Before the debate was adjourned, I had been discussing the growth of the traffic problem in the country and the fact that in rural areas we were yet free from trouble because our road surfaces were lengthy and in good condition and that it was, indeed, very attractive to tourists to come here and to drive. There is a good deal of room. We can take a great deal more wheeled traffic on our roads yet. Of course, that creates problems in the towns and cities because in the towns and cities we are rapidly approaching the conditions of the cities and towns in much more thickly populated places. In Dublin, Cork and such centres, traffic was grinding to a standstill. The recent changes in traffic direction have made an improvement which I hope will last for some years yet, but with the growth of wheeled traffic, it is quite obvious that the city streets cannot contain or take the amount of wheeled traffic that will attempt to use them and we will eventually have to face the position where certain areas in all towns and cities will have to be designated solely for pedestrian use. There is going to be objection to that, as there is in Ireland objection to every innovation, but we will have to face that and eventually some centres in every urban district will have to be reserved entirely for pedestrian traffic.
One of the drawbacks about the praiseworthy attempts to improve driving conditions in the towns and more thickly populated rural areas has been the failure of most Irish drivers to obey the indicators for lane traffic. Lane traffic is a very quicklyacquired, intelligent way of regulating traffic movement but quite a number of Irish drivers make no attempt whatever to obey the lane dividers and the lanes are being used incorrectly by them. If they obey the lane arrows and drive in the proper lane traffic, movement will be very much improved. In this regard and in regard to many other facets of use of the roads by wheeled vehicles television and newspaper advertising should be used more than they are used.
I often wonder why in country roads when our engineers were devising the road surfaces, they had not found it possible to incorporate a white or light-coloured material of some kind in the road. Any of us who drives on the black tarmacadam type of road on a wet night knows how hard it is even with the most powerful lights to see the road and when you run on to a road of lighter colour, made of concrete, or an old dust road, at once the lights become 100 per cent more efficient.
It should not be beyond the skill of our road engineers to devise a surface which, as well as having its normal and good properties as a surface to carry traffic, should also have a surface which would not absorb but would reflect light, which would make the roads at night a safer proposition for the driver, particularly in wet weather.
The signs indicating recent changes in traffic control are incompetent and insufficient. Some of those signs should be sited so that they will be on a level with the lights of the car or a little above that, so that the driver can see the sign and signal being given to him.
Of course, the gravest danger on our roads are those who use ordinary pedal cycles. They never seem to realise the dreadful danger they are in and the regulations compelling them to carry a light are honoured more often in the breach than in the observance.
All old drivers would want to be made aware that there is a great number of new drivers on the roads this year because they are attempting to meet the provisions which require tests. If they have taken out licences early this year, they can drive for the remainder of the year before undergoing a test. In the meantime, they are all learner drivers and they do not all carry plates and we would all do well to take heed that there are many beginner drivers on our roads this summer. We should all take care, in any event. The Minister should be gratified, as we all are, that the Whitsun sheet was a very clean one and that probably the injunctions on television and the newspapers by the Minister are having effects.
I want to agree very fully with what has been said about the use of articulated lorries, that is, vehicles with trailers, on our roads. In at least one country in Europe, Italy, the owners of these lorries have been given notice that after so many years, the use of these vehicles will be prohibited on Italian roads. If we have taken the trains off the rails, we should not allow them to be put back on the roads. They are very dangerous vehicles. Even if they probably provide economies of some kind for carriers, they provide very great dangers to road users as well. I could not agree more fully than I do with what Deputy Sheridan said about the rear lighting of heavy vehicles of this kind—that the lighting should indicate clearly the complete width of the vehicle.
Another subject, which has not been referred to so far, is the discharging of diesel fumes from ill-kept diesel engines in narrow streets. If we were strict about that, we might find that the cigarette was not altogether the guilty party in creating conditions which might lead to an increase in the incidence of cancer. Another matter in the same line, for which the Minister would have responsibility, is the pollution of the air by certain factories. In the city of Cork and other lowlying cities, it is quite a problem. The growth of industry brings its own disabilities. It should be possible to compel all factory owners to have properly washed smoke emitted into the atmosphere.
I want to get on to the consideration of a subject in which I am deeply interested and in which, I am glad to know, the Minister is very interested also—the planning of the place in which we live. It is my pet subject, and I am very glad the Minister is also enthusiastic about it. The attractiveness of the place in which we live has effects far outside the immediate effects. The principles involved are elementary: first, cleanliness and tidiness; secondly, reasonably good taste in the decoration of buildings; and, thirdly, the preservation of as much natural character as possible in urban places.
The shame of dilapidation, to which Deputy de Valera referred this morning, is something that should trouble us all. Of course, a great deal is due to our history. In the smaller towns the impact of the Tidy Towns Competition has been something remarkable. It is one of the most useful projects undertaken in my time. It just shows that if the paint brush is used on one premises in a street after a while all the others have to follow suit. Now, some of the towns and villages are a pleasure to drive through.
Nothing satisfies me more than to learn of the growth of paint sales in Ireland. I suppose it is a matter of private human rights that a man should have the building he occupies in whatever condition he is permitted to have it in. But in what condition is he permitted to have it? Has he any right to deface the local scenery with the gross ugliness of advertising we sometimes see in goodish buildings in the urban scene here? I know of some areas in Cork city where the return walls of buildings have been hired out to advertising contractors and great, ugly advertising is permitted to be painted on them. That is something to which we should strenuously object. We seem to have checked the efflorescence of the billboards in the country areas. Where planning authorities are stringent in the urban areas there is considerable control over the kind of billboard that may be erected. We should all strive to keep that kind of thing out of sight as much as possible. After all, as far as the advertisers themselves are concerned, if nobody can use these things, nobody loses and nobody is at a disadvantage. But it would be deplorable if the roads leading from our towns and cities became as the roads leading out of some continental towns and cities. We have a duty to prevent that spoliation of our landscape.
The Minister should have a look at what happens when a man decides he is going to give his place a facelift. The present Tidy Towns movement encourages many people to do this. But they find then that the Valuation Commissioners come along and the valuation goes up. The Minister ought to have a look at this and satisfy himself that this is not a contradiction of what he is trying to do. There should be no increase in the valuation unless there is an increase in the cubic capacity of the premises. If a man tears down dilapidated old fittings and puts up a contemporary or modern shop front, he should not be penalised. It really means we are paying a premium for dilapidation. If this change could be made in the law it would be a great help towards improving the urban scene all over the country. Let us not penalise the improver, as we are doing now.
Another point I want to refer to is the changing of place names. Sometimes, in a frenzied outburst of patriotism or may be religion, we change place names in this country. It often happens that this is the result of some "eloquent Dempsey" on the local council and the rest being too shy to say they think the change should not be made. Even if the names sought to be changed represent the names of our old oppressors, at any rate they are the footprints of history and should be left there. Keep the new names for some new street or edifice. We should not be in any hurry to change things. History is being written for thousands of years. Let us leave the indications of the past there. It does not mean we are giving any approval of some of the activities of the people so commemorated, but in this way is the history of the country delineated.
We are still not planting enough trees, particularly in the urban places. Very positive encouragement should be given by way of free grants to the planting of trees in city places. As I have said previously, there is a great deal of monotony in modern housing, particularly local government housing but often private schemes as well— these ugly rows of concrete cubes one after another, without any attempt to relieve them by a green tree or an open space. Wherever there are beauty spots, particular attention should be given to trees and making sure they are not run down or ugly. May I refer in passing to the proposal made about the Grand Canal in Dublin? It would be a dreadful thing if anything happened to replace that very pleasant and charming part of Dublin by anything like a concrete car park.
There are people in local authorities who see nothing wrong in doing that kind of thing and one of the jobs of the Minister and his Department is to educate such people into a realisation that what they are doing is very wrong. Wherever there is water on the Irish landscape, it is a very important part of the scene and we should ensure that these waters are kept on the landscape so that those who visit us will see for themselves that we make the most of our natural amenities. For pity's sake, do not put concrete roadways over streams, rivers and canals. That is a frequent proposal.
The same argument applies to our beaches, to the cleaning of them and the checking of erosion. It is possible to do the latter in many ways but there is only one good way, that is, by exercising the utmost good taste in the erection of breakwaters. If we could get rid of the ugly shanties that disfigure our seaside places, it would be a great step forward. Too often outside our country towns one finds the town dump. I do not know why the dump is always just a field into which the stuff is thrown without any attempt being made either to cover it or to hide it. Trees planted and the rubbish hidden behind those trees would be an improvement on the present position.
I am sure the House will bear with me if I refer again to the work of the ESB and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in erecting great ugly poles in the middle of streets and towns and housing areas. They should be compelled to bring these heavy wires for telephones and electric power in by the backs of the houses if they cannot face the expense of putting them underground. They have disfigured many charming parts of Ireland with their activities. We should not condone that and I shall certainly keep on objecting so long as I am here. I have a good deal of sympathy with Deputy de Valera's proposal that there should be an inspection squad in the Minister's Department to keep an eye on all these activities. The inspectors could go to a district and if gentle hinting did not succeed, they could put the heat on in order to convince local authorities they are doing wrong.
The Minister's greater Dublin plan under which he proposes to make an effort to control all developments is a sensible and desirable one. I take it that within a radius of 50 or 60 miles, a proper relationship will be preserved between the rural and urban scene. I hope that in the near future we shall have the result of the application made by Cork to extend the city boundaries. That extension is a necessary development because there are a number of things that should be done but cannot be done unless the city embraces a larger area. It is possible with cities like Dublin and Cork, with large residential and large industrial areas, to have the cities both good looking and busy. The important point is that the area should be large enough to bear the burden of the kind of control and direction needed.
The local government elections will take place next year and it is desirable that the result of the application for an extension of the area—I do not know whether it will require legislation—should be known in good time because there will necessarily be a larger electoral area and arrangements will have to be made to reconstitute the kind of corporation that now administers the affairs of Cork city. We should try to ensure an end to the ridiculous system under which 70, 80 or 90 names appear on a ballot paper.
The real danger the Minister has to face, and all of us who are interested in local government, is that the everincreasing burdens placed on local government—health, housing and the growth in salaries and wages—means that the important local government work is being neglected. There is a lesson to be learned perhaps in the fact that the Custom House is now overshadowed by Liberty Hall. Salaries and wages have tended to rocket in the last three years. We should always remember that money values change and the danger is that desirable expenditure is curtailed and those who want to have things done in their areas have to fight to get them done. There are a great many Philistines around, and very often in ratepayers' organisations. They tell us we have a duty to the present but I think we have a duty to the future to make sure that the organisation of our towns, cities and rural areas is both competent and good looking. If we get impatient sometimes, then it is easy to get impatient. Deputy de Valera asked the question this morning, talking about the Dublin Corporation: "Do they know what they are at?" I think they do and I believe the local authority of which I am a member know what they are at although the red tape, the necessary controls that must be exercised, seems to make the process of doing the work of local government very slow and results are sometimes very disappointing. There is a continual battle against inertia. Results are slow but I am pretty sure that, if we all get down to the job, results will come in the end.