Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I join with Deputy Allen in stating that the Labour Party is also opposed to this Bill on a number of grounds. As Deputy Allen has pointed out, this Bill is one of a sequence of taxes on everyday activities which the Government has introduced by the backdoor. This is a Government that proclaims it is a low taxation one. It frequently draws attention to how it has reduced taxes on income and that there are no taxes on wealth, property or stallions. However, they are being replaced with taxes on citizen's everyday activities.

A family that sends a child to college will pay, in effect, a tax through increased registration fees. A person visiting a hospital will pay a tax through admission charges. Every morning when a refuse bin is put out, a tax is paid on it. Every time that one goes to a shop, additional taxes imposed by the Government are paid.

The motorist is hit no fewer than four different times by Government taxation. When one buys a vehicle, one pays VAT, VRT charges and motor tax on it. When one buys fuel for it, tax is also paid. In normal circumstances, a 5% increase in motor taxation would not cause great excitement. However, when it is taken in the context of the series of additional stealth taxes that the Government has introduced, then it must be opposed.

It must also be opposed because of the way that it is used. Motor taxation is intended to be the instrument through which funds are provided for the local government fund and non-national roads. I must again express my disappointment at the biased and unfair way in which those moneys are distributed. The Minister of State, in his speech, drew attention to the Government's largesse in recent years to the local government fund and non-national roads. What he did not take into account, were the increased roles and responsibilities that local authorities now have. Through Government decisions rather than their own, their costs have increased and they must find resources to meet those costs.

This is an exceptional year, however, in that regard. With local elections coming up, the Government managed to find some additional moneys for the local government fund. It remains to be seen, however, if those moneys, intended to take the sting out local authority decisions for the 2004 Estimates, will remain for 2005 and remaining years. I have my doubts.

The local government fund is itself unevenly distributed. There has never been proper accountability of the fund to this House. Last year, when we debated the 2003 version of this Bill, I proposed on Committee Stage that an annual report be made on the fund and that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government be required to report to this House as to what goes into and out of the local government fund, how it is distributed and what criteria are used for its distribution. The basis on which the fund is distributed between local authorities needs to be debated in this House and the Minister made publicly accountable for it.

The Minister of State drew attention to the allocation this year of €447 million to the fund for non-national roads. He did not tell us, however, how that money was allocated to local authorities or how badly urban authorities in particular fare in the distribution of that money. Only 12% of the €447 million for 2004 was allocated to all the urban authorities put together. I do not wish to make invidious comparisons but it is difficult to escape the fact that the Minister's constituency, Waterford city and county, received almost €21 million, almost twice the €11 million allocated to Dublin city. The total allocated to the urban authorities was €36 million for the city authorities, €10.6 million of which was for Waterford city; €3.5 million to the urban borough councils; and €14.5 million to all the town councils together.

I spoke before about the serious neglect of urban roads, particularly tertiary roads, those in housing estates on which most of the payers of this tax travel every morning to work. They are in a state of disrepair and no money is being spent on them. It is interesting to hear the Minister say that he will require local authorities to put their own resources into the roads programme and reward those which increase their resource expenditure if he is not accountable for the way in which the local government fund is allocated, and little or no account is taken of the relative ability of local authorities to raise money from commercial authorities. The circumstances of local authorities vary — some have a large rate base, others have not. If no account is taken of that and if there is a disproportionate allocation of the non-national roads fund between different authorities and the Minister offers to reward authorities if they raise additional charges, levies or commercial rates to upgrade the roads locally, motorists in those areas will ask where their motor tax is going.

I do not know what proportion of motor taxation is raised in urban areas but the figure for all the cities and towns together is closer to 60% than 12% of the total amount of motor tax raised. It will be increasingly difficult to tell those who pay motor tax that the urban authorities in which they live will receive only 12% of the total allocation in a given year. Those people must drive on roads in their housing estates and immediate neighbourhood which are potholed, broken and in a state of disrepair and which in many cases need reconstruction rather than repair or resurfacing.

When I raised this previously the response was that a firm of consultants would carry out a study but apparently this will not be complete until August. There will be the farce in coming months of candidates from the Government parties picking their way over potholes and broken pavements in urban areas where they are canvassing to meet the frustrated householders and motorists who endure those roads every day and tell them a study is being done. The study will not appear until August and then it will be forgotten, as so often happens to such issues which arise after an election.

The Labour Party will oppose this Bill on the grounds of the additional stealth taxes proposed in it, that the Minister is distributing the moneys raised in motor taxation in a way that is unfair, biased and takes no account of the needs of respective areas, and that, scandalously, in his last allocation, he showed an unashamed bias towards his own electoral needs rather than the needs of motorists.

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