The matter I am raising on the Adjournment refers to the need for the Minister for the Environment to allow local authorities, as an executive function, to deploy a greater proportion of the national road grant to the repair and renewal of the minor county road network. I am raising this issue because of the rapidly deteriorating conditions of this very important section of the national public roadway. In practically every county at the moment, but especially in the western or the poorer regions of the country, the situation has reached appalling and unacceptable levels. Primarily this results from the starvation of funds which commenced after 1977. I will not go into the reasons for this happening, but we all know that we had the abolition of the domestic rates in 1977 and that they, by and large, paid for the maintenance of the minor roads. While that document presaged and, indeed, afterwards implemented that policy, of rates abolition, it did not tell us about the abolition of the services paid for by rates.
We might look at what has happened since 1977 in terms of the kind of funds that have been spent on this minor road network about which I am talking and which, of course, represents the greatest mileage of roadway in the country. We might look at the figures for those minor roads and also have a look at the figures of expenditure for the national primary roads and the national secondary roads. If we go back to 1977 we find that in that year the expenditure on the minor or county road network throughout the State amounted to £21.7 million; in 1978, it increased to £25.5 million; in 1979, it was £28.3 million; in 1980, it was £31.6 million; in 1981, it was £33.6 million; in 1982, it was £36.4 million; in 1983, it was £40.4 million; and in 1984, which is the last year for which we have figures, it reached £42.2 million. It would be a safe estimate to say that in 1985 the expenditure would have been of the order of £44 million. Of course, every year since 1977 there have been measurable increases. There have been increases well below the rate of inflation, so that in real terms the expenditure has fallen dramatically. It is estimated that, if we spent £44 million in 1985 to maintain matters as they were in 1977, we would have needed to have spent £54 million. That is just to maintain things as they were, but there are many reasons why they should not have stayed the way they were. There was need for development in these roads, but we were at least £10 million short in expenditure in one year in maintaining road conditions as they were eight years prior to that date.
Let us look at the expenditure on the national primary and secondary roads. We will start with 1979. We find that in that year £30.7 million was expended in that year; in 1980, there was an increase to £38.8 million; in 1981, it increased quite dramatically to £57.8 million; there was a very dramatic increase between 1981 and 1982 because in 1982 it was £72.9 million; in 1983, it was £91.7 million; and, in 1984, it was £94.9 million. The year 1984 is the last year for which we have figures, but it would be safe to estimate it was £122 million or so for 1985. One sees there that in every year there has been an increase well above the level of inflation. The real rate of expenditure on these roads has been well ahead of inflation, so that real improvements have been effected. Under the National Plan — we congratulate the Government for bringing this about — there is to be major expenditure on that category of road. We agree that this is needed and it is reflected in the 1984 and 1985 figures.
In terms of the national minor roads network these figures were damning enough in the sense that we have shown clearly there has been a major decrease in real terms in the funds allocated to these roads — but they do not illustrate all the facts. I am talking about the varying conditions from county to county and the varying density of by-roads in various counties, which is very important. In western counties the minor road density is far greater by and large, than it is in the other areas of the country. That has historical roots: the small farm settlements and small community settlements are of much older vintage in the West of Ireland, because after the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we had the adoption of a kind of peasant farming. That was, by and large, in very high density in the West of Ireland. Naturally, pathways and throughways were created down the centuries. Upon those pathways meandering little roads were built and nowadays they are part of the public road network. They must be maintained. They service a lot of people. In the eastern part of the country until the nineteenth century we were dealing with very large estates where the countryside was not laid out to any great degree in communities or in villages or townlands. When it did take place centuries later in those areas it was done on a much more orderly level. That is the historical root of this problem in the various counties. The odd thing is that in the poorer counties the problem is exacerbated because of the very high density of roads. In the richer counties the same problem does not exist because of the different type of historical background.
Another problem is the land structure underneath these roads in the western regions. That is generally of a less solid quality than the substructure pertaining in the southern regions or in the southeastern or eastern regions. Kerry is in the south and a great part of Cork is in the south, but I am sure the western areas of those counties are subject to the same climatic conditions as any county along the western seaboard. However, generally speaking, the point I am making is that the substructures in the western areas of the country are not as good as they are in the eastern part of the country. That is because of the different land types. In the west we have much larger areas of bog and so on and, we also have different climatic conditions. The western half of the country gets a far higher rainfall than the eastern half. That has a major damaging effect on the roads in the sense that it causes expansion during frost and heavy rainfall. This causes fissuring on the surface of the roads. That is always the genesis for the general break-up of the roadway in those areas.
These climatic factors and the different land type or substructure factors are completely forgotten in the Minister's Department in O'Connell Bridge House. I would have to say to the Minister that all policy proceeds from the centre of the Pale, if we want to call it that — and I am not one of those people who feel that there should be any great divide between the country and the city. But there is a certain Pale mentality, and it is a very real thing. Among the policymakers in O'Connell House I believe there is a Pale mentality. They do not see or understand the real problem many miles west and south of Dublin. That Pale mentality is all-pervasive.
Another factor completely forgotten since the commencement of the running down of funds around 1978 is that at that time there was a major development in agriculture in this country. Those were good years for dairying and the dairy herd was expanding. The mechanisation of the milk collection system was coming on stream in a major way, introducing on to all of these roads hundreds of vehicles with very heavy axle weight. In 1978, 1979 and 1980 they were coming on to the roads because those were the boom years of expansion. In those years the Common Agricultural Policy had plenty of money and optimism about it. Allied to that development was the increased activity on farms themselves. There were increases in silage making. This introduced on to the roads, in addition to the other vehicles I have talked about, a whole range of very heavy, high horsepower tractors and harvesting machinery, all with a very heavy axle weight. Naturally, this development had a very deleterious effect on these roads. Very often they were never meant to carry that kind of axle weight, but the withdrawal of maintenance, repair and renewal had an utterly disastrous effect on roads throughout the countryside.
Many people from the CII and the FUE and many people in positions of influence within the Department, indeed, would argue that even if the county roads fall apart, the national primary roads and national secondary roads are far more important. They would say that they are the most important roads in the country and they are under-funded and, therefore, most of the available funds must be spent on those categories only. I totally agree that our major roads are under-funded. I hope the national plan is changing that. That is no argument from anybody, no matter from what source it comes. There is no reason why the roads I am speaking about should be robbed of their fair share of resources. They have a right to a fair share. Every day millions of pounds of farming merchandise is transported over these roads. They are essential arteries to the country's major economic and wealth-creating activity, which is agriculture. That is forgotten by the policy-makers.
I wish to look at a more specific case to illustrate a little better what is taking place. I will take my own county of Roscommon as a case of a rural county in the west which is as typical as Sligo, Mayo and, indeed, Kerry, as another Senator will be speaking about afterwards. In Roscommon, we have a total mileage of 2,444 miles. We have 62 miles of national primary roads, 90 miles of national secondary roads and 376 miles of national main or regional roads, as they are called. In addition to that, we have 2,068 miles of county road. This year the budget for expenditure — and it is a budget laid down by the Department of the Environment — is £979,000 for our 62 miles of national primary road. We are to spend almost £1.3 million on all 90 miles of our national secondary roads and we are to spend just under £600,000 on the 376 or so miles of main or regional roads. We are to spend only £1.5 million on the 2,068 miles of county and minor roads. In 1984 the local authority did a survey which showed that there was 140 miles of that system in need of complete reconstruction. The implication was that it was almost impassable or unusable; 330 miles of it needed extensive repairs. Incidentally, the cost of that first category on the 140 miles I mentioned was £2.2 million. That was the estimated cost of restoring it and making it passable again. The 330 miles needed extensive repairs at a cost of £3.3 million and 290 miles of it needed urgent surface dressing which would cost almost £2.9 million. That was in 1984. We are talking about expenditure of about £8 million to bring the roads to an acceptable level of travelability, not to talk about the annual budget for maintenance, renewal and repair.
I want to let my colleague in, so I hope I have explained the situation in the few minutes available to me and I have illustrated the dire and absolute need for a change of policy.
