I must congratulate Deputy Lemass upon the very cautious attitude he is adopting in regard to this proposal. There does not appear to be very much difference between the attitude of the Minister, as disclosed in the Resolution, and the querying attitude adopted by Deputy Lemass. It is very difficult, I agree, to understand the quibbling and changing attitude of the Ministry. I have here before me a report of a speech made in Mallow on 9th December, 1928, in which the Minister for Finance in referring to this matter stated:—
It is the intention of the Government, not, let me say in the interest of the small towns, but for other reasons, to oblige the buses to contribute more substantially to the cost of road maintenance in the country. It may surprise delegates here to know that buses and charabanes contribute only 4.6 of the total road tax that is paid. The buses actually pay less than five per cent. towards the Central Fund that is available for road maintenance and improvement, and I think that nobody here can say that they do not do a great deal more than five per cent. of the damage caused to the roads. The amount, as a matter of fact, that is paid disproportionately represents bus owners' liability.
In that speech the Minister went on to indicate that it was the intention of the Government, in putting into operation the new tax which he thus announced on behalf of the Government, to increase the revenue to the Road Fund by about £100,000. To-day we hear the Minister using language that would go to show that the speech which he made at that time was not really a speech outlining the intentions of the Government. I have heard it stated, and there appear to be good grounds for it—in fact I have heard it boasted of by some bus owners, or those who represent their Association—that the North Dublin election result had a great bearing on the alteration in the policy of the Government in regard to motor buses. The Minister for Local Government, who represents North Dublin, may be able to confirm or contradict that statement. At any rate, there is a certain change in the announced attitude of the Minister between the speech that he made at Mallow and the proposal which he makes in this Resolution. I consider that motor bus taxation, or the taxation that is imposed by the Government upon motor users, should have some relation to the use or abuse of the roads by these people. Under present-day conditions, as far as I can see, bus owners mostly make use of what is known as trunk or link roads. As far as I can discover, the local ratepayers have to pay, roughly, 2s. 8d. in the £ for road maintenance all over the State. The contribution out of the Road Fund to the maintenance cost of trunk roads represents 50 per cent., and for link roads 33? per cent. The question is whether ratepayers should be asked to continue to pay 50 per cent. or less for road maintenance, especially as far as trunk roads are concerned.
If you compare the use or the freedom given to the user of the trunk roads to-day with the freedom he received on the trunk roads and the link roads ten or fifteen years ago, you will find that there is really no comparison. There is no comparison from the point of view of the danger to the average farmer who drives his cattle or his horse along the roads compared with the danger that exists on those roads in present-day circumstances. Remember the increase in the amount of the Road Fund will, as a result of the new proposals, only increase the Road Fund during the coming financial year by a sum of £45,000. What is £45,000 spread over twenty-seven administrative counties? What does that mean to the average ratepayer who complains that the cost of maintenance of those roads is excessive? The Minister for Local Government knows very well that in the county of Leix he issued an order holding up the payment of the Road Fund grant to that county because, in his opinion, or in the opinion of his advisers, the local ratepayers were not finding a sufficiently large amount out of the local rates for the maintenance and construction of roads in that county. By issuing that order he forced the county council to summon a special meeting to increase by a great amount the sum already provided at the ordinary roads meeting where the estimates for road service were framed for the current or coming financial year. Is the Minister going to satisfy the wishes of the local ratepayers in that county by the announcement that his contribution for the greater cost of road maintenance, both trunk roads and link roads, in the coming financial year will only amount to £1,000 or £1,700 over and above the sum given last year?
The Government or the Ministry have not given any serious consideration to the question of the cost of the maintenance and the relationship between the charges that should be made on those who use the roads so far as motors are concerned, and the use ordinarily made of these roads by farmers and other road users.
Personally I hold the view that the responsibility for the maintenance of the trunk roads and the link roads— the main roads in the country— should be taken out of the hands of the local authority and should be taken over by the Local Government Department. Anybody who has had any contact with the Local Government Department in regard to the question of road administration or road maintenance must realise that the real and direct control over road maintenance is in the hands of the Local Government Ministry and I would very much prefer to see control taken out of the hands of the local authorities and handed over to the Ministry and let them be responsible for the maintenance of the roads and for the construction of the roads in future.
The Minister for Finance told us that "if the State assumed responsibility for the roads, higher standards and greater costs would ensure." It may be that higher standards would ensue but I have great doubts that the cost would be greater on the farmers or the person who pays motor taxation. If the responsibility for the road maintenance or construction as the case may be was in the hands of the Department for Local Government, you would have a state of affairs existing in the country so far as the roads are concerned which does not exist to-day. To-day you have one county setting up a very high standard of road maintenance, whereas you have another immediately adjoining with a very low standard. That is reflected in the decision of the Minister himself and which he announced to the local authorities in the present year.
In October last he sent out a circular asking the local authorities to give information as to the amount they were prepared to provide for road maintenance purposes, and up to a short time ago he only got thirteen replies from the twenty-seven administrative counties. I understand he stopped the grant in many counties as the result of the failure of the local authorities to provide sums out of the rates up to the standard of what was thought necessary for these local authorities to do. That shows that you have a varying standard all over the State. If a central department was responsible for road maintenance, you would have the same standard of road maintenance all over the State for the same type of road. That would mean a continuity of employment for a minimum number of road workers all over the area rather than the casual employment that there is in most counties to-day. And what is much more important to the taxpayer as well as to the ratepayer is that you would have a far better return for the money expended on road construction and road maintenance all over the State. You see road plant lying idle in some counties for nine out of the twelve months of the year, and in others for six out of the twelve months, whereas if you had a central authority, as I suggest, that plant could be used throughout the year to far greater advantage in any county or on any road where required rather than casually used, as the road plant is at the present time. The amount of money that would have to be expended by a Central Department that would have control of road maintenance in these circumstances on the purchase of plant would be gradually reduced. Therefore, I say, in the long run, both from the point of view of giving employment and of giving value for the money spent, the central authority is the proper authority to be in charge of road maintenance and construction work.
I come back again to the Minister for Finance. He rather surprised me in the statement he made in regard to motor bus taxation. Talking of the figures upon which he arrived at the decision contained in this proposal he said: "Their figures"— referring to the bus owners' figures —"with regard to the actual mileage travelled by individual buses are not in accord with the figures upon which I relied. If the bus owners' figures are accurate I am satisfied that the mileage tax originally proposed would be too heavy." Personally I agree that the mileage tax was a very foolish proposal because the cost of collection and checking would altogether outweigh the amount derived from it. Without suggesting that every bus conductor is dishonest you would have to have a fairly decent number of governmental inspectors— to watch the bus conductors so far as the keeping of the suggested log book would be concerned. That will be avoided in the methods proposed by the Minister now but what I want to know is this: does the Minister accept or doubt in any way the figures on which he is supposed to rely. These are the figures circulated to Deputies by the Department of Industry and Commerce giving particulars of road mileage and the revenue per month or three months as the case may be. And these returns which are circulated by the Department of Industry and Commerce, as far as I am aware, are supplied to that Government Department by the bus owners themselves. Therefore, why does the Minister accept the figures put before him by the deputation which waited on him previous to the North Dublin election result and admit that the figures given to him for this particular purpose at that particular period are different from the figures ordinarily supplied by the bus owners to the Department of Industry and Commerce. There must be something radically wrong or the Minister must have taken a very hasty decision on this matter.
At any rate, looking over his speech on this particular matter, there seems to be some reason which he has not given to the House for taking this quibbling decision with regard to the method of taxation of motor buses. He states also "without coming for the present to a final conclusion as to whether or not buses should be taxed on a mileage basis, or what rate would be fair if a mileage tax were determined on, I have decided not to submit to the Dáil the proposals which I mentioned last December." I have read from the "Independent" report—I daresay that report was supplied the night before the speech was made—the Minister's own language where he stated "it is the intention of the Government to introduce and to put into operation this new tax so far as buses are concerned." What was the intention of the Government on the 9th December last at Mallow is certainly not contained in the proposal before the House in Resolution No. 4, and I suspect—I cannot prove it, of course—that the threat to hold a big demonstration, starting from St. Stephen's Green, a day or two before the voting took place in the North City by-election, had some effect in changing the attitude of the Minister and of the Government. I am sorry Deputy Murphy is not here, but I hope if that is so that the railway directors, or those who represent the railway companies in this House, will take a leaf out of the book of the motor bus owners, because if threats of that kind during a general election, or in or around by-elections, have the effect of changing a Minister's mind in the way his mind has been changed in this matter, then it would be a good thing for the railway companies to adopt the same attitude and tactics which have been adopted with success by the Motor Bus Owners' Association.
With regard to the whole question of motor buses, I do not want to be charged with prejudice or bigotry so far as the motor bus people are concerned. I believe there is room in this country for motor bus traffic, but I believe that if the motor bus owners want the roads of this country to be put into such a condition that they will be able to use them in the way in which they are using them in certain places at the present time, they should pay their own fair and proper proportion of the road maintenance cost of the roads which they use and abuse. The railway companies, the people who subscribe the capital—it is all paid-up capital in the case of railway companies but not in the case of bus owners—have to pay for the construction of their permanent way. But the bus owners are in the fortunate position of having roads constructed for them out of moneys provided by the ratepayers and the taxpayers in this country. I think they should not grumble at being called upon to pay a proper tax for the maintenance of those roads which they use so freely and abuse much more than the ordinary person.
I wonder would the Minister for Local Government or the Minister for Finance, in addition to the information asked for by Deputy Lemass, when he is making inquiries and looking for the relative figures, ask for the nominal capital of all the motor bus companies of this country as compared with the paid-up capital, I wonder would be inquire from the Revenue Department what proportion of this nominal or paid-up capital is controlled by people outside the country. I make that point because the capital invested in the railways, which give far greater and better employment, is capital which has been all paid-up by Irish investors. I paid 5/- to the revenue people to have a look at the list of the shareholders of a certain bus company and I discovered—I dare say this applies in other cases—that the dominating financial influence in this particular bus company was a motor building firm in Sale, in Cheshire. They send the buses of this particular bus company, on the deferred payment system, over here at £75 per bus per time and they have also their share of the profit of that company. They supply buses which are hired for traffic on the roads of this country. Therefore, I think, it is the duty of the Government to get at figures which will enable them to say to what extent the bus companies of this country are controlled by financial influences outside the country.
From the purely labour point of view, I think there is a case for fair play for the railways as against the buses. When the forced amalgamation of the railways came into operation in January, 1925, the only railway company practically that operates in the Free State employed about 18,000 men. Partly as a result of the amalgamation policy, but much more so as a result of this unfair road competition, the number of men employed has been reduced by about 4,000. Are there 4,000 new men employed by the bus companies operating in the Free State? If there are 4,000—I know there certainly are not—are they paid the same and working under the same conditions as those who were lucky enough to remain in the service of the railway companies? I certainly say not. You have one bus company—looking through the hours and conditions of service here some time ago; it was properly called the Pirate Bus Company—paying conductors £1 a week for 76 hours.
