Senator McGuire and other Senators as well as Dáil Deputies have suggestions that there was another way by which this road problem could be tackled, and suggested the introduction of more modern methods of approach to the reconditioning, making and repair of roads. They suggested, too, that the amount of money at present going into the Road Fund from motor taxation, if used intelligently, could in that way achieve the same results as might be achieved by increased taxation using the present antiquated organisation. Now, it is grand, of course, to have these suggestions coming from Senator McGuire, but I know that there are Senators in this House who understand all the implications of these suggestions.
I have not taken the line in my discussions in the Dáil, nor will I take it here, that there is no room for a modern approach in the making of our roads, but members of the county councils are aware, surely, that there is a human problem behind this that has to be remembered always, not only by the county councils but by county engineers and their assistants. How often have we heard and read discussions at county council meetings protesting against the establishment of central quarries, the critics of such action giving as their reason the withdrawal of work from all over the administrative area and placing it in one central spot. I have explained that the engineering advisers to county councils and my Department are fully alert and very anxious to develop along these lines as best they can, but they have to have regard to these difficulties that Senator McGuire would brush aside.
If you approach it with what he would like to have, the businessman's approach, that may be all right, but if some of the businessmen had experience of county council membership they would realise that it is not so easy to make that clear-cut departure from one system which may appear now to be antiquated and much more expensive than the new system. There is, on the part of county councils, county managers and county engineers, a progressive movement in that direction, having regard to the difficulties of the situation, and there is evidence everywhere that they are trying to get along and trying to surmount the difficulties for which people with real experience of local administration can vouch.
Other Senators asked me to comment on proposals made from time to time as to a new method of motor taxation. Senator Summerfield and the members of his organisation met me on a few occasions. Both the committees to which I have referred, the committee set up by my predecessor and the committee set up by me, examined this proposition made by the Motor Traders' Association and my feeling about the suggestion made by the association—I think I was entitled to look upon their approach in this way— was that in making the suggestion they made to me and in recommending a new system of motor taxation, they were more anxious to secure a relief in taxation for the motorist and the motor trade than to achieve the purposes which I, as Minister for Local Government, was bound to try to achieve.
The Senators have undoubtedly given a very good political display. As a matter of fact, when coming here, with the limited experience I have of the Seanad, I was wondering if they could generate the atmosphere around these proposals that I had experience of in the Dáil, and I must say that they made a reasonably good effort to do so. Are the Senators who generated that atmosphere around these proposals really serious in suggesting to this House or to the country that a code of motor taxation, which was designed in 1926, having regard to the costs of road making, wages and the overall costs of making and maintaining our roads, is an equitable system now? Do these Senators who suggest that those of us who have to take responsibility for these proposals here have not got our ear to the ground and do not know what the public mind is in regard to them?
I think I meet as many people in the outside world as most Senators and it is true to say that from the day on which the White Paper indicating the extent to which motor taxation was to be increased was published, in not a single instance did a lorry owner approach me and make a protest. I suppose it is natural to expect that an effort would be made to surround these proposals with this political smoke-screen, but any businessman down the country with a two-ton, a three-ton or a four-ton lorry knows very well what it is costing him to place two men on that lorry and what it must be costing to make and keep our roads. He knows that far better than we do, and, being a reasonable man, he knows that the making, the maintenance and the keeping of our roads in good condition is far more important to him than the difference it will mean to him—an increase on a two-ton lorry of £16 per year. A businessman using a two-ton lorry will pay £16 per year more and that is £16 of an increase in a rate of duty determined away back in 1926, when roads could be made for exactly one-third of what they cost to make to-day.
It is not my intention, nor is it my desire, to minimise the effect of increased taxation, whether the amount be small or large. Senator O'Higgins's approach was that whatever the amount of the increase is, it is an important matter. I am prepared to concede that taxation, however small, must have a bearing on the situation and that those who are responsible for imposing it should have regard to all the facts and circumstances, to the need and the justification for it. I concede that, but is it seriously contended, even if 2/4 per week may mean a packet of cigarettes to a hackneyman, that that increase in his costs is going to put him out of business? Is it seriously contended that the businessman who has enjoyed a rate of tax on his lorry which was fixed in 1926, when costs were as I have described, is going to be crucified because he has now to pay an additional £16?
Is it suggested by Senator O'Higgins and those who would have us believe that they speak for rural Ireland that a code of motor taxation, which provided only for the taxation of a six-ton lorry and that all vehicles in excess of six tons would pay no tax at all and could roam our roads— vehicles which are the property of Comhlucht Súicre Éireann, of Roadstone, Limited, and of the gypsum industry—battering them down and smashing our bridges, while paying no tax whatever in respect of that destruction, should be allowed to remain in operation? Is it suggested that in these cases, where, in County Tipperary, the county manager has had to resort to the powers provided for local authorities by law to prevent such vehicles from travelling on certain roads in order to protect roads which were never designed to carry such weights or to enable such vehicles with their loads to pass over them, it is an indefensible thing to come in here—as I would say, belatedly—to introduce proposals of this nature and to stand before this House and to defend them?
Some Senator was anxious to build up around me and the Government of which I am a member all the unpopularity naturally attaching to a proposal to increase taxation, and then said that this was all being done in order to give the Minister the pleasure and the popularity which is associated with the distribution of the moneys which will come into the pool by being able to say to the local bodies: "Am I not a great fellow to be able to provide for you in this way?"
Well, I do not mind saying that I will take special pleasure in seeing this Road Fund increased to the extent of between £800,000 and £1,000,000 and I will be very glad indeed to see that fund grow as a result of these efforts. You can take it from me that when these disbursements from the Road Fund come to be made, there will not be any question arising at any county council as to whether the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Local Government was responsible for them because it will then be a case of "a rose by any other name will smell as sweet."
Some reference has been made here to the extent to which the Road Fund has been raided by successive Governments in the past. I have some figures here dealing with that matter and they are not very important. The raids were not very extensive, but I want to be put on record here as saying that I cannot give the Seanad or anybody else an assurance that at some future time the Road Fund will not again be raided by some future Minister for Finance. If I am here to take charge and responsibility for these proposals I am glad in a sense that the Government have chosen me to take responsibility for the matter and in that way have definitely associated the Minister for Local Government, whoever he may be, in a very definite form with the Road Fund. I have, since I became Minister, endeavoured to prevent any interference with the Road Fund. I have succeeded in stringent times in inducing the Minister for Finance this year to release his grip on the Road Fund to the extent of £600,000. If I am associated with these proposals, while I cannot give an assurance that the fund will not again be raided, I am taking it that my association with these proposals will convey to those people responsible in the future that the Road Fund should be used for the roads.
There is evidence everywhere in every county—and Senators who have been critical of these proposals have to admit it—that we have to tackle this problem of roads. I have had suggestions from the county councils to the effect that the grants that are being made from the fund for the making of roads should be used by them to pay the interest and sinking fund on larger loans which they may borrow because of the road situation and the problem facing them. They say that, even when the increased amounts are given, it will not be sufficient to keep up with the problem with which the local bodies are contending, and they suggest that I should give them permission to use a proportion of the grants which they get to pay the interest and sinking fund on much larger sums which they would borrow for the purpose of roads.
Agriculture, I was pleased to discover, has a tremendous number of friends in all parts of the House and in all organisations and societies. Almost everybody who spoke here, critical or otherwise, came down in full sympathy with the agriculturists and the burdens and hardships, trials and privations which would result from the implementation of these proposals. Of the total of £830,000 which it was estimated would result from the proposals in this Bill, agriculture will pay only £31,000. The tractors that are used for agricultural purposes and the tractors that are used for general haulage purposes will pay a total of £31,000 out of that £830,000.
It was not correct to say that prior to the introduction of these proposals the farmer with a £6 tax on his tractor could use it for general haulage purposes. That was not the position anywhere, with the exception of a couple of districts in which district justices found in their interpretation of the law that they might do so and those who were brought before them escaped. What I am providing for in these proposals as far as the farmers are concerned is that the man who uses the tractor on his land will pay the 5/- licence duty that he has always paid, while a man using a tractor for haulage on the road will pay an £8 licence duty, and for that duty he can haul his own produce or his neighbour's produce, turf, cattle or other goods in any way he likes; he can cooperate with another farmer as he has done heretofore. If, however, he goes into commercial haulage he will then have to pay a duty of £31 10s. It is all very well for Senators to say that this is a point on which some concession should be granted. This matter was also examined by the committee, and they considered the suggestion which has been made here by Senator Johnston. The committee, in the course of its deliberation, having examined this point, recommended against it and I agree with that recommendation.