I referred yesterday to the absence in the items of this Estimate of any reference to the expenditure by way of grant on the roads. It seems to me that the presentation of the Estimate for Local Government is sadly lacking in that respect and we are usually precluded from discussing in any detail matters which are not set out in the Estimate. Apparently, in this case there is an exception. I do not know exactly how it is that roads can form such a very large part of the discussion on local government and not be mentioned specifically in the Estimate itself. The matter is important because the Minister made it a very important point in the presentation of the Estimate in his introductory address and he has been making a big point of the increased expenditure on county roads as distinct from main roads.
It may be recalled that after the war the Government of the day provided special grants for the rehabilitation of the roads which had suffered unusual deterioration during the war and that, on the coming into office of the first Coalition, those grants were stopped. The Minister, as I say, has pointed out that he is putting emphasis on county roads. I take it that whatever policy he has devised in the matter has been decided upon as a result of consultation between his departmental advisers and local road service staffs, and I imagine that this advice must be based on the fact that such an amount of rehabilitation has already taken place on the main arteries that now a diversion to less important roads might be undertaken. I do know that, in the special districts provided for under the tourist roads development scheme, the time was ripe when the Minister took over.
I would have given first preference to those roads but apparently the view was forced on the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Oifig na Gaeltachta agus na gCeantar gCúng, which administers that particular scheme, that the approaches to the county roads, in other words the main roads leading into the tourist areas, such as the two main roads leading back from Galway and similar roads, should be dealt with in respect of the bad and dangerous places along them before the county roads would be suitable for the increased volume of tourist traffic. That advice was accepted and was followed.
I think the quality of the work done on the main roads in pursuance of that advice was probably a little too good. That is the criticism I have heard most. I know that these dangerous places required attention. I know that there were bad bends, steep hills and obstruction of view caused by ground eminences, etc., and that the removal of these obstacles was costly. It was suggested by various non-technical critics that the necessary clearances of view could have been provided, that a great deal of the more expensive work might have been postponed and that thus the county roads might have received attention more quickly.
The Minister was handed over a roads position in which a great deal of the preparatory work had been done and in which the servicing of the county roads was a practical possibility. I do know that, in reply to representations made by myself when the tourist road scheme was launched, it was stated that after a period of three, or possibly four years, the roads which I had in mind would get the attention which it was intended to give them. In this connection I want to bring to the Minister's notice a proposal submitted to him within recent months for permitting the surfacing of the county roads at their existing widths. I had a question to him a few months ago on this subject and he gave me the evasive reply that a decision had been taken on this matter by his predecessor and that there should be a width of 18 feet before any re-surfacing would be sanctioned.
The Galway County Council apparently takes the view that it is desirable that re-surfacing without widening be carried out. Anybody who travels the county roads will become painfully aware of the necessity of getting the pot holes filled in and re-surfacing done as quickly as possible. I hope that the Galway County Council's resolution on this matter will be accepted by the Minister and sanctioned.
There is a responsibility on the Minister and his Department in respect to the proportion of the various grants spent on improvement works. I have been referring to the criticisms by the ordinary citizens but I think that what the ordinary citizen is not aware of is the fact that apparently there is a national policy being followed in the matter, that the standard is laid down and enforced by the Minister on every county council and, if the particular proposal does not come up to this official standard, the grants are not given. I think those facts ought to be made known to the county councils and to their local critics, and they have many of them. Where modification of the standard is possible, the Department ought to take the matter up with the local engineering staff so as to get the danger removed at a minimum cost. That is all the public is demanding—that danger on the roads be removed and that objective can usually be achieved by giving a proper view. The elimination or modification of a steep gradient does not necessarily eliminate danger to life on the roads. It can be, and is, usually very costly work.
It is regrettable that the Minister and his road service is being deprived of the £500,000 which is being taken for other purposes by the Minister for Finance. That money is being provided by taxation of motor cars. Deputies will recollect that when the special legislation dealing with the matter was being piloted through the House by the then Minister, Deputy Smith, there was a great deal of Opposition objection to it. There was a great demand for assurances that every penny of the money would find its way into road expenditure and that the roads most used by motor traffic would benefit by the expenditure of the increased income. There was great solicitude then for the road services and anxiety was expressed that this was a device to get money from the road users for other purposes. I think that the Fianna Fáil Government honoured its word in this respect and it is now up to the Parties who support the Government, and who expressed all this solicitude, and gave voice to all these warnings, to ensure that this £500,000 is repaid to the Road Fund and that it will find its way into the service for which it was originally intended.
The people in the Gaeltacht and congested districts have reason to be very grateful for the work done under the tourist roads development scheme. I am conscious of the fact that that extra and special expenditure has not been dropped, simply because the label attached to it by the Fianna Fáil Government has been removed. Under that scheme, a great many of the roads, such as the county roads, which could not possibly be reached by the county councils have received attention. The work done in that respect by the National Development Fund of itself has justified the creation of that fund. There is here a marked contrast between the action of the then Government in establishing that fund for that purpose, among many other laudable purposes, and what is happening here in the reduction of the money available by £500,000.
If the Minister makes the case that the road service has been so well carried out that amount can now be withdrawn, that must be regarded as a tribute to the good work done by his predecessor in office, if one must attach a political label to the road service. It is not our intention to attempt to establish any such claim but the Minister has given the bad example and, as I remarked last night, used it in a very questionable way in the Kerry by-election. I was listening to him referring to Fianna Fáil's provision of autobahns for plutocrats and saying that he now was changing all that and diverting the money to the secondary roads.
If the Minister had taken over the position that obtained at the end of the war and if he had got the advice which all the road staffs, both central and local, had then given, he would have felt compelled to follow a policy and to work out a programme of road reconstruction such as has been carried out and the approaches to county roads would have received attention somewhat similar to the attention they have received before the county roads themselves received attention. It is not because the Administration at that time thought any the less of the county roads or of the users of county roads that that order of preference was established. There were a great many people in public life who would have had it otherwise, but, like sensible people, they deferred to the advice of the technicians who were charged with immediate responsibility in the matter. I do not think the Minister is well advised in trying to affix any political label to this classification of public roads.
The time has come when the bog road has its motor traffic and the Special Employment Schemes Office have found it necessary, within the past ten or 12 years, to alter the specifications of these minor employment schemes roads, because of the increasing tendency to replace the horse and cart by the motor lorry, even on the bog road.
The road service generally, whether in respect of county roads, culs-de-sac or semi-public roads, is, on the whole, fairly satisfactory. It is true that a great deal requires to be done but a great deal has been done and nobody can fault the quality of the work. If there is any fault at all, the fault that I have heard expressed is that the quality is perhaps a little better than is necessary for immediate requirements.