Deputy Corry gave notice to-day that he intended to raise the subject matter of Question No. 38. He will be permitted to raise the matter of the increased revenue from motor taxation, its accumulation and allocation. He will not be allowed to discuss the petrol tax, its accumulation and allocation on this occasion. He may only raise motor taxation, its accumulation and allocation.
Estimates for Public Services. - Adjournment Debate—Motor Taxation.
I put down this question to the Minister to-day:—
"To ask the Minister for Local Government if, in view of the increased revenue from motor taxation and from petrol tax totalling over £2,600,000 since 1947-48 and consequent increased traffic and deterioration of roads, he will consider increasing the grants to local authorities for road improvement and repairs."
Apparently I shall have to drop the question of the petrol tax. I may deal only with the increased revenue from motor taxation. According to the figures I got here on the 19th April in reply to a question to the Minister, the revenue from motor taxation in the year 1947-48 amounted to £2,000,000; in 1949-50 it was £2,552,000 and in 1950-51—the Estimate was a very conservative one—it is £2,600,000. As compared with the grants given by the previous Government there has been a considerable reduction. In 1948-49 the grant was £4,622,000. It has dropped from that down to £2,238,000 last year. Last year the Government received £2,552,000 into the Road Fund. Of that sum they gave out £2,238,000. I would like to know where the other £300,000 went. At column 470 of Volume 115 of Dáil Debates of 9th May, 1949, the Minister for Finance stated that he had £461,000 "which will be reduced to £161,000 by a contribution of £300,000—the same as last year—from the Road Fund."
The only allusion I intend to make to the petrol tax is to say that in 1947-48 it amounted to £1,514,925. In 1949-50 it amounted to £3,213,000. I understand the tax on petrol works out at about 2/2 per gallon.
I have warned the Deputy that I will not allow him to discuss the accumulation or allocation of the petrol tax. It is in a quite different category from the road tax. It is appropriated under the Appropriation Bill.
I merely wish to allude to it in the sense that there must be an enormous increase in wear and tear on the roads because of the increased consumption of petrol. Judging by the Minister's statement, apparently the Minister for Finance this year intends to make a further raid on the Road Fund to the tune of roughly £350,000 as compared with the £300,000 he took last year. Whether or not that is considered fair to the local authority, which is after all responsible for the upkeep of the roads, or to the motoring public who pay taxes on their cars for the pleasure of having their springs, etc., broken, is something that, in my opinion, creates a problem for the Minister, and I think that problem should be met by the Minister in increasing the grants he proposes to give to local authorities this year for the upkeep of the roads. I said to-day that I thought the Minister had got enough out of the Road Fund. If he had an extra £2,000,000 he should leave the Road Fund alone. This move each year of collecting more money and leaving the roads to take care of themselves is bad. In parts of County Cork the position is that the water-table is now in the centre of the road and not in the dyke. According to the reply I got from the Minister to-day, there has been an increase in motor taxation in Cork County of some £70,000. That does not represent a true picture by any means of what has actually happened. The Irish Sugar Company has opened up a big line in Buttevant, and a whole fleet of lorries is travelling over the county roads, roads which were never built to take 20 to 25-ton lorries and their loads. The oil companies have increased their road travel considerably, so has Córas Iompair Eireann. But all those companies pay their taxation here in Dublin and not in Cork. Therefore, £70,000 does not represent a true picture of the increased traffic on the Cork roads.
My reason for raising this matter is to impress on the Parliamentary Secretary the existing condition of affairs and the appalling conditions in which our roads will be if the present Government continues to cut the road grants. The Minister stated that the road grant this year would be the same as last year. Evidently there is to be no increase despite the fact that the wages of road workers have gone up by at least 6/- per week in the past 12 months. There is very little good in a Government increasing a man's wages by 6/- or 7/- a week if the yearly income remains the same as it was before that increase was given and if the worker is told: "I will give you an increase of 10/- or 12/- a week, but you will only get the same £150 a year that you got two years ago, and you can spend the rest of your time sitting in the ditch or walking around the roads to keep out the cold." That is of very little use. That increase will mean that there will be less work on the roads and less work done on the roads.
The cost of road material has been increased by at least 10 to 12 per cent. during the past two years. Every other cost, so far as the roads are concerned, has also been increased, but the Minister says: "The amount we are going to give you is £350,000 less than came into the Road Fund this year and the balance is going to go to relieve us in the payment of salaries and pensions of teachers and civil servants." It is time that that attitude ceased. There is no use asking the agricultural community or the ratepayers in general to bear any further burdens because, so far as I can gather from local authorities, and especially from the local authority of which I have the honour to be a member, and in which the majority is composed of supporters of the present Government, they are unanimously of the opinion that not another farthing shall come out of the rates.
The question of local taxation does not arise in this debate.
If the Minister persists in his attitude either of two things must happen. The gap created by the increased cost I have mentioned must be filled by the ratepayers or the workers are going to be faced with an increased period of unemployment while the condition of the roads will deteriorate. That is the only way in which the local authority comes into it. I think it is a rather serious prospect for the local authorities who after all have the responsibility of keeping the roads in fair order. Faced with that responsibility, they are met with a blank wall here from the Government which draws increased revenue out of the extra wear and tear of the roads and at the same time says: "We will give you £400,000 less than you got in 1947-48 and we shall pocket the rest or we shall distribute it amongst other classes of the community." Any way, it is not going to go where it should go —into the upkeep of the roads from which this revenue comes. That to my mind is a wrong attitude and an unfair attitude. My reason for raising this question on the Adjournment is to help the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister in forcing the Government to give them sufficient money out of the increased income to keep the roads in at least as good condition as they got them two years ago and that is not asking too much.
They are not so bad.
They are 50 times worse now. Unless Deputy O'Leary has any mysterious plan by which these roads can be done overnight——
They are up to pre-war standard.
That is the position we are facing and I cannot see any justification for it. It is time that the Minister for Local Government and his Parliamentary Secretary got their backs up and that they should say to the Minister for Finance: "You are not going to get £350,000 out of the Road Fund in order to distribute it amongst other classes of the community; we want it for the roads."
How much did you give us?
If Deputy O'Leary got a pick and shovel he could do a lot more than by acting the fool here. If Deputy O'Leary thinks that it is a proper attitude to tell the road workers: "I am going to increase your wages but you are going to spend five or six weeks extra idle to make up for it," I know where he will find himself at the next election. It is a very foolish attitude on his part and I suggest that he rectify it as quickly as possible. I give that advice to him for his own good if he wants to come in here again and does not want to go back to the pick and shovel.
You never did much with a pick and shovel.
Deputy O'Leary should refrain from interruption.
I often worked with a pick and shovel and I am not a bit ashamed of it. If the Deputy comes down to me, I shall give him a month's work at any time. I am sure he would benefit by it. It would take some of the paunch off him. I consider that it is time that the Minister for Local Government and his Parliamentary Secretary took a firm stand in this matter. I think I have given them sufficient ammunition in my three questions and in my statement here tonight to enable them to get justice for the local authorities this year by preventing the Minister for Finance collaring £300,000 from the Road Fund as he did last year.
In the first place I should like to say that it is a pity that such an important question was raised when there is such a limited time at the disposal of Deputy Corry and myself. I think he will agree with me that the question of the condition of the roads generally is something that might more suitably be raised on the Estimate rather than on a motion for the adjournment. I do not take exception to Deputy Corry's raising it in this way: I merely express the opinion that such a subject would warrant a longer and fuller debate.
I should like to point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that my sole reason for raising it on this way is that the Budget statement will be coming before the House prior to the Estimate. Now is the time to say that this robbery will not be permitted. It might be too late to say that when the Estimate is on.
In any case I do not think that Deputy Corry or any other Deputy should be as pessimistic as Deputy Corry appears to be about this matter because the fact is that the roads are not at all as bad as Deputy Corry suggests. As a matter of fact, in some cases the condition of the roads has improved. We took it on ourselves in the last few months to get reports from all over the country and so far as the roads are concerned we have been informed by the different county engineers that they have stood up well, generally speaking. As a matter of fact some of them are much better than they were before the road restoration programme was started in 1947. As a matter of fact, so far as county roads are concerned—and I think Deputy Corry will agree with this—the rolled county roads are improved; they are better than they were in the pre-war period.
Deputy Corry's complaint is that the Minister for Finance is taking something like £300,000 from the fund this year. I do not know where Deputy Corry gets his inside information. Possibly he is anticipating the Budget statement of the Minister for Finance.
Did he not take £300,000 last year?
He took it last year and the year before, and in the last year during which the Fianna Fáil Party were in power the Minister took £300,000 as well. This filching of £300,000, this appropriating of £300,000 by the Exchequer, was initiated by Fianna Fáil. Deputy Corry did not raise any objection, or was not concerned about the roads when, during the whole Fianna Fáil régime, from 1932 to 1948, the Minister for Finance took £1,350,000 from the Road Fund. On another occasion he took £1,000,000, which was never put back. Deputy Corry was not concerned about the state of the roads in County Cork during that time.
Read the Debates.
I do not need to read the Debates at all; I merely have to consult the figures.
Have a look at the Debates.
Let Deputy Corry look them up and deny, if he can, that the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance took £1,350,000 from the Road Fund during the time Fianna Fáil were in office.
Will you read the discussions on that matter before you accuse me?
It has been the practice since this State was established to devote the proceeds from motor taxation to the upkeep and improvement of the roads. That is the practice that is being carried on now, the very same practice that Fianna Fáil engaged in and that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government engaged in. Deputy Corry talked about money spent on the roads and he alleged, or would lead the House to believe, that less money is being spent on the roads. He talked glibly about what the Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government did during his last two or three years in office.
Deputy Corry would try to give the impression that the Fianna Fáil Government got money from some place other than the Road Fund and made a generous present of it to the county councils. Deputy Corry and the Fianna Fáil Party know that was not the position; they know that this money accumulated during the war years, that during the war years it was paid by the motorists who happened to have their cars taxed, and all the Fianna Fáil Minister was doing was saving up this money and, when the emergency was over, he merely released it to the county councils, as he would have done in the ordinary course of events if there had not been a war.
Perhaps these figures will enlighten Deputy Corry, although I am sure he is already very well aware of them. During the past two years £10,800,000, practically £11,000,000, was spent on the roads. In 1946-47 and in 1947-48, the last two years of Fianna Fáil Government, £7,500,000 was spent. During the two years previous to that only £3,000,000 was spent, and in the two years previous to that again there was only £1,700,000 spent.
I do not see what grouse Deputy Corry has, or why he must be pessimistic about the activities of the Minister for Local Government so far as the maintenance and improvement of the roads are concerned. He mentioned, incidentally, that the ratepayers are being asked to carry a colossal burden in connection with the upkeep and improvement of roads. In that connection he will, I am sure, be interested in these figures. In 1938-39 the Road Fund contributed £700,000 in respect of all roads and the local authorities contributed £1,325,000. Last year the Road Fund contributed £2,346,000 and the local authorities contributed £2,294,000. In 1938-39, the year before the war, the local authorities were bearing two-thirds of the cost of the work on the roads. At the present time the local authorities are bearing the cost of less than one half of the work done on the roads. That leads me to believe—and I am sure it will lead Deputy Corry to believe also —that more is being done by the Minister for Local Government now so far as work on the roads is concerned and so far as the all-in contribution to the cost of the work on the roads is concerned.
Deputy Corry will admit that there has been, even in the past nine or ten months, a certain sum spent on the protection and repair of roads from grants given under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. He suggested that a water-table was in the centre of a particular road in Cork. If that was the position, I suggest he ought to have asked the surveyor for County Cork during the past two or three months to submit that as one of the schemes under the Local Authorities (Works) Act.
I did so and I expect you will turn it down.
Deputy Corry is still being pessimistic, but I think he will agree that in respect of the grants given under the Local Authorities (Works) Act there was relief given to the county councils to some extent in the matter of the protection of roads, especially roads flooded or subject to subsidence. Those grants, coupled with the grants which have been given in respect of road improvement, maintenance and repair, represent a substantial sum which compares very favourably with the money that has been given, say, over the past 15 or 16 years.
I do not think Deputy Corry need have a lot of fear about unemployment in the rural areas. He must admit, with regard to the grants given for works under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, that a considerable number of men have been employed during the past nine or ten months and are at present being employed. It is true to say in respect of road and drainage work that at the present time there are more men employed in those particular works than ever have been employed by the county councils of the 26 counties since the beginning of this State.
Deputy Corry adverted to the fact that the taxation revenue from petrol has increased over the past five or six years. Granted, but I do not think he would seriously suggest that the Minister for Local Government or I, as his Parliamentary Secretary, could determine how that money would be allocated. So far as the Deputy's comments are concerned, it would be wrong for him to try to represent to the country that the roads have deteriorated during the past two years. As I have said, £11,000,000 were spent on the roads in the last two years, the greater portion being subscribed by the State. That expenditure now, compared with the expenditure of other years, represents a very big difference.
So far as the main roads are concerned, it is not true that they are in a worse condition than they were when this Government took office, and that can be said in relation to the county roads.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 27th April.