I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The Bill, in effect, provides for the cancellation as from 1st April, 1962, of the Road Fund debt on foot of borrowings from the Exchequer and, also, for the making of additional grants to the Fund from the Exchequer over the period of three years commencing 1st April, 1961.
A sum of £900,000 was borrowed by the Fund from the Exchequer in 1957/58 and of that amount a sum of £622,603 principal will be outstanding as a debt due to the Exchequer on the 31st March, 1962. In addition, the Road Fund (Grants and Advances) (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1959, empowered the Minister for Finance to supplement from the Exchequer the income of the Road Fund by an amount not exceeding £2 million spread over a period of 5 years and payable as to one-half by way of free grant and one-half by way of repayable loan. Up to 31st March, 1962, a sum of £1,200,000 will have been received by the Fund under these provisions, £600,000 of which is in the form of repayable advances. Of this, principal amounting to £553,082 will be outstanding as a debt due to the Exchequer on 31st March.
As announced by the Minister for Finance when moving the Vote on Account for 1962-63, it is proposed that the Local Taxation Account, which includes the Estate Duties Grant issued annually to local authorities through the Account, should be terminated as from 1st April, 1962; this matter is to be dealt with in legislation which will, in due course, be introduced by the Minister for Finance. In compensation for the termination of these payments from the Local Taxation Account, the Bill proposes that the Road Fund debt on foot of the borrowings already referred to from the Exchequer up to 31st March, 1962, will be cancelled. In addition, two grants will be made in lieu of the two repayable advances of £200,000 each which would otherwise be made under the terms of the 1959 Act in the financial years 1962/63 and 1963/64. This accounts for £400,000 of the £700,000 provided for in Section 1 of the Bill; the balance of £300,000 I will deal with later on. As I have already announced, local authorities will be compensated out of the Road Fund.
The special assistance provided by the 1959 Act was designed to enable the Road Fund to meet applications from particular road authorities for grants to assist them in dealing with two special types of road problem, viz.: (a) that created in certain counties by the closing (in whole or in part) of railway lines; (b) that created by traffic serving certain important industrial undertakings, the public road approaches to which have been found to need improvement.
The amount of £2 million has been fully earmarked against specific schemes and programmes of road authorities and supplemental grants are now required in the cases of some roads serving major industrial undertakings where the original estimates have been found to have been too low. Moreover, further applications have been received from road authorities affected by recent railway closings or by new industrial undertakings. These new applications have been examined by my Department and I have obtained the approval of the Government to make special assistance available in certain cases.
A further supplement of £300,000 to the Road Fund will be made to assist in meeting the cost of these additional special works, making available a total additional allocation of £900,000 for this purpose over a period of three years. From this sum, substantial grants have been allocated to the county councils of Cork, Clare, Westmeath and Waterford and to Waterford Corporation for the improvement of roads affected by recent railway closings. In addition, substantial grants for roads affected by major industrial undertakings have been allocated to Cork Corporation and the county councils of Louth, Kilkenny, Offaly and Laoighis.
A number of applications have been received from other areas and while I cannot, of course, guarantee that they will all be granted, I can assure the House that they will be fully and carefully examined. I am sure the House will have no hesitation in accepting the principles of the Bill and in giving it a Second Reading.
On the question of the Supplementary Estimate for Local Government which, I understand, is being discussed with this Bill——