Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Jun 1928

Vol. 10 No. 19

PUBLIC BUSINESS. - TAXATION OF ROAD VEHICLES.

Dr. GOGARTY

I move:—

That the Seanad is of opinion that in the public interest legislation is urgently required by which all mechanically-propelled road vehicles used for the carriage of goods or for the conveyance of passengers for hire shall be subjected to taxation sufficient in amount to compensate for the estimated injury to the roads resulting from the traffic and for the advantages and immunities they enjoy from the unrestricted use of the public highways; and, further, that the problems of inland transport can be most effectively dealt with by a single Department of State.

At the outset I wish to assure you that I do not propose to enlist myself in the great army of cranks, prisoners under sentence, or editors who write leaders, wishing to go one better than the Government by suggesting a particular Ministry, or anything else, to deal with this. Therefore, I limit it to the suggestion of a single Department of State. This problem is a new one, with which every civilised State in Europe and in America is confronted, the problem of the roads being constantly seized upon for the promotion of traffic which pays nothing for the advantages it receives from the roads. I am definitely separating my motion from any consideration of railways or canals, because they have nothing to say to it, other than as a matter of equity. But if you put the problem as it originally arose to the older transport companies, and compare that with the position of the bus companies, you would require the bus companies to purchase land, form and maintain highways, and maintain offices and stations on those highways, and even then you would not get a condition comparable with that which the older transporting companies had to face. The roads of Ireland were lately brought to such a pitch of perfection that they are now as good as any roads of which I have experience of in Europe. This was done by a grant-in-aid of £2,000,000 from the Central Fund, whereupon, using that as a subsidy, several dozen companies, more or less solvent, have exploited these roads, which were put down for the benefit of the whole community, to their own benefit, and it has been done by a method which is not followed by any other transport company. Buses have been hired by private individuals on a system of deferred payments. They have blazed certain paths and routes, and if they fail to keep up the payments for these buses the buses have been foreclosed upon by companies which enjoy the rights which are charged against the whole State. The companies represented by these buses have to their advantage a subsidy of £2,000,000 and a complete freedom from all taxes and all rates. The Great Southern Railways Company paid in the year 1926 £203,000 in taxes, but the bus companies of Ireland have not paid a farthing in taxes.

If it were merely a matter of competition between bus transport and rail transport I would not care. But it is not a matter of competition. It is a matter of the destruction of the property of the citizens on the one hand, and of a contribution to the upkeep of the roads on the other. What I mean to say is this: the railways, through their taxes and rates, are subsidising the roads, and they are subsidising a form of transport which is injuring them. I know very well that this cannot go on. No government intends to allow it to go on. But I hope that what I have to say will get the authority of the Seanad to help to hasten legislation. It has been worked out that the destruction caused by a bus or by a lorry is 3d. per ton mile— that is to say that every mile of road covered by a five-ton lorry is injured to the extent of 1/3. That lorry may possibly go 1,000 miles in a week, and that would be £62 10s. in a week. If one lorry does not go, another belonging to the same company may, or there may be twenty running together, so that at that rate the destruction caused to the roads by one lorry in a year is £3,250, and the tax on that lorry ought to be £3,250. Even that taxation would not be adequate to keep the roads. The railways, by taxing their engines, could not keep up their lines. It costs the railway £200 a mile for a single line of rails in Ireland, and if a bus or a lorry paid £3,250 in tax we would still be confronted with the problem of the destruction of the public highways, which last year reached their present state of excellence merely by a grant of £2,000,000 from the Central Fund.

I divide the buses and the lorries into two heads. The lorry is possibly more destructive, because it has not always got pneumatic tyres. Sometimes it is a small steam engine, without rails to run on. The bus has done damage to the country apart from the superficial damage to the roads. It has injured the small country towns by tending to centralise the population. Shopping is done in the larger towns, to the great detriment of the smaller towns. But the return in mobility to the public is not adequate to the charge they are placing on the public in rates and taxes through the destruction of the roads, and it does not take very much vision to see a point of stalemate, an impasse, being reached, when the rates will be no longer able to keep up the roads, and the buses, even though they have got a subsidy of £2,000,000 and have an exemption from taxes, will be harly able to move over the roads. We have more roads, proportionately, than there are in England. There are 48,000 miles of roads in the Free State, 18,000 of which are highways. The original situation which confronts every form of transport company is the buying of land. But if the buses had to keep these roads in cement they could only keep the highways in cement, and even then the railways would not get an adequate relief from the contribution that they have to make towards the upkeep of the highways. That is a matter of equity. Even if the railways were remitted taxation of any kind they would not be in a position of equality with the buses, because their legitimate passengers would still be taken, on account of certain advantages enjoyed by the buses that they cannot cope with. The Board of Trade has exempted the buses from any inspection, or from any guarantee that the lives of passengers would be safe; there is no inspection to see that the doors will let the people out in case of fire. Senator O'Farrell, some weeks ago, referred to the safety of the vehicle. There is no inspection of that.

The remedy is very hard to seek. I say that it would not be an equitable remedy if you relaxed the taxes in the case of the railways, because there are other factors. But there is one consideration in this country which makes this problem more urgent than it would otherwise appear to be. This is a producing country. Produce always looks after itself, but in order profitably to market produce one must have distribution, and the question of distribution will be an ever-increasingly important one. In every country where there is an attempt made to help agriculture, the first thing they do is to lower the freights on the railways. Now, freights cannot be lowered on any railway which has to cope with competition and at the same time subsidise its rivals. By paying taxes they are subsidising the untaxed buses. The buses, with their great stands outside shops on the quays, and lined up against every cul de sac in Dublin, are paying no rates for what should be stations as large as the Broadstone or Kingsbridge stations. That is going on every day, but far more in those portions of Ireland which are sought to be advertised as tourist centres, where there are bog roads which will not stand this traffic. I travelled on the Friday before Whit Sunday through some of the most beautiful scenery in Connemara, scenery that is practically undiscovered, and coming back on Whit Monday I got such a shaking that it was as much as I could do to sit in the car without getting a shock to the base of the skull from the ruts. That was on a road where there were only four buses. I believe the county councils had some discriminating power about stopping buses on certain roads, and that they could allow them to run only on certain routes. They will have to be stopped, or also apply for certain routes which they would pay for themselves. In America I believe they are trying to meet the case by taxation and by relegating the buses to certain routes. But this country is too small for such routes, and it can only be done by a large increase in the taxes that buses are paying, or by the remission of taxation on other companies. The buses cannot carry the essential merchandise that this country depends on, nor can they engage in the distribution of live stock which is being sent out of the country, for which the railway companies are required, and the railway companies must continuously keep up subsidies to the buses. There are shops that should be distributing their merchandise that England sends over in return for our goods, and they are gravely injured by the concentrating of the centres of population caused by these buses.

I am not an enemy of the buses. I rather like the great speed at which they go along, and I certainly like the exhilarating petrol pumps that relieve the scenery everywhere. But this is not a matter that can be tolerated very much longer, because the question of transportation is a vital one. The very routes that used to transport food and certain of our produce are becoming impassable, and the destruction is far greater than any advantage the country has gained. It may soon be desirable to put a tax of £3,250 on buses, but 3d. a ton mile will not pay for the roads, if that tax could possibly be enforced. If one suddenly stopped every bus in Ireland there would be an outcry with regard to the hardship of people being unable to move, but I think we would have hardly any outcry, because the people are at present enjoying quite an artificial condition of affairs. They are enjoying a subsidy of £2,000,000 unwittingly given for the use of these buses; they are enjoying the action of foreign companies who dumped buses into this country out of their surplus supplies in England, and they are enjoying the bankruptcy of the small bus-holders being unable to meet their payments. They are also enjoying the fact that when a railway company tries to buy up a bus company two or three other bus companies come in. Other bus companies will come in if this motion is passed, merely to gain goodwill. I opposed Senator O'Farrell's motion because I saw that there would be a kind of goodwill extended to all the bus companies if there was a Minister appointed from whom they could get compensation for ceasing to run. The country has far too many buses, and in one way far too many road services. But whether it is met by a petrol tax, which would be hard on those who own private cars under a ton in weight, or whether it is met by an inclusive tax, it is a thing we have to consider, not a problem of competition with the railways, in which I have no interest, but as competition that is going to be a far more serious matter than we can see now, because later on it may be that if the proposal of Mr. Baldwin, who intends, I hear, to remit rates on agricultural holdings, is followed in Ulster it will be followed in the Free State, and we will be starting off with minus £3,000,000 a year for the upkeep of the roads and for public health and poor law services. Instead of having this £2,000,000 a year out of the Road Grant we would have minus £3,000,000 a year on account of a remission of rates on agricultural holdings. This problem will have to be met and dealt with, and the reason I suggest that it be met in one Department of State is to prevent anyone having the objection against me that I had against Senator O'Farrell's proposal, that it would lead to the creation of a Ministry, though I think the more Ministers the merrier. One Department of State ought to deal with this problem before the roads become so impassible that the money that should be spent on them cannot be afforded, because we can get a certain degree of damage, and beyond that it really means absolute ruin. I will not occupy the time of the House any longer than to ask them to consider this problem, which is just now, in this country and in every other country, the question of the privateering of public moneys for certain transport companies, which have the undue advantage of contributing nothing to the general upkeep of the highways over which they ply.

Mr. HAUGHTON

I beg to second the resolution, and I suggest to Senator Gogarty that he should add the following to it: "That the Government be requested to authorise the carrying out of proper scientific tests for measuring the damage caused to the roads by the verious vehicles." This subject has been frequently discussed by the Cork County Council. It has been prominently brought under their notice by the fact that there has had to be considerable expenditure on the maintenance of the roads in the county which have been so seriously injured by the heavy traffic that is taking place over them, especially by the solid-tyred lorries and by the buses, which travel at the rate of 25 miles per hour, to the great danger of all pedestrians. The roads in the county have been very badly cut up by these lorries and buses. I am afraid that many people in the Free State overlook the fact that these motor vehicles that are used across-Channel are scarcely suitable for this country. The point, however, is that they have been imitated and adopted here. There is a great difference between our roads and the roads in Great Britain. In Great Britain they spend over £50,000,000 a year on the roads. I have one practical remedy to suggest to the House to deal with the present situation on the roads. I hope it will meet with the approval of the House, and with that, too, of the Minister for Industry and Commerce whom we are all pleased to see here this afternoon after his recent illness. One of the suggestions which I propose making is conveyed in a resolution passed by the Cork County Council. It reads:

Having considered the report of our county surveyor, and from our own observations, we are convinced that our roads cannot stand the destruction caused by the vehicles at present allowed to use them. We desire to refer particularly to the heavy solid-tyred lorries and the heavy buses allowed to travel at excessive speed. We ask the Government to take proper steps to control road traffic with the object of fitting vehicles to the class of road that we can afford to construct and maintain. With this object we also ask the Government to empower the University Colleges, and especially University College, Cork, which is quite willing to act, to carry out tests on the lines suggested in our county surveyor's report.

These tests have been adopted in Sweden and in the United States of America and other places with great advantage. I also suggest, on the advice of experts who have asked me to mention the matter, that the vehicles used in this country should be six-wheeled. Vehicles of that type would do infinitely less damage to the roads than the class of vehicles that is at present being used. I think also that some substantial concession might be made to lorry owners who used pneumatic tyres on their vehicles instead of the solid tyres that are tearing up the roads in all directions. I hope that Senator Gogarty will agree to the addition that I have suggested to his resolution.

Mr. BAGWELL

I feel that I ought to support this resolution. It is a subject to which, at different times. I have given a good deal of thought. The subject is a complicated one, and lends itself to be dealt with by this motion, which touches on part of the problem. I feel myself that what is advocated in the motion would be a move in the right direction. As Senators know, I have always been opposed to subsidies, and to the subsidisation of organisations. Of course, the arguments in favour of a subsidy are that you will get your money back in another way. Sometimes, perhaps, you do, but I am by no means certain that you always get it back. Outside the towns, I contend that commercial transport on the roads is the most heavily subsidised industry in the country. That, I admit, is merely an assertion on my part, but I think it is a reasonable assertion. After all, the main factors in destroying the road surface is a combination of the factors of weight, speed and friction. These commercial vehicles that are now in use are the heaviest things on the road. The amount of friction that is caused by them tends to tear up the roads to an enormously greater extent than that caused by slow-moving vehicles. It follows that the roads could be maintained in their present condition, or probably even in a better condition than they are now, at a very much less cost, if these commercial motor vehicles were taxed in proportion to the damage which they do.

One must not disguise from oneself the fact that these vehicles do perform a public service. They are unquestionably of great public benefit to certain sections of the public, especially to those who use them, and the question is whether the benefit they confer outweighs their cost to the country as a whole. The only sure means of testing that question is on the lines suggested by this motion; that every motor vehicle should, as far as possible, be taxed according to the increase in the cost of road maintenance when it occasions. Suppose that the whole country, if I may draw a fanciful picture for the moment, were under one man, and that we were to look at the whole community as members of his family, and suppose he was anxious to do what he could for the general weal, is it likely that he would divert his traffic from the steel roads, which he had already got perfectly well built to carry his heavy traffic for him, not perhaps so well as the road vehicle in some instances, and transfer all that heavy traffic to the roads which were not made to carry it, and on which enormous sums of money have to be spent so as to enable them to carry it, and so as not to render them unfit for the carrying of any sort of traffic? I do not think that he would. I think that if the general weal were wisely considered in an all-round way, that could be shown not to be in the public interest.

I am voting for the motion, though I feel it does not cover the whole ground. The mover of it, I think, would not claim that it does. I think, at all events, it is only right that some attempt should be made to try, so to speak, to make the punishment fit the crime as far as increasing the taxation on these heavy motor vehicles, accord-to the damage they do to the roads, is concerned. I think also that these heavy motor vehicles might be prohibited from travelling over roads except certain scheduled roads. If we are to tax these vehicles according to the damage they do to the roads, one great advantage would, I think, ensue. We should be certain that the service which these commercial motor vehicles give is really in the public interest, because unless they were able to make enough money to enable them to pay the increased taxation, the thing would soon find its natural level. What I think must be present to the mind of every man who has ever given any thought to the question is: whether the present way of dealing with it, or rather the failure to deal with it on scientific lines, has not involved the country in enormous waste. I think it probably has. I heartily support the motion in the hope that the Government will do something in the way of considering this question on somewhat more scientific lines than it has up to the present.

Mr. COUNIHAN

With some portions of the motion moved by Senator Gogarty I agree. One is with regard to transport buses and the number to be under the control of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. I think that as regards all buses plying for hire on any highway, regulations should be made by the Department requiring them to have a permit. I think that, before these people got a permit from the Department, they should be able to show that there was necessity for a licence being issued to them to run a bus. At the moment there is an amount of unnecessary bus competition which is certainly doing harm to the roads, and which is of very little use to the country generally. I do not agree with Senator Gogarty's contention that the motor buses or motor lorries should pay £3,250 a year in taxes. If that were carried out, it would mean taxing the buses and the lorries off the roads altogether. These motor lorries have become an essential in the life of the community. I hope that the Government will take up this matter and inquire into it fully with a view to introducing legislation when the whole subject can be adequately discussed in this and the other House.

Mr. O'FARRELL

With the general principle of the resolution I think there can be no real disagreement. The resolution merely postulates the commercial principle that every industry should, as far as practicable, be self-supporting. The majority in this House have fairly consistently supported that principle. Moreover, it is a principle that has been acted upon in regard to all other forms of internal transport, such as the railways, tramways and canals. The railways, before coming into existence, had to get legal authority to do so. They had to buy land, sometimes at exorbitant prices, to build their permanent way and maintain it at their own expense. In addition they have to pay rates on all this property, including the buildings they occupy, on accessories, etc. The tramway companies are also governed by legislative enactments. They have to build and to maintain their permanent ways, not only the permanent way over which the trams run, but, in addition, over nine inches, I think, on each side of the rails. The same applies to the canals. Even in regard to sea-going vessels, these have to pay high tolls and wharfage rates. They have to maintain stores and pay rates on them. None of these regulations apply to that form of transport which is now seeking to become a substitute for practically the whole of the internal transport system of the country.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in discussing the question of transport in the other House, postulated a veritable transport revolution when he said that "the amalgamated company should make the carrying of goods its chief concern, and not set out to be, as in the past, a passenger-carrying service." He modified that statement somewhat on the following day. He was certainly very definite in his statement to the effect that all passenger train traffic now carried by the railways would eventually be diverted to the roads. As far as the Great Southern Railways is concerned, it alone took in 1927, by way of receipts for passenger traffic, the sum of £1,806,000. When one considers that, one can easily visualise the vast amount of extra traffic which the Minister foresees is going to be turned on to the roads, and the problem that constitutes for road maintenance, for the public safety, and for those who use the roads for other than motor transport purposes. Yet the Minister did not give much indication of the existence of any plan or policy being in the mind of the Government as to how that great revolution was going to be dealt with. When one considers the amount of damage done by fast-travelling omnibuses, weighing perhaps from five tons to ten tons, it is difficult to say what the actual tax should be. If, as Senator Gogarty seems to think, the average distance covered by a bus is 1,000 miles a week, that is certainly a small estimate for a bus service. The Senator, I think, referred to Sir William Ackworth. He made an estimate, and, as well as I remember, it was threepence per ton mile. One can see that that would impose an impossible tax on the buses, and to that extent certainly they cannot be taxed.

One has got to realise that the tax paid on the highest-taxed buses in the country would not be sufficient to pay the wages of the worst-paid road worker in the country. The higher-taxed buses are mainly 32-seater vehicles, and the tax on them is £64 a year. That sum would not be sufficient to pay the wage of 25/- a week which is paid to some road workers in the country. It could not be sufficient to pay the wages of the road worker employed in repairing the damage done on the roads in any one year by a bus that was in full service, to say nothing at all about the cost of the road material, which is very high, or the other costs involved in maintaining the roads.

I am informed that last year the amount received from the tax on buses and lorries combined was in or about £42,000. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but a Government official gave me that figure from memory. The mileage done by passenger buses alone during the first four months of this year, in the Free State, was nearly four and a half million miles. If you allow for the fact that the first three months of the year may be regarded as winter months, and that a vastly greater mileage is done in the summer period, you must allow that at least fifteen million miles will be covered by these buses in a full twelve months' period. If you spread that total mileage over the sum of £42,000, you will find that it works out at about three-fifths of a penny per mile, irrespective of the weight of the bus. That may mean that a bus weighing five or six tons is only paying a tax at the rate of three-fifths of a penny per mile for the damage it does. That obviously is not a commercial proposition, and Senator Bagwell was not overstating the case when he asserted that this was the most heavily subsidised industry in the country. That figure of three-fifths of a penny per mile is a long way from the estimate of Sir William Ackworth which was threepence per ton mile in respect of each bus.

The Minister, in the Dáil, indicated what was the basis upon which the ordinary ratepayer was assessed in respect of the roads at the present time. He said that he took the cost of what was spent on the roads in 1914, and added to it the increased prices which farmers were getting for their produce two years ago, and that anything over and above that was made good out of the road fund. In other words, the farmer was paying about fifty per cent. more in rates for the upkeep of the roads now than he was paying in 1914. The rest is made up in grants, partly from the road fund and partly from other grants for the relief of unemployment such as the £2,000,000 grant, etc. While that may look fair enough on paper, it is true I think to say that the roads are not as useful to the farmer, as safe for the farmer as regards the driving of horses and cars on them as they were in 1914, while they are almost impossible from the point of view of pedestrians. It is a fact also that the big expenditure on the roads is being confined, in great part, to the great boulevards that are being constructed for the convenience of motor traffic. In that connection I notice a statement made by a Deputy from Waterford. He said: "I am afraid that the farmer ratepayer will not be satisfied. He maintains that he is not getting more for his produce now that he got in 1914. His argument is that he is back to 1914 prices, but the cost of the upkeep of the roads is far is excess of 1914. As evidence of that the Waterford County Council last year and this year cut the county surveyor's estimate by practically £30,000. In addition to that they had to cut off a number of third class roads and deprive a number of their own ratepayers practically of access to their own holdings." In other words, the ratepayer finds it hard to get to his own home in order that he may maintain a first class highway for motor traffic in which he is not very mightily interested. All sorts of Board of Trade regulations have been imposed on the railways, tramways, and canals for that matter, at a time when one would imagine that all forms of transport should be encouraged when there was no competition. It is now when we are independent of any particular form of transport that we are actually paying the heaviest subsidy ever paid to one form of transport.

I do not know why the question of a tax on petrol has been left out of consideration. We have been told by the Minister that it is an impossible tax, but Great Britain at all events is going to prove that it is possible. A tax of 6d. per gallon on petrol on the basis of the consumption of petrol last year would bring in about £450,000. Of course, in addition to that there would still be required some tax on the basis of axle, spread of the wheel, etc., as far as huge vehicles are concerned, because they are imposing a burden upon the roads which the roads were never built for.

I do not know if the Government have ever considered the equity of a tax on passengers' tickets. That certainly would impose a tax in proportion to the amount of business done. It would be an equitable tax, I think, from the point of view of the passenger. My attention has been drawn to the fact that a number of people who own private motor cars, some eight or ten miles from the city of Dublin, have been able to dispense with their cars because of the bus facilities afforded. In dispensing with their cars, they have been able to save themselves the cost of the upkeep of them, while the State has lost the tax which would be paid on them. I think there would be no hardship inflicted on these people if they had to pay something for the very cheap fares that they are getting as a result of the public subsidy of that particular form of transport. They could hardly complain if a tax were put on the tickets.

When speaking on a previous occasion, Senator Bagwell talked about the danger of interfering with private enterprise. As there are other forms of industry and transport under private enterprise working without a subsidy, it cannot be argued that the motor transport industry is private, inasmuch as it is getting this heavy public subsidy. When one compares the community value of these forms of transport, you will find that there is really no comparison between road motor transport, and, say, the railway industry. The railways in the Free State pay £60,000 per week in wages. They employ over 18,000 workers, and when you take their families into consideration, that means that they are maintaining in employment, in fairly decent conditions, a very large number of people indeed.

The railway industry is one of the few industries in the country worth talking about. They put up, by way of wages and other material, nearly five and a half million pounds a year. That is no mean contribution towards the revival of trade and the solution of the unemployment problem. In 1926, the last year for which I have figures, they paid in rates the sum of £203,700. Part of that goes towards the upkeep of the roads. When you compare the contribution which the other forms of transport make towards the solution of unemployment, or the reduction of the rates, you will find a very striking difference. Deputy Davin, in the Dáil, quoted figures in regard to one line in Ireland, that is, the line from Dublin to Dalkey. He showed that on that section the railway company employs 451 men and paid £79,000 in wages, and that there was to be added to these figures the cost of coal, rates, the maintenance of rolling stock, etc.

The Tramways Company employs 340 men; it pays in wages £54,900 and for rates and way-leaves £23,550 and £11,300 for maintenance of rolling stock. Coming to buses, there are eleven or thirteen companies serving that area. They employ 40 people, paying in wages £4,160 and £1,290 in taxation. Not one of these buses, as I said before, pays in tax as much as the wages of one road worker in the year and, therefore, even on the very best of lines where they are most numerous they are by no means a national asset. Their failure or otherwise is not going to affect our national credit to any great extent, while the disappearance of the other form of transport is going to be a blow to our national credit, to say nothing of the effect on employment.

The Minister, in suggesting that the railways should confine themselves to goods traffic I think should take into consideration the fact that it is hardly possible for a railway line to be run if it is only to carry goods traffic. For instance, the receipts of the Great Southern and Western Railway for 1926 were £4,260,000 and out of that the receipts from passenger traffic were £1,806,000. If you take away the receipts from passenger traffic you cannot run the line for the benefit of the goods traffic. I do not think it is good national policy to encourage the creation of a condition of things which would leave the whole passenger traffic in the hands of one form of transport divided up amongst 100 or 200 different concerns with no co-ordination between them, bound by no regulations of any value to the community, and shut up the railways for passenger traffic because we have got this new form of transport service. The railway companies have to provide stations, platforms, waiting rooms and lavatories. Then they have to pay rates on these buildings, and water rates. They have to contribute to the maintenance of roads which the buses use. Streets are provided free for the buses, and free stands are also provided for them. The railway companies must provide warehouses and goods stores and pay rates on them, while the bus companies provide neither one nor the other. The railway companies are common carriers and have to take all kinds of goods whether they like it or not. The bus companies are under no such obligation and they may take or refuse to carry.

The Minister said that he had been in intimate and constant touch with the amalgamated company since the amalgamation and he had received no request from them for any form of restricted control of road transport. I am not surprised at that as the railway directors, or some of them, look on the railways as side lines. They have half-a-dozen business interests and the railways are only a passing interest. I did not see one of these railway directors present during this discussion, which is an indication of their interest in the matter. The Minister should not take their interest in this question as being any indication of the state of public feeling, for it is even possible that some of them may have an interest in road transport. Where the railway companies do plead the iniquity of the existing situation is when they go before the Railway Wages Board to get the wages and salaries of their employees reduced. Then they say all the things they should say where it will have some effect. Their only contribution to the solution of this problem is to take off the table of the railwaymen a little more bread which is perhaps already scarce. The Minister defended his failure to do anything because he was ignorant of the existing conditions. He said the only people from whom we have any returns are the railway buses which are under control, or words to that effect. In other words, keep ignorant of the existing conditions and you need never do anything, and you can defend your inaction by that means. It was suggested that there should be some form of control that would fix rates and fares and generally exercise more control than exists at present. One was driven to the conclusion that the Minister's speech was a very eloquent without being a convincing defence of doing nothing. I think he went out of his way to say that if they were to control transport why not control cinemas and drapery shops? That is absurd.

There has been control of inland transport for over a century. A system of control has been adopted by all governments through all the years. It is extending to things other than transport. For instance, the Minister would never allow publichouses to open ad lib., but he would allow unfair competition. When the railways were built no parliament would think of authorising the building of two lines beside each other, as that would mean running into speedy bankruptcy. If that principle stands good in regard to railway transport, surely it is equally good in regard to that form of transport which is going to substitute it, and control and regulation is more essential in road transport, as it mixes with many other forms of transport, and with pedestrians, and is more intimately associated with public safety than railways, trams or canals. The suggestion has been made that all powers of government should be concentrated in one department of State, and the question has been asked under which department. It is not easy to say without examination under which department it should be. It is argued that the Ministry of Local Government deals with all questions of roads. The rates which go to maintain the roads are paid under that Ministry, but the fact remains that the contribution of road transport taxation towards the upkeep of the roads is going to increase and will eventually outweigh the amount paid from the ordinary rates. Those who contribute the greater proportion of the rates for the upkeep of the roads will want to have some effective say as to the kind of roads they require. To that extent it will be found that probably the Department of Industry and Commerce, which is closely and intimately associated with transport questions proper, can more conveniently than in the past take over all questions, including roads, and the question as to whether motor lorries should be allowed to run on roads or prohibited from doing so. I do not think it is an impossible proposition to say that all these questions shall be concentrated under one Ministry. One effect would be that all aspects of the case would be looked at by the same group of people, and we would not have different people examining different aspects without regard to other aspects.

MINISTER for INDUSTRY and COMMERCE (Mr. McGilligan)

That has never happened.

Mr. O'FARRELL

No, but it is possible, and it is a thing that happens in most human concerns where you have different Departments dealing with different aspects of a question. The great thing is to approve the principle that within reasonable limits road motor buses and lorries should be made pay for the damage they do, and thus become like other forms of transport, self-supporting commercial undertakings.

Mr. BARRINGTON

I do not think this discussion should close without attention being called to the indefiniteness of the proposition in the motion regarding the sums of money to be recovered from motor transport. The motion is quite silent as to how that money should be applied. I fancy there are a good many Senators who are not aware that in addition to the railway companies contributing to the rates they have to maintain certain sections of the roads. Where bridges have been made and roads diverted, the railways contribute considerable sums towards the maintenance of the roads. These roads have been cut away by the motor traffic, and where they are cut away the railway company has to bear the cost of putting them in repair. In my opinion, the railway company should receive the money and not the State or anybody else. Senator O'Farrell mentioned the case of the tramways, and pointed out that a number of buses were running in competition with the trams on the Dalkey line, on roads actually maintained by the Tramways Company. Where they run on paved road surface they are smooth and even, but when they get off on to the macadamised roads travelling is very uncomfortable. If any legislation is carried out dealing with this matter, obviously the people who are called upon to bear the cost of the maintenance of the road are the people who should receive that money.

Mr. O'CONNOR

Senator Gogarty made certain suggestions on the question of transport which I heartily support. There are twenty buses now running on the Naas to Dublin road, and it is almost impossible to use the main roads for cattle traffic, and the by-roads have to be used for that purpose. Some lorries would hardly pull to one side to allow a person to pass with safety. I am strongly in favour of having buses of over five tons weight taxed in proportion to the damage they do to the roads. A good many people prefer to use the buses because they are a novelty, and as they pass their doors many avail of them to travel to Dublin. That happens to be particularly so in the fine weather. I hope that the iron roads of commerce, as Mr. Field called the railways, will regain their favour with the public. I believe the question raised by the resolution should have the earliest attention of the Minister. It is the duty of the Government not to let anything happen that would be a set back to the prosperity of the country, as, for instance, the railways being crippled by the competition of this new form of traffic. In my opinion, however, when the expense of repairing and renewing buses and lorries are to be met, and people find these buses and lorries are not an El Dorado, they will again go back to the railways.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I cannot understand Deputy Haughton's point with regard to empowering University authorities to carry out tests. The University Colleges are autonomous, and they can carry out any tests they desire. I do not know that they need any inquiry, unless it is an attempt to hide a demand for money. If it is that, then it is a different question. Somebody has put the question as to whether the railways, by paying rates, did not give, in fact, a subvention to their rivals. Senator O'Farrell asserts that bus companies do not pay anything of this sort. In so far as the railway companies pay rates on house property, such as railway stations, they pay to the local authorities, because they get from them a certain service. Bus companies with garages pay rates for them. In so far as the railways go beyond that and pay over to other bodies money applicable to road maintenance, that may be regarded as a subvention of the roads, but it must be remembered that railways would never get traffic if they were confined to traffic that was never carried on roads. They get traffic of which some appreciable portion has been carried over roads, and to that extent they pay, and rightly pay. There have been certain observations made with regard to Board of Trade restrictions on railways and other forms of transport, and that there is no form of inspection with regard to buses. There is an inspection at least at the beginning with regard to vehicles before a licence is granted. There is no inspection after that, but neither is there any inspection of a railway vehicle until accidents occur, and then the company has to meet the damages if at fault. The delusion is fostered here that the railway companies are subject to examinations of the permanent way and the rolling stock, etc., day in and day out, whereas the buses go free.

Senator O'Farrell referred to the £2,000,000 grant which he has described as a subvention to the road-carrying companies. It has been partially that, I suppose, but it was intended in the first place to be a contribution to the re-making of the roads after the troubled period, and, secondly, to a large extent it was meant to be for the relief of unemployment. I hope that nobody will believe I spoke in the Dáil in the way Senator O'Farrell quoted me. I have said some things, but I based them on a certain hypothesis. I never put the attitude of defence on transport matters that I did not know and that I was determined not to know. I said that certain essential facts were required to be known before one could form a proper policy with regard to the roads. If I spoke in ignorance there I was in good company. All I say is that there is nobody, Minister or otherwise, who has in his possession the facts required for the particular type of control suggested to me. So far from saying I was going to keep on in my ignorance, I said distinctly that we were now giving power to the railway companies to enable them to run buses on certain roads, and that as regards these 'bus journeys we would be able to get all the data we required, and that in the course of a year or two the accumulation of these facts would give the material required with regard to this particular traffic, and that the state of ignorance about it would be dissipated.

Mr. O'FARRELL

On a point of explanation, what I did say was the Minister suggested you might as well control drapery houses and cinemas as control buses.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I said it was being put to me that I should prohibit competition on the grounds that competition of a certain type was shown to be wasteful. I asked was that to be applied merely to transport, or were we to take it as a general rule with regard to business in the country. If there was a man who wanted to start a cinema in a particular place was I to say there are three there already and that is sufficient, and then apply the same principle with regard to drapery establishments? I simply wanted the question to be raised from the groove of transport to a general business principle as to whether we should go in and check competition where we thought it was wasteful. Similarly, I did not speak of envisaging a great revolution whereby railway companies would be confined to goods-carrying traffic. I said that possibly they would have to adjust themselves to meet a new situation which they themselves thought was coming. As the Senator O'Farrell's quotation of what I said on another occasion, one can quote exactly a sentence and leave the sentences preceding and following it out so as not to give a correct picture. When I made the point to which Senator O'Farrell has alluded I was referring to statements made by the railway companies before the Railway Tribunal when they said they regarded certain passenger traffic as irretrievably lost. If that was so the passenger traffic left them would constitute such a small portion of their entire receipts that they would have to be regarded as a purely goods carrying service, and in that event they would have to readjust their entire system and, as I said, I look forward to the time when the railways would become only a goods carrying service. As to the second part of the Senator's motion, it should have been brought forward in 1926 and if adopted then it would have come up in the Budget of 1927. We can go on making inquiries, but I do not think anybody can say with any degree of accuracy what damage is done by particular types of vehicles. If one takes the variation of the effects of the different types of vehicles on roads it is very difficult to say that a particular type of vehicle is causing a particular kind of damage to roads.

No general principle has been adopted. A Committee was set up in 1926 or the early part of 1927. An investigation showed that, taking the average moneys expended on roads in the three years ending the 31st March, 1926, and comparing these with the moneys spent in the year 1913-14, the actual increase is about 120 per cent. It was ascertained that the moneys paid by local councils to road workers showed an increase in those three years, based on an average of about 140 per cent. over the 1913-14 figure. The conclusion was drawn that there was not in fact anything more being done on the roads at the expense of the local rates in 1925-26, or the years before that, than there was in 1914, taking into account the difference in the value of money since 1914, while the motor vehicle taxation in 1926 was bearing 30 per cent. of the cost of maintenance and upkeep of roads. Particular calculations were made at the time. The roads in 1913-14 could be considered as not built for motor traffic. It was not appreciably heavy that year. Therefore, the roads were maintained by the local authorities for the ordinary type of traffic there was there then. We made up our minds that it would be fair to ask the farmer to pay in 1926-27 an amount equivalent to what he paid in 1913-14. The equivalent was got by taking the index figure of the selling price of his produce and equating that with what he got in 1913-14. Items of cost on the roads beyond that we tried to get the farmer to pay, bearing in mind what he was paying in 1913 and making allowance for the equivalent increase in the value of money, building it up that way so that no further moneys were going to be taken out of motor taxation. That is the policy that has been followed since that day. Private motors were bearing in 1926 about 50 per cent. of the entire money from motor taxation. The principle is that motor taxation ought to make up for the increased expenditure on roads above the 1913-14 basis by reason of the fact that motor vehicles are now plying over these roads. If it is discovered that they are not paying enough then certainly the taxation will be increased. Everything in regard to the £2,000,000 grant has been met definitely out of the Road Fund.

Mr. BARRINGTON

Is not that largely derived from private vehicles?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I said that 50 per cent. of it is derived.

Mr. O'FARRELL

Is it not 80 per cent.?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It was 50 per cent. before extra taxation went on heavy vehicles and heavy lorries. I cannot understand the figures that Senator O'Farrell has given with regard to taxation. I know that in 1926 the revenue derived from commercial vehicles amounted to £114,000 and the taxation of the hackney vehicles, including buses, £113,000, or £227,000 in that year, and that was before the taxation was increased. The Road Fund is built up in a particular way. How it is built up comes back to the other matter I spoke of, whether the incidence of taxation from motor vehicles as a class is properly adjusted between the different types of vehicles in that class, and that is a matter I am getting inquiries made into. But the principle is there, that if we take the roads in 1914, as roads not built for motor traffic, if we take the expenditure, we say that the ratepayers should pay equivalent to what they paid in 1914, and we say that everything beyond that, which ought to represent the money spent by reason of the fact that more motors are now going on the road, is to be met out of motor taxation. That principle may not be operated properly. There might not be enough money derived from motor taxation, but that will work itself out. The motors, particularly the heavy motors, will be taxed eventually to meet that. That was the basis adopted in the Budget of 1927, and that operates. A further inquiry as to how far it works out, and works successfully, is now being made. I do not think there is now any great subvention being made to road vehicles. If there is, it is not at the cost of the railways; it is at the expense of the private motor owners. I am pleased to note that there was not a single argument advanced here with regard to the last portion of the motion:

That the problems of inland transport can be most effectively dealt with by a single Department of State.

It was the one portion of the motion that I wanted to hear argued, but there was not a single argument on it. Senator O'Farrell referred to certain statements that I made in the Dáil in regard to this, but there was no argument used here on this point.

Mr. O'FARRELL

Might I say that arguments were advanced ad nauseam in the discussions that took place in November and December, but the Minister was not able to be present, and some of us do not like repeating the same arguments over and over again?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

If they were worth having we could have them again briefly. I do not know what they are.

Dr. GOGARTY

I said I did not put myself in train with the people who teach the people of the Free State in the editorial columns of the newspapers. The great advantage of one Department would be to organise and unify all forms of transport to prevent, for instance, such an abuse as occurred the other day to a lady who arrived in an American liner and wired to Dublin from Cork for a motor car to bring her up. They proposed to charge her £27. If we had a unified service that sort of abuse could not take place. There would be definite taxation and a definite rate made for transport per mile. I am sure the Minister appreciates my reticence.

Mr. COUNIHAN

I said that transport should be worked under the Department of Industry and Commerce.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I do not call that an argument; that is a statement. I think that is mostly of the type of argument we had.

Dr. GOGARTY

I was depending on the chaos.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Certain people wish it to be done, but do not say why. I said in the Dáil, and I repeat it, that people will have to face up to the point of one Department. I heard arguments as to chaos. One of the matters alleged to produce chaos was that the police, acting under the Department of Justice, prosecute people for breaches of the speed limit. I want to know if I am supposed to take over the police, or supposed to have special traffic inspectors? Am I supposed to leave to the police the duty of having some check?

Mr. O'FARRELL

Could the Minister not call on the police in the same way as the Minister for Agriculture calls on them to deal with foot-and-mouth disease?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It is done at the moment. That is apparently not co-ordination. Co-ordination apparently is that people must be under the same Ministry. The Minister for Local Government, if he were the person to move in the matter, could get the aid of the police as readily as I could, but actually the police, operating in the ordinary way under the Department of Justice, bring these prosecutions. If it is meant that there should be someone to say to the police that buses are flying at a great speed through certain parts, and to get after them, there might then be some co-ordination. The police are always there, and if it is pointed out to them that these speed regulations are being broken they can be relied upon to take measures. Am I to be asked to take over the roads? Am I simply to be asked to take over that amount of money which is derived from motor taxation, leaving the ratepayers to apply any way they like, through the local councils, the money derived from the rates? I do not see any lack of co-ordination at the moment. For this reason anything dealing with transport is a very big matter of policy. It is a matter of Government policy. It would fall for discussion by the Executive Council. The Executive Council is the co-ordinating authority. I should say that 98 per cent. of the transport must come under my Department, but the Executive Council is the co-ordinating authority. I was very interested in this motion on account of the last couple of lines in it, as I thought we were going to get a discussion on chaos. Where is the chaos, or anything that could be called chaos? How far would it be bettered to have all the services in the State dealing with transport acting under one Ministry, and, after that, what Ministry?

Mr. O'FARRELL

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

There are always cases where there is nothing for people to see. It is very easy to refer to chaos and to leave it there. But there is room for discussion on that matter alone as to whether there should be one Department to control this. But we have not been faced with any arguments that there was some negligence which could be dealt with and done away with by reason of the fact that control would be in one set of hands. I think that the Executive Council co-ordinates so far as any co-ordination is necessary. All the Departments co-ordinate on certainly 90 per cent. of the bigger matters that arise, and about 98 per cent. of the entire transport matters are dealt with through my Department. They may not originate there, but my Department puts them to the Executive Council. I ask the Seanad not to pass the motion until we have had some discussion on the last part of it.

Mr. BENNETT

I would ask Senator Gogarty to delete the latter part of the motion. I quite agree with the first part of it. I am not satisfied that a case has been made out for the latter part, nor am I satisfied that it is advisable at present.

Dr. GOGARTY

We will have to consider the Executive as a Department of State, because it is the co-ordinating body. I prefaced my remarks by saying that that was not essential, and I said to those who helped me to draw up the motion that I did not feel I was wise in letting that in. But the Minister does not want to escape. There is no question about the destruction of the roads, and the only question is where is the remedy? I think it is impossible from taxation, unless the tax on every motor car is multiplied four times over, to keep roads such as we had a year ago, and I cannot see from the Minister's explanation how that £2,000,000 is accounted for by the Road Fund. It is not an annual yield. How do you arrive at that?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It was borrowed for the service of the debt.

Dr. GOGARTY

That is what I mean.

CATHAOIRLEACH

I understand that you propose to omit the last two lines—"and further, that the problems of inland transport can be most effectively dealt with by a single Department of State"?

Dr. GOGARTY

Yes.

Motion, as amended, put and agreed to.

The Seanad adjourned at 6.55 p.m.