Vol. 444 No. 1
7 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for the Environment in regard to the recent announcement of the financial allocation of more than £106 million for county roads, the reason less than £4 million was allocated to the three Dublin County Councils, in view of the poor condition of many roads in these counties; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
State aid is provided to supplement, not to substitute, spending from local authorities' own resources on the improvement and maintenance of non-national roads. This aid is allocated by way of discretionary grants and, for the first time in 1994, under a new scheme of EU co-financed grants for specific improvement works.
In the case of Dublin, the total discretionary grant allocations to the three county councils amount to £1.073 million in 1994. In addition, under the scheme of specific improvement grants, allocations totalling £1.955 million have been notified to the three councils. The total State grant allocations to these councils for non-national roads in 1994 are, accordingly, £3.658 million, an increase of £702,000 on the grants paid in 1993.
The bulk of the State aid available in 1994 for non-national roads was allocated in the form of discretionary grants to county councils for improvement and maintenance works. The normal discretionary grants — excluding supplementary improvement grants and pilot schemes grants — were allocated pro rata, on the basis of road mileage, except in the case of County Dublin which received a supplement to take account of heavier traffic volumes. County Councils generally received approximately £1,088 per mile of non-national road, whereas the three Dublin counties were allocated a total of £1,893 per mile under the normal discretionary grant heading.
The allocation of EU co-financed grants for specific improvement projects was based on proposals submitted by individual local authorities. These projects were evaluated and given priority on a merit basis in accordance with EU criteria. Grant allocations under this heading to individual authorities will be liable to significant change from year to year, depending on the level of commitments on ongoing approved schemes and on the merits of new proposals.
In 1994, State road grants for non-national roads totalling £106.4 million were allocated to local authorities. I am satisfied that all the authorities, including the three new Dublin councils, received their proper share of these significant State funds. I might point out in this connection that total grants for the three Dublin counties have increased by nearly 24 per cent in 1994 alone, and by 90 per cent since 1989.
Is the Minister aware of the appalling state of roads in County Dublin, many of which appear to have been abandoned or broken and with potholes? Dublin Bus refuses to run services on some as their condition is so bad. Will he accept that calculating grants for such roads on a mileage basis is inappropriate given that the Dublin area has the busiest roads nationwide and that allocating money on a mileage basis bears no relationship to the amount of road tax paid by the citizens and road users of County Dublin who would like to see some of that tax ploughed back into the improvement of roads for which they paid tax in the first place?
I explained that, over the past four years, the amount of grants allocated by the State to Dublin County Council — now the three new councils — together represent an increase of between 80 per cent and 90 per cent——
Percentages do not fill potholes.
——whereas within the same period the county council increased its provision by less than one-fifth of that amount, by 17 per cent. Clearly it will be seen that the State afforded as high a priority as it could to increasing the level of grants for this purpose. I also discovered — and I think Deputy Gilmore is well aware of this — in my discussions with the former Dublin County Council that, unfortunately, in the case of certain planning decisions, involving a massively increased housing development with a consequent increase in road usage, much of the funds provided in the planning process for capital development were diverted to current expenditure, which I very much regret. In future I hope that investment by people who build houses in such places, by providing funds to local authorities for capital investment, will be designated for that purpose, thereby ensuring a better roads network. I accept that there are roads, not only in Dublin but in many other parts of the country, which have deteriorated and warrant the allocation of additional funds at local and national level. That is why I fought so hard, at European level, to gain support for county and regional roads, since County Dublin will benefit from that expenditure, like all other counties. I will continue my efforts to improve this overall area in three different ways: first, by a more effective method of undertaking the work involved; second, by ensuring that most of the repairs-improvement works are undertaken in fine weather and, third, by increasing and enhancing European, State and local resources for this primary purpose. As I said, some of these roads are as unacceptable to me as they are to Deputy Gilmore.
The Minister has once again displayed his anti-Dublin bias in his reply. As he is particularly concerned with percentages does he consider it appropriate that less than 4 per cent of the financial allocation for roads this year should go to the area which has more than 30 per cent of the population?
I regret that Deputy Gilmore gets into these semantics. The percentages to which I referred were for real but his were not. The Deputy took a particular percentage for some improvement schemes but he failed to tell the House——
The Minister is not telling us much.
——that once we start those schemes in Church Road and other places in Dublin——
They are long overdue.
——we are committed to a multi-million pound continual expenditure on these roads.
That is different.
The Minister to respond without interruption.
It is not different.
What about the Dundrum by-pass?
Looking at the 1995 programme, based on the start-ups, we are committed to multi-million pound expenditure in Dublin, not to mention the massive expenditure on the sea ring, the national primary roads around Dublin, and other investments in the DTI. Deputy Gilmore knows I am determined to give Dublin its share.
It is not getting it yet; far from it.
No amount of effort by him to tell the public that that is not the position will change the facts.
Will the Minister acknowledge that a major crisis exists in rural Ireland in regard to the condition of county roads?
We are going beyond the subject matter of this question. I want to facilitate other Deputies. We can only deal with the question before us which relates to Dublin roads.
The question relates to a financial allocation of £106 million for county roads. Will the Minister accept that this crisis will not be resolved by allocating the funds on the basis of road mileage in each county? Will he undertake a major survey of the condition of the county roads system and direct the funds to where the greatest need exists in an effort to eliminate the crisis of many potholed roads? Merely allocating funds on the basis of road mileage means that the counties which have good roads are getting better roads and the counties with bad potholed roads will never catch up.
As I said earlier discretionary grants are allocated to local authorities on the basis of a pro rata mileage assessment. Deputy Molloy will appreciate there are two further types of grants involving pilot schemes in some areas and supplementary grants in others. I accept there is a difference between counties and that we have to come to grips with that. Improvements cannot be achieved by asking the State to get involved because the difference between what local authorities invest from their resources for county road development is enormous.
Why not give the local authorities the road tax?
The Deputy should allow me to finish.
The Deputy should allow the Minister to respond.
The resources come from the Minister.
The lowest provision in one county is less than £200 per mile; the highest provision is almost £2,000 per mile. The operation of county road management and maintenance varies considerably between counties. Overall, the fight for additional resources at State and local level has to go on.
How can the Minister justify allocating on a road mileage basis?
I indicated that in relation to the 1995 allocation we are carrying out an audit. We have sought from local authorities — and received from many of them — the type of information which will help us make better judgments on this matter for the future.
We need an independent survey.
I want to see a three-pronged attack——
Bring back An Foras Forbartha.
——by local authorities putting in the maximum resources, the State increasing its investment and the efficiency of the work taken into account.
The Minister is ignoring the problem. He is up in the clouds.
I suggest the Minister work more closely with his colleague, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Cowen, on alleviating the stress level on the roads by investing more realistically in public transport. In his own bailiwick I suggest he would save himself a considerable amount of heartache in this matter if he got to the bottom of the peculiar planning decisions that have resulted in an enormous strain on some rural roads and allowed large housing developments in places where the road network was never intended to cater for the traffic generated by such developments. If he follows through on that he would avoid some of the flak he has to take owing to bad county roads brought about by a failure to control the bad planning process that has, unfortunately, developed in County Dublin.
Deputy Sargent knows I am at one with him on that matter. One of the reasons I fought such a battle last year was to see whether we could corral some of the planning decisions——
The Minister fought no battle; he ran with Councillor Coffey.
I would ask the Deputy to control himself.
The Minister was shafted.
We want to ensure we do not repeat some of the mistakes of the past. In the course of that work, as I outlined, I discovered notwithstanding the merit or otherwise of the planning decisions, that the funds provided to local authorities for planning charges, which are a direct investment by the house-owner for the improvement of the water, sewerage and road facilities, were diverted into the current account. That is why in some cases many of these roads could and should have been improved before now. We have to ensure that that capital investment by the public and the houseowner is put into infrastructural development and roads. My colleague the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Cowen, is able to deal with the transport elements which lie within his remit. We have this week received the full report from the DTI which, as Deputy Sargent is aware, involves substantial——
Cutbacks.
——investment in public transport, light rail, bus corridors, traffic management and other matters that come within my remit. Over the period of this plan there will be a substantial investment in the public transport sector. This is a very important element in overall traffic management and will reduce the workload on our roads because there is not scope in the inner city for major road improvements. We want to complete the sea ring and some of the other elements of the national primary road which will assist port access and so on.
Iam calling Deputy Barrett. I will then call Deputy Gilmore who tabled this question for a final question. We have spent a very long time on this question.
Will the Minister agree that £1.3 billion is taken from Irish motorists in all forms of taxation and that less than 6 per cent is given to local authorities towards road maintenance? Will the Minister request each local authority to produce a five year plan to update, repair and restore the basic foundation for county and minor roads both in Dublin and throughout the country? What does he mean when he says that local authorities should allocate more of their resources? Is the Minister not aware that the only source of income local authorities have, outside of commercial rates, comes directly from his Department? Will he agree that the problem with local authorities using moneys collected for other reasons on current spending is due to his failure to provide sufficient funds to them to provide basic services? Will the Minister please stop misleading the public by suggesting that there is money available in local authorities to carry out essential repairs to roads which are disintegrating, particularly in the Dublin area?
Once again I have to correct the Deputy, who is assuming there are no funds available to the local authorities from their own resources. The total amount available this year is in excess of £400 million. If Fine Gael has reached the stage where it can disregard such amounts raised at local level I will not. The question is not whether they have sufficient funding from their own resources. It is obvious they do not and that is the reason I am supplementing their resources through discretionary grants and other sources. The point I was trying to make was that some councils spend as little as £200 per mile on county roads while others spend as much as £1,800 to £2,000 per mile. If a local authority decides to attach priority to a county road and spends £2,000 per mile from own resources while another spends as little as £200 per mile, I am entitled to question its priorities.
On the question of funding raised by the State from the car owner, the Commission on Taxation and every reputable economic commentary on taxation during the past 25 years has ruled out the prospect of the Government designating funds raised from a particular group. If Fine Gael is going to go down that road——
The Minister should forget about us. He has been in Government for seven years and he should get on with the task of improving the roads.
I am entitled to answer.
A sum of £1.3 billion is collected from the public in taxation.
I am asking the Deputy—
We ask the questions; this is Question Time.
The road system is collapsing.
If one designates funds for that purpose, how does one support education, social welfare and health services which are not in a position to raise funds in that way?
The Minister should repair the roads.
I have tried to bring a number of elements together.
The Minister is trying to cod the public.
Despite criticism from Fine Gael, I have been able at European level to obtain support for the first time for regional and county roads. I need to continue that programme and I will.
This is the most pathetic sight we have seen in a long time — the Minister washing his hands of any responsibility for the appalling state of county roads. Since he has raised the question of the diversion of money, will he divert to local authorities at least some of the money motorists and other road users have paid to the State in road tax so that the local authorities which, despite what the Minister has said, do not have the requisite resources, can maintain the roads? Does he realise that anger and frustration is building up among motorists and other road users who are rattled to death every time they travel the roads and that the foundations of houses are being damaged because the roads are in an appalling state? Is he going to wait until the State is paying out more in compensation to people injured on our roads than on improving the roads?
The Minister should forget about the percentages and give us the facts. It is his job to get the work done.
The Deputy has all the facts. I have already said that the condition of many roads throughout the country is unacceptable.
The Minister does not travel the roads in Dublin very often.
I have done more to obtain funds from the State. The provision this year for this purpose in European and State funding is without parallel. The provision has been increased by over £30 million this year. This shows our commitment to deal with the problem. I have never said that it is sufficient. A number of local authorities do not have the problem to which the Deputy referred either because of their efficiency or the dedication of resources for this purpose.
Or because they had a Minister for the Environment.
I want to get to the bottom of this problem without involving the taxpayer unless it is absolutely essential. We will commit State resources up to the limit and will try to distribute them as fairly as possible. The Deputy should not try to blame me for the sins of the past. I will not take it from him.
The Minister is responsible.
He has been in Government for seven years.
The system is collapsing.
