Vol. 438 No. 5
24 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment the amount of assistance to be allocated to Meath County Council for improvements to non-national roads in 1994; and the amount allocated in each of the years from 1991 to 1993.
The discretionary grants to be allocated to local authorities, including Meath County Council, for improvement works on non-national roads in 1994 will be determined and notified to local authorities shortly. I intend also to allocate specific grants for substantial improvement works on non-national roads following examination of proposals put forward by local authorities on the basis of their importance to the generation of economic activity and employment in industry, tourism, fisheries and forestry, on their contribution to rural development, including agriculture. Expenditure on such projects is expected to qualify for assistance from the European Regional Development Fund. My Department recently invited local authorities to submit applications for these grants.
Grants paid to Meath County Council for improvement works on non-national roads in 1991, 1992 and 1993 were £2.050 million, £2.259 million and £2.003 million respectively.
I wish to ask the Minister for potholes what criteria will be used for dividing the £28 million maintenance money between each local authority this year?
I would remind the Deputy that the Minister ought to be addressed properly.
It was very appropriate.
The fact is that——
He is not the first Minister to get that title.
—— Deputy Doyle knows that Fine Gael provided no maintenance funds——
Hear, hear.
——in their last period in power. It must be quite embarrassing for her to realise that as she seeks more funds from me there is nothing on record to show that Fine Gael had any interest.
That is incorrect and it is disingenuous. The Minister is misleading the House.
Order, please.
The Minister is deliberately misleading the House to cover up his own inadequacy.
What about the potholes throughout the island; on our county roads. There are potholes everywhere.
The Deputy should keep his hair on.
Excuse me, Minister. Deputy Doyle, my patience was totally exhausted with you 24 hours ago. It would greatly distress me to have to ask a question of you, but if I have to, be assured that I will. I ask you to desist.
A question about what?
I will ask a certain question of you if you do not behave and conform to the procedure of this House.
The fuse is short today.
I exhausted my patience with you last night.
In reply to the question by Deputy Doyle, the criterion will be that in order to qualify for EU assistance such schemes, have to be "new build".
I know.
It has to be from the foundation up; it cannot be maintenance. Each local authority will be asked to submit a proposal on the basis of its priority, and I will then make the best judgement I can on those for submission to the European Union. That has to be kept within the overall limits.
My question is about maintenance, the £28 million.
I hope local authorities will make the best judgment in this matter so that I can agree with most of their proposals.
Would the Minister agree that county roads in County Meath, and in every other county, have never been worse in living memory than they are and that he as Minister has ultimate responsibility, not in the sense that he created the potholes, to do something about them?
The Minister for potholes.
Deputy Bruton has made an elementary error. He knows that the primary legal responsibility for the county road network rests with the local authorities.
Blame the local authorities.
Please listen. I am very glad that a number of local authorities have in the past number of years carried out very good work on county roads. I also regret that a number have reduced from their own resources their contribution to county roadworks and the difference between the best and the worst is eight times. That is unacceptable. Of course there is the overall question of how much the Government can afford to provide for county roads. I am glad I was able to make a 36 per cent increase over the 1993 figure for this purpose and I will continue, in the context of the national development plan, to provide record funding for this very essential area which I accept is below par.
Would the Minister agree that the local authorities have very little fund raising capacity, that their tax base is extremely narrow and that that is a Dáil decision? Will he agree, therefore, that it is a legal fiction for him to suggest that they are responsible for this and that he is playing with words and not doing a great service to his own intelligence by putting up that argument? Would he further agree with my original proposition that the county road network, due to historical and weather conditions, among other things is now worse than it ever was in living memory? Will the Minister at least admit to that in the House?
The fact that we are providing £101.9 million, which is 35 per cent up on last year, for the county roads is the clearest indication that the Deputy could have of the seriousness with which this matter is being treated by the Government. Deputy Bruton made a fundamental error in believing that local authorities have no capacity to raise funds. For the Deputy's information in 1994 the Estimate is £405 million.
The genesis of the present problem of the county roads goes back to the madness of 1977. The programme for restrengthening and resurfacing which is operated now by local authorities was introduced in this House by Deputy John Boland as Minister for the Environment in 1986. Much as the Minister might like to, he cannot deny that. In the allocation of the funds to which the Minister is adding the £15 million from the tax amnesty, will he direct the funds towards counties like mine with more than 3,000 kilometres of county roads, 60 per cent of which are deficient and dangerous?
I would remind the Deputy that this question relates specifically to County Meath.
The question is general. There are problems like those in Roscommon throughout the country but not as acute.
It is anything but general.
I am glad that Deputy Connor referred to the 1977 manifesto——
Madness.
——because that means that he wants to see rates reintroduced. If the Deputy disagrees with that he should say what his policy is.
The Minister is good at twisting things but I did not know he was that bad.
I am calling Deputy Molloy.
I asked the Minister a question. The Chair might request the Minister to answer the question in relation to the funding. That was the important part of my question and the Minister should answer it.
I will answer the question if Deputy Connor gets the agreement of his parliamentary party to put forward the motion I suggested. I will be prepared to accept it.
Are you or are you not the Minister for the Environment?
Deputy Molloy——
The debate should get agreement.
Before I ask my question, may I set the record straight for Deputy Connor? The ruination of local government through starving it of funds was caused by his party and Labour in government——
That is not true and the Deputy knows it.
——when they abolished the statutory obligation on the Exchequer to fund local authorities in lieu of the loss of rates. It was the then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Spring, who removed that obligation and it is since that date that we have had the problem, not since 1977.
It was on the abolition of the Local Government Act, 1977 which Deputy Molloy voted for as a Fianna Fáil Minister.
The Deputy ought to get his facts right.
The Minister for potholes wants to leave.
Does the Minister believe in the principle of subsidiarity? He does not seem to because he has suggested to the House that local authorities, in order to get grants for the repair of country roads, will have to submit individual applications for each stretch of county road to the Department so that either he or some official of this Department will determine which part of the road in each county will be repaired? Surely, if the Minister subscribed to the principle of subsidiarity and the need to develop local government he would leave it to the discretion of the local authorities?
I could not agree more with Deputy Molloy, but it is not possible. Let me give the example close to home of Mutton Island. An Irish citizen, or any resident in Europe may contact the European Commission about any scheme in Europe and I can do nothing to stop that happening. I disagree fundamentally with some of the requirements of the European Union in relation to this and I have raised this at Council meetings but as funding is being provided for the first time for county road schemes, it has to go through the process of negotiation in Europe for agreement for the money to be provided for that purpose. As Members may know this was not done up to now and it is being done on a project basis. The project has to stand up to economic analysis under stiff criteria. It would make my job much easier if these decisions were taken at local level where I could provide an aggregate grant.
And the Minister could fill potholes with it?
I hope some day to be able to achieve that but it is not possible as I am confined to meeting criteria to get the money.
It is farcical that Brussels now decides which pothole will be filled.
A number of people here have appealed to the European Commission over my head.
Not about potholes but, perhaps, about a major sewerage scheme.
Does the Minister remember a woman who appeared on our television screens during the last local elections saying there is more tar in a cigarette than in all the roads of Cavan? As a result of travelling on some of those roads last weekend I can say she was not exaggerating and now it seems to apply to all the roads in the country.
The Deputy is going beyond the scope of the question.
I am addressing it directly to the Minister for potholes.
As Deputy Currie mentioned Cavan, let me say that for the past two years Cavan has received the highest grant as against all other counties. I congratulate the Cavan county engineer on the innovative schemes he has introduced. In the coming years we will deal with the problems of County Cavan. In that county they are making a genuine effort and the Deputy should be supporting them.
The potholes are there.
We will open some roads there also.
