Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Feb 1953

Vol. 41 No. 6

Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital Bill, 1953. - Local Government Bill, 1952—Second Stage.

Mr. O'Rourke

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. It gives me great pleasure to be in a position to move this Private Bill because since my first acquaintance with local bodies over 30 years ago, this question of the inability of local bodies to repair certain roads has been a great source of discontent and hardship to many people in rural districts. I have no doubt whatever that the short little Bill which is designed to enable local bodies to upkeep certain roads not regarded as public roads but roads of local utility will do a great deal of good for the Irish countryside.

While the necessity for this Bill is not so apparent in the Midlands and parts of southern Ireland, in the West of Ireland, the north-west and southwest particularly, we have numerous roads not now classed as public roads, and local bodies have tried for many years to repair such roadways. In County Roscommon, where I come from, we did for a number of years decide that certain roads were roads of public utility. For a number of years local government auditors allowed it to pass, but then after several years an Order came along which said that the county managers should be surcharged for making these roads. The result in one year was that £4,000 was added for that work, and form that time none of the roads has been repaired because managers have been afraid to do this work.

This short Bill, introduced by a Deputy from County Roscommon, Deputy McQuillan, has already got the approval of the Minister for Local Government, so that I do not think there should be any hesitation on the part of the Seanad in accepting this measure. It is a simple measure, enabling local bodies to declare certain existing roads to be roads of public utility. The great objection will be that it may entail a good deal of extra expenditure; that may be, but the people who live on these by-roads are surely entitled—they pay their share in taxation for the roads—to have provision made for the roadways over which they have to travel. I am quite certain that, although it may mean some extra expenditure by local bodies, they will be careful as to what roads they will declare to be public roads. That will be their responsibility, but I know local bodies and I do not think there is any danger they will overwhelm ratepayers with a great burden of taxation.

Assuming the Seanad adopts the Bill it will, even in one year, be of great benefit to the people in backward areas. We hear a great deal of talk about the flight from the land and, undoubtedly, the hardship which people in backward districts undergo has forced many persons to leave holdings and emigrate.

I am quite sure the Seanad, with its usual generosity and sense of fair play, will adopt this measure. It is a private Bill and, as far as I am concerned, it deals with a matter which I have always advocated. I know the hardships which people in backward districts have to go through and I feel certain that the Seanad will approve of this measure.

Professor Stanford

May I make an inquiry about the Bill? I simply ask for information.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think it is necessary first to have the motion seconded.

Mr. Lynch

I second the motion.

Professor Stanford

Is this Bill likely to interfere in any way with the private rights of ownership? Who owns rights which are neither public rights nor apparently private property? I should like a little explanation, if the Senator will give it to me.

Mr. O'Rourke

Well, the explanation——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

This is the Second Reading and only one speech is allowed. The Senator may, of course, make a reply in his concluding remarks.

Professor Stanford

That is what I intended, Sir.

Mr. Tunney

I rise to support the Bill and explain to my friend, Senator Stanford, that he would want to be a rural resident to understand the position of these roads. There may possibly be a family or two living up what we call a boreen, which may also be used by nine or ten people holding lands along it—in other words, the ratepayers. One of the things I can never understand is why the ratepayers in different counties have to spend so much on the upkeep of roads, as some of them have no roads leading to their homes. Therefore, I gladly support the Bill. I appreciate the fact that the Government have already accepted Deputy McQuillan's Bill. I am glad it will soon be law.

Mr. S.T. Ruane

I should like to support the Bill. The position, as outlined by Senator O'Rourke, is that people in the rural areas of the West of Ireland very often have to contribute to the making of roads that are a menace to their safety so far as animal traffic is concerned. Over the years the maintenance of these roads has become the responsibility of the ratepayers and in a good many cases the roads are a danger for the class of traffic for which they are used. I trust that the Seanad will have no objection to accepting the proposal made by Senator O'Rourke.

Mr. Commons

This Bill, which was initiated by Deputy McQuillan in the Dáil, will be welcomed by most representatives and particularly by those from rural areas, because it proposes to do something which we have all been looking forward to for a great many years. The whole question of cul-de-sac roads has been a headache to most of us for many years. In fact, it has been a headache since the passing of the 1925 Act, which took these roads from the authority of the county councils. Whether or not that was a wise step at the time, it was a fact that up to the passing of the 1925 Act these culs-de-sac were mainly leading to the houses and lands of the landlord classes. The Government then wisely decided that they should no longer be the responsibility of the county councils.

At the time that they placed the cul-de-sac roads and the responsibility for their maintenance on the landed classes they created a problem for other people who lived in these culs-de-sac. That position had continued throughout the years and it became a greater problem still when land was divided by the Land Commission and the majority of those who got the lands were then placed in the position of having to reach their homes and the land over the cul-de-sac roads. In certain cases when the Land Commission were making these cul-de-sac roads they could easily have carried them on to make them link or connecting roads which would have come under the maintenance of the county councils, but they did not do so. The result was that the people who got the land were burdened with fairly high valuations and high rates and got very little return for the rates they were paying because their cul-de-sac roads did not come within the road maintenance system.

On many occasions efforts were made to bring about a change in that condition, but these people had to continue paying their rates and seeing their neighbours who were living on the county council roads enjoying the benefits of them. The councils could undertake the maintenance and care of link or connecting roads but they could not do it with cul-de-sac roads and that problem has remained until the present time. Whether this Bill is going to meet that situation remains to be seen. It has, however, done one good thing and that is that it has taken away that part of the 1925 Act which prevented the local authorities from taking over these roads.

At the same time we have to bear in mind that the maintenance of these roads will put a heavy burden on the local authorities, and that is the objection I have to the Bill. The local authorities are already overburdened and in my own county last year there was a rate of 36/- in the £ and this year it is quite likely that it will be 37/6 if they have to take over the roads as provided for under this Bill. That would place them in the position of imposing rates which would be beyond payment at all. I know the people on these roads are entitled to the same benefits as their more fortunate neighbours living on the county council roads, but at the same time it is questionable whether they are prepared to pay the increased rates which the provisions of this Bill might cause.

It is amazing how much money can be involved when it comes to the question of construction and maintenance of cul-de-sac roads. We have seen that time and again when it came to a question of asking for grants for the repair of such roads and very often when the applicant saw the size of the grant compared with the full cost he was scared of the idea of the work. The amount of the money which the county councils would have to provide in the rates for the construction of these roads would be quite sizeable and the return from 1/- or 2/6 in the £ on the rates would not provide for a very big mileage. The county councils would have to construct foundations for these roads, many of which have not been touched for over 50 years.

That is one of the problems I see. If the Government will agree to some arrangement whereby they could pay a certain percentage towards the construction of these roads as well as maintenance, it would ease very much the burden on the ratepayers who are being asked at the present time to foot the greater percentage of the bill.

This matter was approached by the Mayo County Council some time ago when they sent a deputation to the Government. They got a sympathetic hearing to their suggestion that the Government should pay a percentage of the cost of these roads each year, but later the council received a letter from the Minister for Finance saying that until Section 25 of the 1925 Act was taken away or modified he had no power to deal with the matter in any way.

Last year at the General Council of County Councils, a body of which other Senators besides myself are members, this problem was raised again, as in many years past. The representatives of practically every county there were unanimous, first, that something should be done about it at this stage and that the people living on those roads were entitled to the benefits enjoyed by people who were living at the side of the county council roads. They were practically all unanimous also that the burden should be made as light as possible on the already overburdened ratepayers. A suggestion was put forward from representatives of upwards of a dozen county councils that legislation should be introduced whereby the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance would empower the county councils to meet the applicants' portion of the contribution and to do the roads under the rural improvements scheme.

The idea was to introduce a Bill to enable each county to levy 1/- in the £ and collect £8,000 or £10,000 or perhaps £12,000 and to hold that fund practically entirely for the construction of those roads. Maintenance was not asked for because we felt it would be possible to have a rotational scheme of seven years so that at the end of that time practically all cul-de-sac roads in need of construction would be constructed, and then the councils would be able to reconstruct the first roads at much less cost. Everybody knows that it is far easier to reconstruct roads repaired seven years previously than to put a foundation on a road that has not been touched for over 50 years.

That was our idea and before this Bill goes through I propose to put down an amendment to see if it is possible to get some help for the ordinary ratepayers rather than throw practically the entire burden of these cul-de-sac roads on them.

I will say this much in favour of this Bill and of the Deputy who introduced it: it is a Bill which we all welcome. It is an opening up of something that was an eye-sore over a considerable number of years and is even more so now because we have got more modern in our methods. People who have mechanised farms along those cul-de-sac roads are just as entitled to have a good road leading to their doors as anybody else.

My only fear is that this measure will come as too much of a burden on the ratepayers who are already overburdened in every county in the Twenty-Six Counties. The people on all sides grumble. Representatives of the General Council of County Councils say that the ratepayers can stand no more. This year every county has increased the rates to meet the increases under all the different headings and it is a bit too much now to ask councillors and ratepayers to meet the entire cost of those roads. That is the fear I have—that the good intended by this Bill will not be achieved. I would much prefer to see a Bill introduced whereby a certain burden would be placed on the State for the construction of those roads, even if the entire maintenance cost would be left to the county councils afterwards. We know that a mile of roadway leading into a group of houses will cost much less in maintenance than a mile of roadway that is a link road, the property of the county council.

At any rate I will try to amend the Bill. I am doing it in all sincerity because my fear is that this will be too big a burden for councils all over Ireland to accept. We are told, of course, that there is no obligation on the councils, that they can accept or throw it out. But we all know that it is something that is wanted in every county. I think it would be better if we approached this matter properly and got some financial assistance from the State other than that which they will give us in the ordinary course for maintenance of our roads.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

I regret very much that I have not the enthusiasm for this measure that has been shown by Senators O'Rourke and Lynch, my neighbours from Roscommon. Indeed, we are inclined to think that this is, in fact, a Roscommon Bill. Like Senator Commons, I am a bit fearful of the results of this measure. The position, as far as I know, is that prior to the 1925 Act the local road authorities were quite free to declare any cul-de-sac road to be a county road, and to maintain it as such. It was under the 1925 Act that that power was taken away, as far as I know. But when the county councils had that authority they did not display any great desire to take over such roads. Perhaps that was because people, before the 1925 Act came into operation, regarded those cul-de-sac roads as private property; four or five or six or even two people travelling those roads regarded them as a common right of way and would have objected to the local authority taking away what they regarded as a right of way or an easement over those roads.

I am prepared to agree that there is something in the point made by Senator Commons in so far as you may be removing private rights. This measure, I think, means that all boreens can become the responsibility of the local authority. I argue that those roads are private roads in many cases, owned by the people who have the right of way across them and by nobody else, and I think those people, if they wished, could object to the county council invading their territory. Having regard to the outlook in this, and, I suppose in every other country in the world, I do not suppose that that is likely to happen. But the 1925 Act laid down the principle that a road to be declared a county road would have to join existing county roads and be at least 11 feet in the clear. I may be wrong—I am quoting from memory— but I think that principle is laid down in the 1925 Act.

Would it ever happen—I am not old enough to know—that there was a demand from county councils which brought about the position that this was laid down? As I say, I can offer no opinion on that. The Board of Works, under the Special Employment Schemes Office, did a good job of work over the years and spent more, in my opinion, than county councils could afford to spend to alleviate the position of those living in long boreens or cul-de-sac roads, but the roads were still not public roads. They were private roads, owned by the people who had the right to go along them. Anybody who has anything to do with the activities of the Board of Works and the Special Employment Schemes Office will have to admit that the money spent on road reconstruction by the Special Employment Schemes Office was much more than that spent by any county council acting as a road authority in maintaining a county road.

In my county the average we spent on county roads would be 1/- to 2/- a perch, and because of the bad condition into which the cul-de-sac roads were allowed to go by their owners, the cost of reconstruction of these roads would be a heavy burden on county councils. When the county council takes over a road under the 1925 Act it is empowered under Section 25 to maintain that road— whatever about the reconstruction. I am putting another viewpoint. It is not that I am against the Bill, because I am not; but, having regard to the many other services for which local authorities and county councils are responsible, I wonder if county councils are in a position to raise still further revenue to give this added service since there is a fair attempt already to give that service by the Board of Works.

What will happen? I think it will relieve the Board of Works and the central authority of the responsibility they have taken on themselves. We are going to take it from them. We are going to take that responsibility over without having examined what it will cost. That is my opinion. It is not that I am against the Bill. It seems lovely on paper, but I am afraid that in practice it will be just slightly different. In some counties you have long cul-de-sac roads. That is typical of West Cavan. You have the roads joining existing county roads such as in Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo or West Cavan. Once we take this power there will be a clamour for this additional service. How can a local authority justify taking one road and not another? Will there be a question of patronage in this regard? Who will be the determining authority unless authority is vested in the county engineer to take the best or the worst? It would be quite impossible for county councils to take over all those roads at the one time, construct them and then maintain them if they were properly constructed. It might be possible to maintain them for 2/- a perch, but without that reconstruction I could see the cost for that additional service working out in the manner suggested by Senator Commons.

Since that aspect has been raised, I would like members of this House who have considered that aspect to tell me what this will mean to the county councils. This is still further vesting private rights in public authority. I still maintain that those roads are private roads. Once you remove from those people any responsibility for these roads you are destroying the very desirable principle of self-reliance in people. Once those people have not to put up a very small fraction of the money under a rural improvement scheme the taxpayers generally are responsible. In other words, the State or the local authorities are responsible for the construction and maintenance of those roads, and once the people who are responsible for those roads have not to put up anything for them they will have no regard for the roads.

Mr. O'Rourke

They are not private roads.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Any of the ones I have in mind are owned by three or four farmers. If we are going to remove the responsibility of people to make some contribution you are destroying the principle of self reliance. I have probably behaved in this debate as a devil's advocate by putting the other side but I did it quite deliberately. I am in sympathy with the principle of the Bill but, like Senator Commons, I am just a bit afraid as to where it may lead in regard to the cost on local authorities.

Professor Fearon

While I realise the good points in the Bill I am a bit uneasy about one thing that has been touched upon by some of the speakers and that is the extraordinary power given to the local authority. Section 2 states:

"a road authority is hereby empowered to declare any road which is not a public one to be a public road."

That really empowers them to declare any road to be a public road. I wonder can we reconcile that with the preservation of private rights. I really feel a bit uneasy that a public authority will be empowered to take over anything that appears to be a public road. Surely there should also be power to "depublicise" a road, where it is decided, after the course of time, that it is no longer of great value and that the expense of its maintenance as a public road should not be continued?

Thirdly, there seems to be no appeal under the Bill. Someone with a claim to a private way may lose it as a result of a local authority's action. Can he do nothing about it?

Mr. O'Rourke

There is provision further on for that.

Professor Fearon

I was not clear about its efficacy.

Mr. Burke

I want to ask the Minister how it is proposed to finance the Bill. If it is not financed by the State, it will be a heavy burden on the rates. One of the greatest forces in local politics is that of having the neighbour's boreen repaired. Strong pressure will be brought to bear on county councils to apply this Bill in full. It will be a source of "log rolling"—to use an expression found in other countries—and it will be a case of "I get my boreen and you get yours". It will be a fruitful cause of increasing rates. One safeguard I suggest is that the Minister should limit the area of charge for cul-de-sac roads, as that would be one way of protecting the general body of ratepayers. Otherwise, town dwellers may have to pay for miles of boreen roads for which they would never have any use. We have received no estimate as to what this Bill will cost. With the present outcry about high rates, we ought to move slowly and not at all until we safeguard the various interests concerned.

Mr. Hartney

I am convinced that the principles of this Bill are praiseworthy. In certain parts of the country—I speak as a ruralist—five or six farmers may live off a road maintained by public funds and may have contributed their share to it. In days gone by those roads were considered good enough, but there has been a big change in the past 30 years and rural conditions have been revolutionised. The road which was good enough for the donkey and cart will not do now for the lorry, which the people want. The man on a public road can have a lorry any time he likes, but the poor man using a boreen —to whom the market is of the same importance and who may be a producer of even greater magnitude than the man with all the facilities—finds that the lorry cannot travel into him. The combine cannot travel in to cut his corn, the binder cannot come in, then the thresher cannot come in and he has to shift the corn for threshing, which means wastage and extra expense. The lorry cannot come in to take live stock, although he is paying as much for the public road.

The expenses under this Bill cannot be colossal. Roads are not going to be done on an expensive scale. They will not be rolled, anyway. They will not cost as much as one would think at first sight. If the trenches on each side are cleared and the water taken off, it would not take much to put them in decent repair for ordinary traffic. At the time of the Land Acts, maybe our grandfathers "missed the bus": if they had paid the extra rent, the road would have been improved for them, but they said: "Give us the use of the land as cheaply as possible and God is good for the roads." If the people now do not want repairs done, no county council will force them. There will be no interference with private ownership—that can be taken for granted. We must realise that every public body, whether in Mayo, Cavan or Roscommon, is composed of sensible men, and if they do not think a certain road ought to be done they will not do it.

The Bill will be of benefit to us, and we should be broadminded and think of what some men have been suffering over the years. A few hundred pounds might make a road for seven or eight people and the maintenance cost would be light, as there would be no buses on it. How many times has a public authority sunk a pump for seven or eight people, only to find no water, or bad water, and the £300 or so has gone west, with no more about it? You pay £2,000 or £3,000 to put in a water supply to a village and there are incidental costs afterwards. When you start the road, however, you know when you put the spade to it that it is a job that can be done and you are taking no chances. Is it a greater crime to give a poor man on the mountainside the benefit of modern conditions than to bring modern amenities to a small village? Let the people fortunate enough to be on the side of the road put themselves in the position of other people for one week; then they would be loud in their demands to the county council. It is only when you live in those conditions that you realise it.

Let us not become such terribly conservative guardians of finance all at once, just because a couple of people on the mountainside have to be dealt with. Everyone there has a right to object, and all protection is there for them, so, in all fairness, I am prepared to support the principles of the Bill, because I see the necessity for it without going outside my own county.

Mr. P.T. Lynch

I welcome the Bill. This matter of cul-de-sac roads has been a bone of contention for 20 years amongst members of the council of which I am a member. The Minister, when Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, certainly did a lot for this class of road when he introduced the rural improvements scheme, under which many fine roads into the backward districts of County Roscommon were provided. In that county, with a view to improving the conditions of the people living in the mountainy districts, the local body put aside 6d. or 7d. in the £ every year, but we have found that some of these culs-de-sac were constructed in the old Grand Jury days, and it was legal to do work on them. They were made for the benefit of privileged people, but we found also that we could not legally spend money on a road into a remote but populous district because it was not done in the Grand Jury days. Many people in County Roscommon and County Leitrim have left these counties because there was no accommodation road to enable them to get to the highway, and in many cases they had to plough knee-deep through fields to get to the main thoroughfare on their way to the town or to the church.

The people in County Roscommon who spoke loudest about the Government which would not give them permission to attend to these roads, or to strike a rate for their maintenance, were the Clann na Talmhan Party. Members of the Party in the Dáil brought in a Private Bill dealing with the problem, but, having done some shadow-boxing, they ran away from it when they found it was going to be costly from the rates point of view. It is time that the people in the backward districts who are paying for fine roads for the high-powered motor-cars of to-day were considered. These people are paying for the making of footpaths, the provision of water supplies and many other amenities which people in the towns enjoy, while they have no way of getting to their own homes.

The Bill is long overdue and its introduction is a credit to the man who has brought it forward. The Minister also is to be congratulated for accepting it. I am surprised that a Senator like Senator O'Reilly, coming from County Leitrim, should oppose it. I know parts of Leitrim and I know what the people there have to suffer in getting to the highway to go to Mass. I also know parts of Cavan and I am sure that the people there will congratulate the Minister on his acceptance of the Bill.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Smith)

This is not my Bill—it was introduced by Deputy McQuillan—but it deals with a matter about which I have been worrying a lot over a long number of years. I must confess that I could never see the problem as other people seemed to see it, but, at the same time, I was prepared to admit that the part of the country I knew best did not seem to have exactly the same problem as this Bill was designed to meet. But not knowing what the problem was, I made my recommendation to the Government and the Government authorised me to accept the measure. The Bill is not going to have any of the implications which some Senators seem to fear. County councils, especially since the introduction of the managerial system, have been asking for extended powers, for the right to make up their minds on certain matters, and they have complained vehemently from time to time because that right was denied them.

Section 25 of the Act of 1925 gave certain power to a local authority to take over a particular type of road. It could not take over a cul-de-sac road but could take over a road which was an accommodation road joining two county roads. While the local authority could do this, it was a managerial function. When Deputy McQuillan came forward with this measure, he said that all he was asking was that the law should be amended to enable a local body to deal with a cul-de-sac road in the same way as Section 25 authorised a council to deal with accommodation roads connecting two public roads. He said: "I am not talking about money or expense. These are matters which can be debated after and members of councils will make up their minds whether a particular road should be taken over or not."

As I say, this is not my Bill, but I thought the proposal was reasonable, and, in accepting it, I proceeded in Committee to amend the parent Act so as to provide that the decision to take over a road would be a decision made not by the county manager but by the members of the council who would have the responsibility of endeavouring to make provision for their reconditioning and maintenance after. There is nothing to be feared on the financial side, other than what the members of a council may decide to commit themselves to.

Mr. O'Rourke

It appears to me that a number of Senators do not realise the facts of the situation. Somebody said that the roads which it is intended should be taken over are private roads. I hold that they are not. Many of them were dealt with by the county councils and later on a surcharge was imposed. I do not think this matter of interfering with the rights of private property can arise, because, before a council can take over a road, they have to publish notice of their intention in two papers and any person who wants to object may do so. I can assure the House, from 30 years' experience, that a council is not going to try to take over any road if there is objection to the proposal. I quite agree that it is going to be expensive, but will Senator O'Reilly or any other Senator say that the people living in backward districts, who pay rates to maintain the roads in the county and pay taxes to maintain roads throughout the country, should not have a right of access to the public road as well as anybody else? I thought Senator O'Reilly spoke more as the representative of Lord Leitrim than of the ordinary people of his county.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

I admit I brought this on my own head.

Mr. O'Rourke

This will involve a demand on the rates. We are a mixed council in County Roscommon and, as a matter of fact, there is no Party with a majority, but we did recently decide to put aside in the contingency account about 6d. in the £ for these roads, proposing to do a certain number each year. While Senator Commons' fears may be justified, no council will swamp itself with the upkeep of roads and they are sensible enough to decide wisely. There is no getting away from the fact, however, that these roads are not private in any way; they are repaired by the Board of Works, under the rural improvements scheme, or under the minor improvements scheme.

There are a few areas in County Roscommon where the minor improvements scheme has done pretty well, but in the vast majority of cases there is no provision made by the Board of Works. You are always met by this contention, when you put it up to these people doing work under a rural improvements scheme, that they are paying as much rates as other people in the county and they do not see why they should have to pay contributions which the people along the public roads have to make; nobody, of course, can disagree with that.

The Minister has made his case fairly and I do not want to say anything more on this matter. I was reared in a place which was reached by a cul-de-sac road. Since I was a boy other roads were made in the area which are now public roads. Surely, at this time of day, we are not going to leave thousands of people in the same position as their families have been over the generations. There is enough money available, considering all the moneys which have been spent on grandiose schemes. Surely there is no greater necessity than providing a means of access to the public roads for those people living in backward districts. This Seanad would be failing in its duty if it did not accept this measure.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for next sitting day.