were given that this windfall for the Exchequer would not affect the underlying pattern of spending. In this connection, the financial statement of the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Ahern, on the 1994 budget spelled out that; "certain large once-off benefits in 1994 must not be allowed to cause a mis-match in the longer term balance of the public finances." He also stated that, "as already mentioned, I have applied the proceeds of the tax amnesty — to some once-off items of expenditure." Deputy Ahern added that "further, given their once-off nature, it would be quite inappropriate to apply such receipts either to underpin continuing Government expenditure or to tax reliefs that would affect future revenues."
The special, once-off, nature of the 1994 grants was further recognised by the fact that they were allocated as separate and distinct categories of grants to county councils, rather than being absorbed in the general pool of discretionary grant moneys. Besides making these separate allocations, local authorities were required to apply these moneys to certain categories of work and/or types of roads thereby further distinguishing these moneys from the normal discretionary grants.
If one excludes the additional £15 million provided in 1994, a very different picture emerges in so far as overall expenditure on non-national roads is concerned. For comparison purposes I will include the three years 1993, 1994 and 1995 and the relevant moneys in these years amounted to £75.3 million, £92 million and £102.898 million respectively. This means that the 1995 allocations are up by nearly £11 million or almost 12 per cent on the underlying 1994 expenditure figure and up by nearly £28 million or over 36 per cent on the 1993 expenditure level.
On the issue of overall resources, it is premature for the House to make any definitive judgment about how the 1995 finances for non-national roads compare with the 1994 position. The motion before the House does not compare like with like but, instead, compares the final expenditure figure for 1994 with the provision for 1995 as it stands in March. As the experience of 1994 shows, any judgment at this stage as to the year's final expenditure figure would be purely speculative.
I would like to explain how the non-national road grants are allocated to individual local authorities, as this matter has been the subject of comment, with the implied suggestion that the methods used are somehow unreasonable or unfair to certain local authority areas or parts of the country.
As I said when replying to a number of matters raised on the Adjournment last week, grants for non-national roads are provided as either discretionary block grants for maintenance and improvement works or EU co-financed grants for specific improvement projects. The major portion of the provision available in 1995 for allocation to county councils as discretionary grants has been allocated on a pro rata mileage basis with the exception of the three Dublin county councils which received somewhat higher allocations because of traffic volumes, wear and tear, management needs etc., in their areas. This approach is consistent with the method used to determine road grant allocations in previous years.
The balance of the discretionary grants provision for county councils. that is £5 million in 1995, was reserved for the purpose of making supplementary allocations to councils in counties in which the condition of roads is particularly poor. The amount of the grant allocation to these councils was determined by the Minister having regard to the situation in each county. This is fully in line with previous practice. The £8 million allocated in block grants to urban authorities in 1995 was distributed on the basis of size, within population bands.
A sum of £34.33 million is available in 1995 for the EU co-financed scheme of specific grants for improvement works on non-national roads which are important for employment and economic activity. Allocations in respect of individual projects put forward by local authorities are decided by the Minister following an assessment of their individual merits and their compliance with European Commission criteria relating to the grants scheme. This is fully in line with how the scheme operated in 1994. It is in the nature of this scheme that allocations to individual local authorities will tend to fluctuate from year to year, depending on the size and scale of individual projects. This is inevitable but such "swings and roundabouts" tend to even out over a period of years.
A further £8 million is available this year under the INTERREG II Community initiative which I outlined in the House last week. I hope the House will agree, therefore, that the methods used to distribute the non-national road grants to local authorities are both fair and reasonable and fully in line with previous practice.
It is imperative that local authorities maintain their commitment to investment in the maintenance and improvement of non-national roads and that the very substantial contribution from the State is not used by them as an excuse to reduce funding from their own resources. State grants are provided to supplement the resources of local authorities, not to replace them. In this connection, road authorities are spending from their own resources at the same general level, in money terms, as in the early 1980s but of course the real value of this expenditure has been reduced by inflation in the interim.
We have also seen a dramatic shift in the balance of funding for non-national roads since 1986. In that year, grants accounted for one-third of total expenditure on the maintenance and improvement of these roads.
I appeal to local authorities, therefore, to provide realistically for the maintenance and upkeep of county roads in particular, and to ensure that the priority being accorded to these roads by the Government and local communities is reflected in the financial commitment at local level where responsibility for these roads is vested.
From where will the Minister get the money?
The Government's commitment to the non-national road network is beyond question, not in terms of verbal commitments and speeches which at the end of the day do not necessarily add up to very much, but in terms of the actions which the Government has taken by way of allocating very significant resources to these roads and taking steps to get an overall picture of what needs to be done to really get to grips with the problem. Any fairminded Member would be forced to the conclusion that the Government is acting reasonably and responsibly and that the motion put down by the main Opposition party should be rejected for what it is — an opportunistic attack on the Government that is without real foundation and which, unfortunately for Fianna Fáil, smacks of the same mindset which permeated their thinking on another important issue recently before this House.
Does the Minister remember that?
Let the people decide that.
In this connection, I want to point out that while the motion under discussion calls for additional State funding, the Fianna Fáil leader, Deputy Ahern, is quoted in Business and Finance of 2 February 1995 as follows:
Stricter control of Government expenditure is needed, and was being implemented in our preparation of the 1995 Book of Estimates."
"The Government have committed themselves to a post-budget increase of 6% in expenditure, which, in our view is too high. In my view post-budget current expenditure should not rise by more than 4-4.5%".
Fianna Fáil has managed to demand both increased and decreased levels of expenditure within the short space of a few weeks.
Just use the money wisely.
What about the bank levy?
That is why I condemn this motion as an opportunistic attempt to ambush a Government which is determined to manage the nation's affairs and finances prudently.
What about the programme managers the Minister was so much against?
That is why I confidently ask the House to reject the motion and adopt the Government amendment instead.
As The Irish Times cartoonist said last week Fianna Fáil do not know which of the five roads to take.
I told the Minister of State where he would get the £4 million.
Order, please.
Am I entitled to injury time in view of all the interruptions of the Minister? I welcome the conversion of the Fianna Fáil Party to the cause of the condition of county roads. For most of the past seven years, since I came into this House, it has been in Government——
Is the Deputy happy?
——but it totally ignored the cause of county roads.
Is the Deputy happy with the allocation to local authorities?
On the numerous occasions on which I sought to raise that issue from the very benches Fianna Fáil now occupy, its members sat in silence.
Is the Deputy happy with it now?
There are six Fianna Fáil Deputies in the House this evening. Where were those six voices when Fianna Fáil was in Government and why did they not support me?
They are sitting there now and that is where they belong. They deserve to be there. It appears to me that Fianna Fáil has a better view of the problem from a distance so that they should remain on those benches for quite a while.
But the Deputy has——
Let us hear the Deputy in possession, please.
The cause of county roads has been well articulated in this House for the past number of years but now we must address the problem. I have every confidence that this Government will address the problem of county roads. I say to the people——
The people in Cavan.
——who have a problem in relation to county roads that the problem is being addressed for the first time in seven or eight years.
Did they acknowledge the road allocation?
For the first time, in a Budget Statement, a full section was devoted to county roads.
There was a 40 per cent reduction in Cavan.
This issue was too mundane for Fianna Fáil led Governments to put into a budget. They would prefer to include airy fairy items in relation to international affairs——
Deputy Boylan, please——
We are talking about county roads, the basic need of people of rural Ireland. I am confident that that matter can now be addressed and that the problem will be solved.
And the Deputy is happy.
The problem we are addressing here this evening did not arise during the past ten weeks; it is the result of neglect during the past ten years.
What about the period from 1982 to 1987?
Having looked at the problem and seeing it get out of hand Fianna Fáil led Governments did not commission a task force to see what was going wrong.
We did not need it.
I would be the first to acknowledge that reasonable sums of money were available but the problem was not being solved. Fianna Fáil led Governments failed miserably. They failed to say they were not addressing the problem properly and that there must be another way to tackle it. That is what we will do for the people of rural areas. I have numerous letters going back to 1991-92, one of which reads:
Dear Mr. Boylan, The school bus is being threatened to be taken off our road. The children will not be able to walk to the main road as the distance is too far.
The Deputy will get many more such letters.
It goes on:
My husband has to leave home early in the morning. We have no car. Will you ensure that our road is repaired.
Three years later that road has not been repaired. Another letter reads:
Dear Mr. Boylan, The milk tanker is being threatened to be taken off our road. We are asked to bring the milk out to the public road. As we have a static milk tank this is not possible. Even after representations to the county manager and the Minister for the Environment the road is still not repaired.
Another letter reads:
Dear Mr. Boylan,
My mother is an aged person. Once a week she travels to the community care centre. The driver of the minibus who collects her has told me he will no longer be able to come in to collect my mother. Can you ensure that the road will be repaired.
This concerns an old person of 82 years of age. I was asked to raise the issue in the Dáil with a Fianna Fáil led Government. Do not deny it. That was too much of an issue. It did not have time to deal with those basic problems.
The Deputy without interruption, please.
Will the Deputy lodge them in the Library so that we can inspect them?
Those people can now rest assured that county roads will be put in a proper state of repair. A commission is being set up, a report will be with Cabinet within the next five or six weeks and the necessary finance will be found. The condition of the roads cannot be allowed to deteriorate further. The people in rural areas deserve better and they will get it.
The Minister said local authorities should put more money into them.
In fairness, I do not think he did.
That is what he said. The local authorities are making their contribution but finance will have to be raised. The people will respond when they see a programme of action——
They certainly will.
——to deal with the problem and address it for the first time in a decade. I welcome the opportunity to support the Government that will do so I look forward with confidence to a satisfactory solution of this problem which has gone on for too long.
Is the Deputy very happy with the Cavan allocation?
He is, of course, he welcomed it on local radio.
I was surprised to hear Deputy Boylan defend the indefensible and suggest that we did not speak when we sat over there. I was glad to praise the 33 per cent allocation to both Cavan and Monaghan. In 1992 I was glad to be able to provide a 25 per cent increase to County Cavan. The Minister of State devoted most of his speech to problems of which we were already aware. However, he made one or two very interesting points. Having recognised that £107 million was provided last year and that less than £103 million has been provided this year, a decrease of £4 million, he went on to state: "This means that the 1995 allocation is up by approximately £11 million". He would not go into an infants' class in a national school and claim that a reduction of £4 million was an increase of £11 million.
The Deputy has a simple mind.
The problems of the Border areas have been recognised by the European Union, those who distribute money from the International Fund for Ireland and the United States which has provided $20 million to be spent over the next two years and set up the Washington Conference which is specifically aimed at encouraging industry to establish in Border areas. I was alarmed when I realised that the allocation for my constituency was £800,000 less than the amount provided in 1994. Equally serious is the way the Government has robbed INTERREG instead of providing money from the Exchequer for roads in the Border region. The European Union provides money through INTERREG to ensure that additional money will be available to correct the infrastructural deficiencies whch exist in the Border counties. Our allocation, which was reduced from £8.37 million to £7.58 million, has been further reduced to £5 million, while the money robbed from INTERREG should have been additional.
Why is the national allocation down by 4 per cent, given that the Government inherited a healthy financial position with a surplus of £15 million? Why is the Cavan-Monaghan allocation down by one-third when the national allocation is down by only 4 per cent? Why did we not get the additional money to which we were entitled? The Minister said that £8 million has been provided in grants under the new European Union INTERREG II programme which will benefit Border counties and certain maritime areas. I would like a member of the Government to tell me how INTERREG II will benefit Border areas. Why is the funding not additional? The Government has replaced £3.5 million from normal sources with £2.5 million from INTERREG which should have been additional.
This is the first year of the INTERREG II programme and a number of Ministers promised us that substantial funding would be allocated to improve the infrastructure in Border areas. The need for this funding has been recognised by many Ministers, including the Minister for the Environment and, in particular, the Minister for Finance. In reply to a parliamentary question from me about the initiatives he intends to take to improve Border areas, the Minister for Finance stated:
It is my intention to ensure that the moneys will be additional but it would be rash to give a guarantee that the percentage will be 100 per cent. The vast bulk of the money under the INTERREG programme will be used to rectify the infrastructural deficiencies to make the Border counties an attractive investment location. The fact that they are no longer close to a zone of violence, the position for the past 25 years, but to a market of 1.5 million people will enhance their attractiveness.
Even though the Minister for Finance recognised the infrastructural deficiencies in Border areas and stated that the money for these areas should be additional so as to cure those deficiencies, the Minister for the Environment stated that the INTERREG money is to be part of the normal allocation to which we are entitled. I would like to know why there has been a 33.3 per cent reduction for Cavan-Monaghan when the reduction nationally is 4 per cent.
Last week in reply to a parliamentary question from me the Minister for the Environment stated that additional benefits were set to accrue to the Border regions on foot of INTERREG II and a further European Union initiative intended to support the peace process. I would like someone to tell me where these additional benefits. As Deputies Boylan and Crawford know, in the past, INTERREG money was additional and was used to open the canal between the Shannon and Lough Erne. I am glad this money was provided as we have no railways——
I am glad the Deputy has recognised that point.
If the Government continues the way it is going we will have no roads. At least the people in Deputy Boylan's end of the constituency will be able to travel by canal.
We cannot repair in ten weeks what the Deputy's party sat over for seven years.
As the Minister who introduced INTERREG——
The Deputy in possession without interruption, please.
The Minister of State said that the Leader of my party had advocated stricter control of public spending and I agree with that. We all know what happened between 1982-87 when we had a Fine Gael-Labour Government.
The Deputy should go back to 1977.
I also agree there should have been more spending on roads. The Minister of State should remember that in his Budget Statement the Minister for Finance stated that corporation tax was being reduced from 40 per cent to 38 per cent and that the banks were being given an extra £12 million. This money would have gone a long way to improving the road network. If the £8 million under INTERREG had not been put into the ordinary allocation we would have got the additional money to which we were entitled.
The Government has paid lip service to the Border regions.
The previous Government paid lip service to these regions for seven years.
Since the cessation of violence we have been promised all kinds of support to develop the infrastructure in the region. People are aware of the Washington Conference which will be attended by President Clinton. The decision by the Taoiseach not to attend the conference is an indication of the seriousness the Government attaches to it.
The Deputy knows why the Taoiseach is not attending the conference — he explained the reasons last week.
The conference is aimed at encouraging industry to set up in the 12 Border counties.
It is not about posing for photographs.
Instead of availing of the opportunity to improve the road infrastructure in the Border region, the Government has reduced the allocation by approximately £1 million.
It is important to point out that there is no Minister or Minister of State in the Border counties in a Government which has the greatest number of ministerial posts in the history of the State.
We had two Ministers for a number of years.
I suppose the reduction in our allocation was only to be expected. I am not surprised that having reduced the allocation the Minister has disappeared to the other side of the world for this debate. If I was the Minister——
The Deputy was a Minister.
——responsible for these reduction I would get as far away from this House as I could.
The Deputy in possession without interruption from any side of the House.
I appeal to the Minister of State to inform the Minister about the anger of Deputies at the decision to reduce the allocation from £107 million to £103 million when the Government inherited a surplus from the previous Government.
We did not have any Larry Goodman money.
The people living in the Border regions are particularly angry about this reduction. It is unacceptable that the money which has been provided by the European Union and the United States Government to improve the infrastructure of the Border regions is not additional. Will the Minister ensure that we are treated in the same way as the rest of the country? If we continue in the present manner, by the year 2010 practically the entire population will be living within a 20 mile radius of Dublin.
I am delighted to hear the Deputy say that.
I am sharing my time with Deputy Ellis.
I am sure that is agreed.
We will welcome his wisdom, they are all rearing to go.
I wish to share my time with Deputy Michael Ahern.
I am sure that is agreed.
I am delighted Deputy Boylan is present. On my way to Dublin this morning I had the pleasure of travelling on some of the roads in County Cavan. If Deputy Boylan takes a tour of his constituency and travels, say, on the road from Arva to Ballinagh or on the road from Crossdoney to Ballinagh, the potholes will shake every tooth in his head.
They have been in that condition for the last seven years and nothing was done about them.
Let us facilitate the Deputy, he has only a short time.
It is obvious that this is a repeat of what happened from 1983 to 1987 when the then Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government abandoned the county roads and the legacy has been inherited by every Government since. I am glad the present coalition realises it caused the problem in regard to our county roads by its lack of funding in those years. Not long ago a number of Members opposite made wild statements about the condition of our county roads when additional funding was being provided. This year the Minister admitted he has cut the amount of funding for county roads. In County Leitrim the allocation for county roads has been reduced by £330,000. At the same time we expect rural areas to develop at the same pace as urban areas.
I am not surprised the Minister of State, Deputy Carey, has left the House. He is the Minister with responsibility for rejuvenating the west. He has abandoned it already because he does not have money to do anything. If we do not have a proper infrastructure there will be no development in rural Ireland.
It is obvious the Fine Gael members of the Government were unable to exert the power, in terms of allocations, the rural electorate expected of them. It is obvious the Minister, Deputy Howlin, who handed the Minister of State, Deputy Allen, the poisoned chalice of coming into the House tonight to defend the indefensible, has decided that rural Ireland is to be abandoned and our county roads structure is to be allowed deteriorate.
That was the policy of the Deputy's party, but we are changing it.
It is deplorable that EU money is being used to supplement funding from the national Exchequer. How can we justify seeking additional EU funding for developing Border regions when the money we are receiving is hijacked to substitute for money that should be provided by the Exchequer? That is unacceptable. The allocation for EU co-financed schemes in County Leitrim has been reduced by £280,000. How can anybody make a case to Europe for money in the future if that money is a substitute for what should be provided by the Exchequer? The people in rural Ireland know the good work done in improving county roads in recent years will be undone. Last year County Leitrim received an increase of 45 per cent, this year there will be a decrease of approximately 11 per cent. No Government should stand over that.
I am surprised to hear Deputy Boylan trying to defend the indefensible. Some 12 months ago I recall him, from this side of the House pillorying the then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Michael Smith, for not providing enough money for county roads, despite the fact that he provided more money for that purpose than any of his predecessors.
It was Larry's money.
Why does Deputy Boylan not have the courage of his convictions and say to his party leader that he has let us down again and allowed the most important ministries to be taken from the main party in Government?
Ten weeks is not enough to repair the damage of the past ten years.
Fine Gael does not have responsibility for the Departments of the Environment. Finance or Education; in other words, it does not have responsibility for the high spending Departments. The Fine Gael Party is in Government for the sake of power and not to serve the people who elected it.
I hope we can do better in the next ten years than the Deputy's party did in the past ten.
It is obvious the Government is no longer committed to rural Ireland. It is committed to accelerating its depopulation.
The Minister referred to funding for forestry roads, but he forgot to say he did not provide any, despite the fact that the Government wishes to develop the forestry industry. The good work that was done last year in improving the roads in County Leitrim has been turned on its head by the Minister's inaction. I concur with the sentiments of Deputy Molloy that local authorities are not in a position to provide additional funding. They have been starved of finance under a number of headings this year. The Minister would get a shock if he examined the Leitrim rate base where out of a total of only 700 rate-payers, the average amount paid is less than £700.
There is a clear message for the Fine Gael element in the Government, it should either continue the row it started at the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting last week and get the money that is required or it will not be back after the next election.
I am reminded of the statement by the Minister for Health, Deputy Noonan, last week about the primary certificate. Anybody who passed the primary certificate would know that 103 is less than 107. Regardless of what way it is dressed up, there has been a reduction of £4 million for county roads. For the past seven to eight years we have been listening to Deputy Boylan in particular — who has now left the House — looking for——
Cover.
——additional money for our county roads. That money was provided by various Fianna Fáil Ministers for the Environment during those years. Last year an additional £30 million was provided for county roads.
From your friends under the tax amnesty.
Deputy Ring promised a great deal to the people in west Mayo.
Deputy Ellis cannot talk.
The grant allocation for county roads in County Cork this year was reduced from £11,087,000 to £9,852,000, a reduction of 12.535 per cent. We have heard the Minister refer to increases.
I will explain them to the Deputy later.
That should be interesting.
I fail to understand how a reduction from £11 million to £9 million could be called an increase. The urban councils in Mallow, Fermoy, Middleton. Youghal and Cobh have received the same allocation as last year.
They are lucky.
Inflation was not taken into account by the Government. as is also evident from the social welfare increases. If the Minister tries telling the people in the towns and countryside of east Cork they are receiving more money to improve their roads, they will laugh at him. People do not consider a reduction from £107 million to £103 million an increase.
I will explain it to the Deputy later.
It will be on Sky News.
We will allow the Government Opposition time to explain it.
The Minister attacked Fianna Fáil for demanding increased and decreased levels of expenditure at the same time, twisting what we have always maintained. We always endeavoured to properly manage our expenditure. We did not advocate spending in non-productive areas such as programme managers, additional Ministers and staff for them, particularly when we do not know what those Ministers are doing. That is wastage. Funding that should be spent on our roads is being used to keep the three party Government together. This is cynical use of taxpayers' money and the people will give the Minister and his partners in the Labour party and Democratic Left their answer in the next general election.
They realise that the money paid in taxes and borrowed by the Government is being wasted, and their children and their childern's children will have to pay for that. I call on everybody in the House to support the Fianna Fáil motion, especially Deputy Boylan, who has been so vociferous on this subject.
