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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 31 Oct 1979

Vol. 93 No. 1

Na Rialacháin um Thoghcháin Údarás na Gaeltachta, 1979, ina nDréacht: Tairiscint. - Local Government (Toll Roads) Bill, 1978: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill is an enabling measure. The purpose of the Bill, in simple terms, is to empower the statutory road authorities to make schemes for the application of tolls to appropriate road facilities and to enter into arrangements with private entrepreneurs for the provision, financing, maintenance and management of such toll facilities.

The concept of financing certain types of road facilities by a toll charge on the users is widely understood and is applied in countries with such diverse wealth, resources and levels of development as the United States of America, France, Italy, Brazil and the Philippines, as well as our nearest neighbours, the United Kingdom.

It is public knowledge that interest has been expressed by the private sector in the provision of new road and bridge projects on a toll basis in this country. The Government have indicated that they are open to the idea that, under the aegis of the road authorities, suitable projects might be provided on a toll basis in which private enterprise may participate. At present there is no statutory power whereby the provision or the use of a public road or bridge could be subject to tolls. This Bill is intended to provide the statutory framework within which such developments could take place. It does this by supplementing the power and functions which the road authorities have under existing legislation.

The underlying principle of the Bill is that the existing statutory road authorities will continue to be responsible for the provision and maintenance of the public road network, including bridges. There is no question of bodies setting themselves up to provide and operate toll facilities independently of the road authorities. But, as already stated, local authorities will be able to enter into agreements with private entrepreneurs, where they consider it appropriate to do so, in the development of suitable projects.

I would emphasise that it will be the statutory road authorities—and they alone—who will decide whether any toll projects might be undertaken under the terms of the Bill. The Bill provides that the making of schemes for the institution of tolls and of by-laws for the operation of toll projects, and decisions to enter into agreements with private interests and the making of agency arrangements with other road authorities, will be reserved to the elected members of the local authorities concerned.

There are specific provisions in the Bill to protect the rights and interests of individuals. Notice of the making of a toll scheme, together with an explanatory statement, must be published in the press; the public will have at least one month to consider the scheme, the explanatory statement and the relevant maps. A further period of at least two months will be available in which persons may lodge objections. In the event of objections being lodged, a local inquiry must be held before a decision is taken to proceed with a scheme. In addition, a new subsection was inserted on Report Stage in the Dáil under which road authorities drawing up toll schemes will be required to give special consideration to the question of granting exemptions from tolls to pedestrians, pedal cyclists, invalid carriages and vehicles specially adapted for use by physically handicapped persons.

Publication last May of the Road Development Plan for the eighties has shown clearly that the Bill does not herald an era of widespread toll charges on our public road network. The Government have already demonstrated their intention to provide for an increasing level of investment of public funds in the country's road infrastructure over the coming decade, and the plan puts the concept of tolls into perspective. I quote paragraph 8.7 of the text which reads as follows:

The Government hope that the private sector will respond to this opportunity to participate in the development of the country's road system. The availability of private finance for road projects and/or the institution of tolls will not alter the general plan to any significant extent. The schedules of major projects to be undertaken will remain the same, but the timing of some of them might be advanced.

I do not think it necessary, at this stage, to detail each section of the Bill. However, I would stress, again, that it is an enabling measure and one which will provide an additional option to road authorities for the financing of particular road facilities, such as river crossings, which are necessary in the general traffic and transportation interest. It will do this by:

(a) enabling tolls to be charged: section 2 provides the general power to levy tolls; section 3 stipulates the conditions which must be fulfilled before a toll can be instituted, and is intended primarily for the protection of the public from any proliferation of tolls; section 5 provides for the making of by-laws relating to day-to-day operation, or management, of a toll facility, and,

(b) enabling road authorities to enter into agreements with private persons or companies in relation to the financing, construction, maintenance and operation of toll facilities.

All the major decisions, schemes, by-laws and agreements will accordingly be made by the elected members of the statutory road authorities and, as an additional safeguard of the public interest, the approval of the Minister will also be necessary.

I commend the Bill to the House.

This is a very unhappy Bill. It is insufficiently justified either by the language of its sections or the contribution of the responsible Minister in the other House, or the Minister here present. We have a very serious problem of traffic congestion. Everyone knows that. I should have thought the Minister would have felt it desirable to inform the Oireachtas of the dimensions of the problem. It may be that the reason why he has abstained from doing this is that, although this Bill is described as the Local Government (Toll Roads) Bill, 1978, it "ain't" any such thing. It is a Bill to enable a particular thing to be done, a particular entrepeneurial proposal to be proceeded with.

We all know—anyone who has suffered the discipline of the law or a belt of it knows—that local authorities cannot enter into contracts beyond their powers. None of us wants to prevent a worthwhile scheme going through, through some absence of legal power on the part of the local authority to make the appropriate contract for that scheme. That may be the reason for the absence of an outline of the nature of the problem from the responsible Minister or the Minister of State. I see no reason why specific authority for specific operations should not be sought from the Houses of the Oireachtas and given.

I have no objection to the utilisation of private enterprise, if you like. In fact, I have a great belief—not in private enterprise, because that is not the term—in the desirability of free enterprise, the term which alone, I think, properly justified it. Certainly on no ideological principle would I object to authority being given to enable what is understood to be a particular project to go ahead. Then we could look at it and if a particular bridge is to be built, we could ask ourselves questions about the effect on the overall flow of traffic towards the bridge. It obviously would have an effect on the flow of traffic both to and fro, with some social consequences, some economic consequences. All this could be discussed, and the Houses of the Oireachtas would be the appropriate place to do so. Maybe this is why we have not had what we should have in a Bill which is supposed to be generally applicable to all local authorities, that is, a description of the nature of our problems.

If I understand it correctly, a higher percentage of passengers and freight go by road in this country than in any other country in Europe, and this has been increasing overall at the rate of six per cent per annum. Passenger and freight traffic has, therefore, doubled in 12 years. The main source of that increase is private traffic, but, from 1970 to this year, there has been an increase of 55 per cent in the capacity of heavy commercial vehicles using our roads. While there has been a rate of increase of six per cent in the period given in the overall use of roads, there has been an increase of only 1.5 per cent in real terms in expenditure on these roads. We have reached the stage where the cost of road construction is not less than—and on the most up-to-date calculation it may be much greater than—£1 million per mile. The nature of the problem then is high congestion caused by increased urbanisation, caused by and now impeding economic development with a low level of financial provision.

What are we doing about this? Certainly we are not doing anything about it in this Bill that would make sense to me, but maybe I am wrong. It is reasonably clear to me that there is no way in principle in which tolls should be excluded. In fact tolls have at least the advantage attached to the rate demand note, that the taxpayer, the user of the road, could relate his payment to the service he was getting. However unjustified the structure of rates may have been, there was that merit in the notional Road Fund which is now among the unlamented dead. Therefore road tolls may be a method. There are arguments for and against them. Which roads? Presumably the major primary roads, by-pass roads, perhaps roads to tourist areas or something of that kind. This is a matter for very deep debate and consideration, and if the figures I have been giving are correct this debate should have been taking place years ago, or at any rate much earlier. There are disadvantages to tolls, for instance, on the one hand if the effect of the proper road system from an industrial point of view is that the producer or the exporter has no choice but to choke up the city with more traffic and would be glad to pay the price of avoiding that by getting on to a by-pass road.

Obviously the rate of the tolls has to be considered on a national level. It is not that there is going to be one price in one local area and another price in another. It is not true that toll roads do not always pay for themselves. I am informed, I hope correctly, that the State of Connecticut, before the Federal Government in America went into the business of providing money for national road financing, issued bonds in connection with the financing in an appropriately sized area—not a county here or there or a bit of a local authority with its lap before or behind it, but with a size justifying the operation—and giving the choice to the people in particular areas of the state paying tolls to get more quickly to some place or of people getting off the toll road and paying the cost of using roads that perhaps are not as good and on which they certainly would be slower. That enterprise was so successful that the State of Connecticut is now seeking to repay the bonds and the bond-holders are not wanting their money back because they have a continuing interest under the terms of issue in the profits of that enterprise.

The state of central finances of this country are such that nobody with any sense of responsibility is going to go roaring for more expenditure on anything but the most acutely urgent type of priority, but how do we justify this? In this Bill I do not find any provision giving power to the local authority to borrow for this purpose. I hope the Minister of State will be able to tell the House tonight that the road authority—to use that expression rather than local government, words which were used in the Bill—have express power to borrow. I have in front of me a photostat of a page, and the person who sent it to me is known to be entirely reputable, but unfortunately I am not able to assure the House that the writer is, as I believe he is, Street, but I hope he is. The words that I will have to quote from this writer are to be found on page 101. The page is entitled Application of Enactments Order, 1898. It may be a modern edition:

It has been submitted elsewhere by the author——

Indeed it must be a modern edition because of the next reference where he quotes himself on the subject of ultra vires in 1930, which obviously he was not doing in 1898, page 162 citing authorities——

that a corporation may borrow only under express power, that the business of a public corporation is never such as to warrant borrowing as a usual proceeding, that where express power is given no further power can be implied and that to contract any borrowing in excess of power is void and curable only by statute.

Notwithstanding the UK market prejudice against local issues, a prejudice which infects the Dublin market or has been infected perhaps by the Dublin market, a suitably framed modern type of issue in relation to a national project might get just the kind of money we want from the private sector. If this be so, this is an opportunity, if anything is missing in existing legislation, to give the necessary express power. If the Minister is going to inform me, in reply to this debate, that there is express power I would be grateful if he would give the House the explicit reference to it. The Minister's answer may be, "Well, we can always come again. There is no borrowing proposed in what we are now going to do." It may be, "I am not going to say it but you are right; this Bill is not really what it pretends to be. This is to get Dublin Corporation or whichever authority are involved through a project while we are thinking deeply about the whole horrible problem, and in due course, having lived with it, we are prayerfully going to be speeded into quick action." It is going to be very relevant that authority be given in modern terms relative to the modern financial market taking all the advantages that are there in terms of merchant bank and so forth advice so that the public sector, whether it be central government, local authority, regional authority and so on, has all the ability to get money that otherwise has in some way to be collected out of and added to the public deficit.

There is another point relevant to what I have just said. If any succeeding sentence of mine happens to be relevant to the one that preceded it, it is a happy accident for which I am always grateful. We ought not to become too obsessed with the size of the regional fund, believing that they have only a miserable amount there and we are going to get only so much out of it anyhow and why should we be bothered?

On this question of the physical infrastructure, if we are sold on continued high rate of industrial and economic development, let us know that the physical infrastructure of which roads are an enormously important element, carry the cheapest and most economic type of transport necessary to make our production internationally competitive. A very good case could be made for assuming that on the Continent of Europe are people who are not total fools, that there are some people who take an overall view of this European situation and who, looking at the European situation, would say to themselves: "Would that not be a worthwhile project?" Would it not return not merely to the people who are being put off their normal means of transport to their bathing boxes, not merely to the residents of that country? It may be good for us, thinking of the I-you business and us, to allow for them to be as bad as ourselves with open ideas and to see that whatever is good in the overall European idea would be served by projecting money in here. We may be failing to go really rapidly and efficiently ahead with cohering our thoughts about improving our transport and cheapening the cost of delivering the goods which we have to produce at a particular cost anyhow. The cost of the goods is what it costs the consumer to get them. It is no good having them cheap a hundred miles from him. They must be cheap at his door and getting them there is the vital thing. This is the critical path which we have to take in making up transport terms in terms of our development. We should move away from the reserved functions of local authorities type of concept. Policy is required. A proper approach to this could assist even the procurement of long-term capital which will be needed for a type of high-cost priority and which would be justified on that high-cost priority basis. All this really permits piecemeal, construction-delayed type of activity.

My objection to the Bill is much more simple and fundamental than Senator FitzGerald's. He said that he had no objection in principle to the intrusion of what is euphemistically called free enterprise in this area. I have every objection to the intrusion of private enterprise in this area. Why should entrepreneurs make profit out of such a basic feature of human life as movement and transportation? Why do the local authorities themselves not do so if there is a need for a toll system? Why can the public authorities, either at national or local level, not administer this system? Given the road development plan of the 1980s which is referred to in the Minister's opening statement and which puts the stress on public development, why is it necessary to introduce an element of private enterprise at all? The Minister, quoting the road development plan, said:

The availability of private finance for road projects and/or the institution of tolls will not alter the general plan to any significant extent.

Why then is it necessary to introduce into this area of a public service the seamy element of private enterprise which is concerned only with profits? The same private enterprise is to a large extent responsible for much of the evils in our road system at the moment. It is the greed of the entrepreneurs who want to make the maximum profit which accounts for the existence of the monster articulated trucks which both are dangerous and abuse our road resources without any regard for the public good.

I have my doubts also about a situation where, as I understand the Bill, a local authority are in the business of granting to or withholding a licence from private enterprise. That would seem to set the scene for all kinds of lobbying and intrigue in the best Irish political style.

My simple objection to the Bill is a central one. The notion of introducing private enterprise into a road system is regressive and, indeed, is a measure of how far the party from which this Government were chosen have departed from their populist origins.

I understand that it has been agreed by the Whips that debate on Second Stage of this Bill should be adjourned until the next sitting day.

Debate adjourned.
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