Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 14 Mar 1945

Vol. 96 No. 13

Private Deputies' Business. - Construction and Maintenance of Main Roads—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That in view of the fact that main roads throughout the country are now national highways and arteries of transport, Dáil Éireann is of opinion that their construction and maintainence should be made a national charge—(Deputies Finucane and Beirne.)

Mr. Hughes

The Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Childers, gave us some information of a very elaborate road plan that is being prepared at the present time. It appears that we are contemplating the provision of double tracks and bicycle tracks and means of by-passing towns, the ultimate idea being the speeding up of traffic generally. The Parliamentary Secretary gave us a good deal of information on that matter but he was reluctant to give any idea of the cost. We got no indication of the estimated cost of this elaborate trunk road policy for the whole country. Evidently the Parliamentary Secretary was prepared to do everything but pay for the work. I suppose on another occasion we will get detailed information about that aspect of the scheme.

In the matter of road planning, the Minister for Local Government should bear in mind that elaborate plans must be related to the national income. The first consideration is the preservation and improvement, where possible, of the national income. We must pay for elaborate road development out of the national income. Therefore such plans are to a great extent in the air until we can be satisfied that we are in a position to provide the necessary capital for construction and maintenance.

The Parliamentary Secretary informed the House that in some counties the work involved would be much greater than in others because the roads are narrower in some counties than in others. The Parliamentary Secretary indicated that the Minister was not prepared to accept the motion, to make the construction and maintenance of main roads a national charge. I do not think his arguments in that respect were very convincing. He tried to argue that they served mainly individual counties and, for that purpose, he was rather wise in selecting counties in the West of Ireland, such as Mayo. I suggest that counties in the vicinity of a big city like Dublin act as corridors, carrying huge traffic to and from the city. The volume of outside traffic passing over these roads is far greater than the volume of internal traffic is likely to be.

I think the 1926 Act is completely obsolete in regard to the financing of the reconstruction and maintenance of roads. The local authority secures grants on the basis of the amount of money that is spent on maintenance and development and they have no authority to direct that sums of money allocated for road development should be spent on the smaller roads, the byroads and link roads in the county. That would not indicate that the requirements of the individual county so far as road provision is considered in this respect. One can understand that when the 1926 Act was passed the roads were in a shocking condition and road reorganisation was an urgent problem. The Act proposed to develop main arteries first. While Deputies from the West complain that even their main roads are still in poor condition they fail to appreciate that the counties that are best served at the present time are counties that availed of the 1926 Act to the fullest extent to reconstruct, develop and maintain their main roads, and that the counties that neglected to develop and reconstruct at that time and that have been carrying on, more or less, on a maintenance basis, did not get the full benefit of the Act. I suggest that the Act is, in our present circumstances, more or less obsolete and that new legislation is required in respect of roads. The financial conditions that applied at the time of the passing of the 1926 Act do not apply to-day because of the development that has taken place.

In considering this matter, we might anticipate a much heavier volume of traffic in the post-war period and, of course, we must plan in anticipation of a substantial development in vehicular traffic. We may find that Córas Iompair Eireann may switch over to road traffic to a greater extent in the post-war period. We must realise the tremendous advantage, in a small country like this, that road traffic has over any other form of transport. It is more expeditious and far more flexible than any other form of traffic. Goods can be collected at the point of production and delivered direct to the consumer, eliminating handling charges and expediting delivery. Although road transport may be the most costly method, it is certainly the most expeditious and most flexible method. Rail services may be far cheaper over very long distances but for short distances road transport has all the advantages. It is not at all unlikely that the new company may develop road transport to a far greater extent than pre-war. That all goes to show that it is a national service which is likely to develop and that you cannot justify, in the development of national arteries to carry that national transport service, one particular section of the community bearing the charge.

I should like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary, too when he talks about the Road Fund, that a substantial portion of that Fund has been consistently appropriated by the Minister for Finance from year to year to help him in his Budget difficulties. Surely when we tax motor vehicles, motor fuel, etc., that taxation ought to be devoted in its entirety to road maintenance and development. I fail to see how anyone can justify charging the national highways against a particular section of the community, particularly the agricultural community. I would be inclined to go very much farther than the motion and say that we should not tax land at all; that land is the most precious raw material we have in the country. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to point out one other instance where the raw material of any other industry is taxed.

Here we have a very heavy tax on the raw material of an industry. Why should that raw material be taxed? If we expect maximum production from and maximum use of a particular raw material in the national interest, surely it is injudicious to burden it with a heavy tax. I am referring to the local rates which are predominantly subscribed by the agricultural community. They are a direct tax on land. Very often the taxation bears no relation at all to the income accruing to the individual farmer. Again, if you compare, in many cases, the charge arising out of local taxation on a certain type of agricultural holding with the income from that holding and compare that again with the income earned by other citizens living in houses with nominal valuations—very often a big business is carried on in a rather small house in rural Ireland— or by professional men living in houses with a nominal valuation and using the roads sometimes to a greater extent than the small farmer uses them, there is no relation at all to the imposition so far as the local rates are concerned. There is no justification for a man living on the land and using the raw material of the land in the national interest being mulcted in a special way for the upkeep of the national highways. As I say, I would go much farther than the motion if I were putting down a motion on this particular matter.

We have been talking about production and selling our surpluses and about using our surpluses as an exchange medium for essential imports. We have to sell in a market up against our doors in competition with British farmers and Northern Ireland farmers whose land is free of taxation. That is a very considerable advantage in a world where competition has made prices so keen and where profit margins are invariably narrow, and any extra burden placed on one competitor as against another very often has the effect of knocking out one of the competitors. We should bear that in mind. While I think the agricultural community generally should bear their fair share of the cost of local administration and the cost of maintenance of roads, there should be an equitable distribution of the charge necessary for local administration and road upkeep. I do not think the present method is an equitable method of financing road services. We support the motion. I think that we should remove any sort of charge that is a direct tax on the land, and that is what local rates are.

Mr. Cogan

The demand made in this motion is a moderate one. As Deputy Hughes said, perhaps it errs on the side of moderation. We have been attacking the forces of the Department of Finance and the Government in various ways. Sometimes we put forward our full demands; sometimes we try to entice them along to meet us by putting forward a moderate claim. In this motion we have put forward a very moderate claim. We have asked that the main roads, which are a very small fraction of the total roads of the country, shall become a complete national charge. The central authority at present is contributing considerably towards the upkeep of main roads. We are asking that they should go the whole way and make them a national charge. The Parliamentary Secretary (Deputy Childers) spoke against this motion; at least, I presume he was speaking against it. He gave the House a lot of very useful information and a lot of impressive figures. But, as far as I could see, he did not put forward any logical or coherent argument against the motion. His speech reminded me in many ways of a christening party which arrives with great pomp and ceremony at the church door, to find when they get there that they have overlooked bringing along the baby. The Parliamentary Secretary certainly did not bring along any logical or constructive argument why this motion should not be accepted.

The case for this motion rests on three main grounds. The first is that the main roads are not a local service in any sense or meaning of the word. They are a national service in every sense and meaning of the word. The second is that the burden of the cost of road maintenance at present is not equitably distributed over the different counties. Some counties have to bear an excessive share of the cost of maintaining main roads. The third is that the burden of cost is not equitably distributed over the various sections of the community.

The main roads are a national service, something like the Army or the postal and telegraph system. They bring into touch with one another citizens of all parts of the State, just as the postal service does. The burden of traffic in some counties is much heavier than in others. In recent years, owing to mechanically propelled vehicles being the larger proportion of road transport, a new position has arisen. Years ago, transport on the main roads consisted chiefly of horse-drawn vehicles, but now we have motor vehicles carrying traffic from one end of the State to another, that is to say, in normal times we had cars, lorries and vans setting out from Dublin and delivering passengers and goods in every village and townland throughout the State. If there is one national service in existence, it surely is that provided by our main roads as the arteries of traffic.

A new State monopoly for the conveyance of goods and passengers has been set up and, apparently, it is determined to divert traffic more and more to the roads in preference to railways. As Deputy Hughes pointed out, it is very hard to see a permanent future for a railway system, in a country such as ours with a fairly large area and a sparse population. There is, I think, a short verse on a headstone in Glasnevin: "Here rests until the judgment day the remains of Uncle Jack, but no matter how you sound your horn, the tram stays on the track". The handicap under which the tramcar suffers applies also to the railways. The railway locomotive cannot get off the track; it cannot deliver goods right to the consumer's door from the farm or factory where they are produced. It cannot do that, and so traffic will be diverted eventually more and more to the roads, which link up every citizen from door to door, linking the factory with the farm and the farm with the retail shops in the city. Therefore, we can see that the roads are going to play an increasingly large part in our transport system and that they will be a national service to an increasing extent.

The burden of the traffic is not equally distributed over different counties. That has been stressed by other speakers. We can all realise that the main road passing through Meath, Kildare, and the centre of Ireland and on to the West, carries a large amount of traffic which does not serve any useful purpose to the counties themselves.

The last point is that the present system of financing road maintenance by the local authority is unfair, and implies an unfair distribution of the burden as between one citizen and another. If a citizen happens to own a comparatively small dwelling, but has a large income from some pension, salary or dividend from foreign investments, he pays a very small contribution to the upkeep of the local service; whereas a farmer might have a comparatively high valuation but a very small income, and he is taxed for local services, not upon his income but upon the rateable valuation of his property. That system is obsolete and must be abolished. One way to approach its abolition is to secure that as many as possible of what are now described as local services be transferred to the State.

We are asking in this motion, therefore, that the roads be transferred from the local authorities to the State. In this connection the Parliamentary Secretary trotted out a very hoary old argument. He said that if we take the main roads off the local rates, it will mean imposing new taxation in order to finance them. He went on to indicate the particular commodities which might be taxed, and mentioned sugar and tobacco. He was about to mention tea, but some member of the Opposition asked why he should not include tea, so he was anticipated. If we look back over the records of this House, we find that the very same argument was used by Deputy Ernest Blythe when he was Minister for Finance. He said that the derating of agricultural land would mean putting a tax on tea, sugar, and tobacco.

The same argument has been trotted out again and again during the last 15 years, every time a demand is made for some relief for the local ratepayer. It is getting a bit too old now and it is time the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister devised some new slogan with which to sidetrack demands on behalf of the rural ratepayers. I think no argument has been put forward against this motion and, as it is a moderate one, it should be accepted by the Government.

Mr. Everett

I support this motion, as the constituency I represent is the gateway for the tourist traffic to the South of Ireland. During the emergency we have maintained a pre-war rate for the upkeep of our main and trunk roads. The rate at present is something like one-third of the combined rate for the full maintenance of the roads.

I disagree with the Parliamentary Secretary on the case he was trying to make as to why the main roads should not be nationalised. One of his arguments was that, if we nationalise the main roads, it may require extra staff, including extra engineers. That would not happen. All we are asking is that the State contribute 100 per cent. instead of the 40 per cent. contributed to the local body for the upkeep of main and trunk roads. Therefore only the present staff will be required to carry out the orders, under the direction and supervision of the Roads Section in the Local Government Department. It is one of the sections that gives great assistance and co-operation to members of public boards.

I disagree with some of the remarks made here by Deputies speaking for the motion, to the effect that engineers come along to-day and allow a turn to be taken away and later find out that something extra happens in the following year. I have not that experience, because very many of those dangerous turns have been removed in my constituency, and I will say our engineers and our public bodies have received the co-operation and advice of the Government Department.

I think County Wicklow should receive exceptional treatment from the Local Government Department. I maintain that the tourist who travels by bus or by train is of greater benefit to our county than the type of tourists we have experience of, who merely bring their lunches in a basket in their motor cars from Dublin and other places. These people flock to the seaside or to some of our inland beauty spots and all we have from them are the empty bottles thrown on the roadside. There is no money left in the place by people who motor like that through the county. For that reason no argument can be put up that County Wicklow is benefiting from the tourist traffic. The hotels may benefit when there are no motors running.

It often struck me, why should the farmer living on the mountainside have to contribute towards roads he never sees or uses? These roads are no benefit in the world to the men living up on the hills. Many of these men are unable to bring their cart-loads of corn or hay to their residences. If the public bodies were relieved of paying for the upkeep of the main roads, they could devote some of the money for the improvement of the by-roads and the county roads convenient to the residences of the agricultural community and in that way give these people some of the benefits that are derived by people living close to the trunk roads and in urban areas. You will have to encourage public bodies by taking over things not essential to the majority of the people of a particular county, such as main roads, and allowing them to increase the social services.

I am satisfied, no matter what Party you may have on a public body, they will not vote freely, even though it may be for social services, to increase further the burden on the agricultural community. The rates in my constituency are 13/6, less the agricultural grant, but the valuations are very high. You may have a farm in Mayo, as was pointed out by the Parliamentary Secretary, with a valuation of £1 or £2. A labourer's cottage in Wicklow would have a much higher valuation. Therefore, there is a greater burden on the people in County Wicklow, because of the higher valuation and the higher rates.

I cannot see any reason why the Government should not give the full 100 per cent. for the main and trunk roads—make them a national charge. I am putting up a case for my own constituency. We have a bigger grievance than any other constituency, and for that reason we should be given exceptional treatment. Our county is the gateway for all the tourists for the south of Ireland. At the present time the roads have to be maintained for the purpose of carrying timber and other fuel to the City of Dublin. We are not receiving any extra grant from the Government in that connection. I am not so worried about not being able to procure tar, because I believe some other arrangements could be made to give a suitable road other than a tar macadam road.

I wish the Government would consider this matter seriously. It is not a Party matter. I know men from all Parties who have advocated the nationalisation of trunk and main roads for many years. Let the motorists who use the roads for pleasure pay for them out of their own taxation. That can be done in view of the amount that will be received from motorists in post-war days. It can be taken out of the Road Fund, and not have that fund going each year to relieve the Budget.

We are being frightened, as Deputy Cogan pointed out, by all the things that we are told will happen—increasing the cost of necessaries of life and other things like that. We believe that in the Budget that will face us in the near future taxation will have to be increased, no matter what the Press or other people may say. There is no purpose served by propaganda of that type. We must face facts. Taxation must be increased if we are to maintain our social services and meet the situation with which we will be faced in post-war days. We must realise that £1 to-day is worth something like 6/8 in pre-war days. What is the use of talking about an expenditure of £47,000,000 or £50,000,000 when we realise that £1 to-day is the equivalent of 6/8 four or five years ago? The Government should have more courage and not be so much afraid of propaganda in connection with taxation.

We are determined to proceed with the reform to which I have referred. We believe that it is an injustice to the men who never have seen or used these roads. It would be better to have this made a national charge than have one small section of the community, as I have indicated, paying £52,000 for the upkeep of these roads. That is a huge sum for a small and poor county to bear. We must face the fact that taxation will be increased and we cannot otherwise have social services or give greater benefits to the people or carry out some of the schemes that are in contemplation. The Government should give this concession to the people who will be asked to bear the burden in the near future—that is, the people living outside the towns.

I give my wholehearted support to this motion. It is not to-day or yesterday that I was converted to this proposal. I have always put up the case, even to past Governments, that Wicklow should get exceptional treatment, because that county is the gateway for the tourists going to the South of Ireland.

Mr. Corry

This is undoubtedly a very popular motion. It is the privilege of Opposition Deputies to set down all these nice things which they would like to see carried out. We used to do it in our day, and, if I were in Opposition to-morrow, I would put down a motion to the effect that all rates should be taken over by the central authority. It would be the most popular proposal in the world, but, in dealing with these matters, the Minister for Finance must cut his cloth according to the measure of his finances. It is all very well to say that taxation must go up and that social services must be maintained. We have done pretty well in the matter of social services. As the Minister for Finance pointed out earlier, a sum of £15,000,000 has already been poured out for this purpose.

I am afraid that the plan of the Deputy responsible for this motion for getting over the difficulty put up by the Parliamentary Secretary is a bad plan. If, for instance, 100 per cent. of the cost of main roads is to be sent to each county council, there would be pretty hot competition in extravagance, to my mind. I have seen in the Cork County Council county roads starved for a number of years because of the 40 per cent. refund of expenditure on main and trunk roads. At the same time, we are faced with the position that the rates are becoming more and more of a problem for the ratepayers each year. They are going up by leaps and bounds, and whatever expenditure in national taxation there is, there is three times that expenditure in local taxation, and every social service introduced brings with it a further burden to be borne by the local ratepayer.

It is very hard to know where to stop. There is, for instance, the anomaly under which portion of the constituency of Waterford is paying the rates for the poor of Cork City. If we carried out the Deputy's plan in regard to the 100 per cent. for main roads and sent the amount down to County Wicklow, that county would be looking for three times what they are expending on main roads to-day, while Cork County would be looking for ten times the amount. It would, as I say, become a competition in extravagance.

Our trouble at present is that an enormous amount of traffic has been switched to the by-roads and ordinary county roads. We expended last year on county roads in our county £60,000 more than we expended ten years ago, and the roads are 60 per cent. worse than they were ten years ago, in spite of that expenditure, because a new class of traffic has been switched on to the by-roads which these by-roads were never intended to take. Turf lorries and heavy lorries to the creameries have been switched to the by-roads which were made for horses and butts, and our main problem for the past few years in regard to main roads in Cork is what we are to do with them at all. They were not made for horse traffic and the position to-day is that traffic which, for ten years or so before the war, went largely by lorry into Cork City has now to be carried by horses, for which the roads are unsuited.

I should like to see the job done but, as I say, it is the duty of the Minister for Finance to provide the money, and if something is required which would be of more benefit, it must be spent for that purpose. It is the privilege of an Opposition Deputy to set down what he would like to see done and to pile it on as much as he likes, but it is the Government's duty to find the money. I should like to see not alone main roads but other matters as well made a national charge. I personally think that the burden falling on the agricultural community year after year in the shape of rates is one which has already become too heavy and which must be reduced, but so far as this motion is concerned it is the responsibility of the Minister for Finance to find out whether the money can be provided or not.

General MacEoin

This is a very important matter for the ratepayers, for the farming community and for everybody who contributes to the funds for the maintenance of local administration. For a great many years, the rates in every county have been increasing steadily, although one of the present Government's many and varied promises was that local rates would be considerably reduced when they got into office. It is a well-known fact that the maintenance and making of roads, even with the State contribution, have to a very great extent increased the rates in every county because better roads were required both by order of the Local Government Department and by necessity. The traffic was there and had to be provided for. Ten or 12 years ago, bus traffic on the roads was very slight, while to-day the bus and heavy lorry are carrying traffic previously carried by the railway company. This has a very serious effect on the life of any road and, therefore, greater charges for their maintenance are made upon local authorities.

The Minister says that the Government provides so much of the expenditure and the local rates only so much, and when the Parliamentary Secretary, on the basis of this new plan of Fianna Fáil, multiplies the sum expended on roads over the period of ten years, the Government contribution is made to look very big, but the Parliamentary Secretary omitted to say what the contribution from the local authorities was or to multiply it by ten.

He tells us, however, at column 979 of the Official Reports of last week, that the State contributed £11,000,000 out of a total expenditure on roads of £25,000,000. Are we to take it that the balance represents the amount contributed by local authorities? I think it is a reasonable assumption. When motor taxation was introduced, the purpose was to provide for the maintenance and making of roads.

At a later stage, when the 4d. a gallon was put on petrol, the object of the tax was that it should be applied to the improvement of the roads. When the farming community protested against the expenditure on road work, the argument used against them and the ratepayers was that they contributed very little to road expenditure. It was urged that the motorist was in reality contributing sufficient to maintain the roads, by the £1 per unit horse-power on his car, by the 4d. on petrol, later increased to 8d. The case was made that if these sums were put into the Road Fund and were expended on the roads they would be sufficient to relieve the local authorities of all responsibility for road maintenance. Everybody knows, of course, that the Minister for Finance raided the Road Fund, and that the money that went into the Exchequer from motorists was applied to other purposes than road maintenance, the result being that the ratepayers were left to carry the baby. It is no argument for the Minister for Local Government to say: "Oh, look at all that we contribute." During the emergency a new traffic has come on the roads, so that, notwithstanding the expenditure on them, they are deteriorating seriously. A great portion of the main road from Dublin to the West is pot-holed. It is so bad that it is almost impossible to drive a car over it at any sort of speed. Even if one observes the speed regulations laid down by an emergency Order one runs the risk of breaking a spring in a car. This is a matter which I suggest the Government should consider seriously.

I admit that the local people get a great deal of use from the roads in their counties, and I do not suggest that they should be relieved of all responsibility for road maintenance. My suggestion is that they should be relieved of responsibility for the roads that are a national service—those carrying bus services, lorries, and so on. They are the main or trunk roads and should be a national charge. The railway company, for example, has to maintain the railway line, and it might be argued that it is of great benefit to the farmers living in the districts through which it runs. When the farmer pays his fare on a bus or transport charges to Córas Iompair Eireann for carrying his produce, I submit that he has already contributed an amount which should cover the maintenance of the roads over which the vehicles so utilised travel. The total expenditure for the maintenance of the main and trunk roads should be covered, in my opinion, by contributions from the Road Fund, in the first place, and secondly by those public utility bodies which are utilising the roads for their own benefit.

It is all very well for Deputy Corry to say that it is easy for the Opposition to put down popular motions. I do not know that that comes very well from any member of the Fianna Fáil Party. The members of that Party have put down motions themselves that they thought would be popular. In a great many cases they were put down for the purpose of currying favour with the electorate. I suggest that this motion has been put down by the Farmers' Party because they are carrying the responsibility to the greatest extent. The farmer in the rural area now finds that his rates are going up year by year. Take Kerry, for example, the banner county, one might say, of the Fianna Fáil Party. The rates there are something like 24/- in the £. How the people pay such a rate beats me. In the old prophecy we were told that the rates would be higher than the rents. We did not think that possible, but we now find that it is so. The Parliamentary Secretary may smile with pleasure. I do not see what pleasure it can give him to see people loaded to the ground with this weight of debt.

Dr. Ward

It is nice to observe how loyal they are to the Government just the same.

General MacEoin

There is the old saying that the heavier the landlord put the load on the poor devil of a tenant, the more loyal the tenant became. Those who have read "The Graves of Kilmorna" know what happened to the poor tenant. He was satisfied that the landlord would treat him well. Dear knows, the Fianna Fáil Party are treating the farmers well.

Dr. Ward

They are taking it well.

General MacEoin

I am astonished that they are. The last straw, we are told, will break the camel's back, and we know that at last the worm turns. I think we have reached the stage when the worm is going to turn at last. In my opinion, this motion should receive the most careful consideration of the Government. They should accept it. When, as we hope in a short time, normal road traffic is resumed, you are likely to have an inflated petrol and motor tax. It is not unreasonable to ask that the people paying those taxes should get good roads. The ratepayers should not be called upon to bear the cost of road construction and improvement since there is a fund, fed by the taxation that motorists pay, out of which it should be met. Deputy Corry thinks this is a popular motion. The position is that every motion is popular or unpopular with Fianna Fáil just as it suits them. They do not want anybody to put down a motion or to do anything that does not meet with their approval. You should not think at all unless you think according to the Fianna Fáil philosophy.

Mr. Cogan

Not even if you were a bishop.

General MacEoin

I am not going to mention names. If you do not think in the way that they want you to think, then there is only one thing to do with you, and that is to eliminate you—to use a quite common term to-day.

Dr. Ward

Liquidate, I think, is the word.

General MacEoin

That is the better word. The attempt by nations to make people think their way, and when they did not, to liquidate them, has brought a lot of disaster on the world. I suggest that, in justice and equity, there is sufficient money in the Road Fund to do all this maintenance and construction work on the main roads and that the local authorities should not be asked to bear that burden. The motion does not ask the Government to take over all roads. One would imagine from the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary that that was the demand. It is not. The demand is confined to the main or trunk roads which are being used to such a large extent to-day by the utility corporations. My suggestion is that the local authorities should not be asked to contribute anything towards road maintenance until the transport company and the public utility corporation have contributed a sum for the performance of that work that will be equal in proportion to the amount they spend on the maintenance of the iron road. It is a reasonable demand and there is justice in it. Instead of the Government rejecting it flippantly, it should have the matter examined by a competent authority if they are not prepared to accept it now.

Mr. Blowick

I have been asked by Deputy Finucane to conclude. I do not want to prevent any other Deputy from speaking, if he wishes to do so.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

No Deputy is offering to speak. Deputy Blowick to conclude.

Mr. Blowick

This motion was not tabled, as Deputy Corry suggested, for a propagandist purpose. Deputy Corry was quite frank. He said that if he were in Opposition he would do that. Our real purpose in tabling the motion was to have something done about the constantly increasing rates. The biggest item of expenditure in some counties is the maintenance of roads. This matter of rates must be tackled sooner or later. We tabled the motion with a view to putting up a concrete proposal to the Government. Rates are increasing year by year and, as Deputy MacEoin said, it took Fianna Fáil to fulfil Colmcille's prophecy. In my young days the suggestion that the rates would be higher than the rent was considered absurd. In County Mayo the road maintenance fund runs into over £90,000. That applies in many other counties along the western seaboard. In counties where the valuation is very high, owing to the poor quality of the land, the rates have increased to an alarming extent. In Kerry the rates are £1 4s. 3d.; in Mayo, almost 19/-, and there is no indication that the ceiling has been reached. In the course of a few more years, if the present trend continues, it is not unreasonable to expect that the rates will be 30/- in the £.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Childers, used the type of propaganda that the Government Party uses every time the Farmers' Party, or any Opposition Party, moves a motion. They try to suggest that it is a horrible motion moved by inexperienced fools, and that it is nothing more than an attempt to increase the cost of tobacco, tea and sugar. I have heard a good deal of that sort of thing since I came into the House. I have studied the debates that took place when war broke out and when it became necessary to increase the Defence Forces to a great extent. That increase involved additional expenditure. I could not find any suggestion in the debates by any member of the Government Party that the increased expenditure on the Army would have to come off the farmers' tea, sugar or tobacco. The strange thing is that, according to the Government, the farmer is the finest fellow in the world as long as he pays up and says nothing. The moment he looks for his rights, he is told that it will mean an increase in taxation.

I want to assure the Minister that in this case the motion was not tabled for any purpose other than to try to keep the rates within reasonable bounds. I believe that in the very near future something concrete will have to be done about that matter. If something is not done, the rates will go beyond the capacity of farmers to meet them and there will be a collapse of local services. We do not wish that to happen. We desire to maintain the local services at the highest point of efficiency. I think the present attitude of the Government is not helping in that direction.

The Parliamentary Secretary passed a very nasty remark, to the effect that the mover of the motion came from a county in which the county council had refused to strike the road estimate, or something like that. This motion was tabled to cover every county in the Twenty-Six, and I cannot see what bearing that had on the matter. The motion was tabled by our Party as a whole. Deputy Finucane moved it and Deputy Beirne seconded. I think that was a very nasty cheap attitude to adopt.

Most of the points in favour of the motion have been stressed, not only by members of this Party, but by members of the other Parties, and I do not propose to go over the same ground. I do not see why the Government should not accept the motion. It has been suggested that if the motion were accepted it would involve a special staff being engaged to administer the Road Fund. There is no need to do that. I think it would be a very simple matter to allocate a proportionate sum to each county manager, for instance, in this year, the sum that the county manager or the local authority has agreed to accept as a reasonable amount. The extra staff that would involve, in my opinion, would not exceed 12 officials. There is no need to set up a whole department to deal with that one matter.

Deputy Hughes, I think, said that the western counties were in a happy position compared with Kildare and other counties, which he described as corridor counties. That is all very well. It is true that there is light traffic in the western counties inasmuch as we are not situated in the middle of the highways, so to speak, and have not to carry traffic for other counties, but we have other factors to contend with that do not obtain in counties east of the Shannon. For instance, we are subject to very heavy rainfall. I suppose water is the biggest enemy of road surfaces, next to traffic. We have to contend with a high cost of laying down and maintaining roads. If we have to carry on under the present system, not only will the maintenance of roads collapse, but all the local services will collapse.

Farmers have contributed wonderfully during this emergency, and they have suffered greatly as a result of lack of foresight on the part of certain Ministers in many ways. They have contributed by the production of food and fuel. It has been suggested that County Kerry and counties in the West have done well out of the turf business. I do not think they have. As a matter of fact, there will be further discussion about that matter in the near future, and it will be proved that if people can produce turf at 15/- or 16/- a ton, it should be capable of being sold in the city at a price less than 64/- a ton. I do not think the farmers have got such a lot of the fat.

I think the motion should be accepted by the Government, and should be put into operation as a first step in the direction of trying to reduce the rates. As I have said, in some counties the rates are high because the land is poor. In other counties the rates are low—9/6 in Meath— and I think Deputy Everett said that in Wicklow the rates are 13/6 in the £. No matter what rate is struck, the farmers have to bear a fairly equal burden, irrespective of the county they live in. The situation will have to be faced, and I think the motion should be taken on its face value by the Government and put into operation.

Motion put and negatived.

The Dáil adjourned at 4.40 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 21st March, 1945.