John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am pleased to open the debate in this House on the Local Government (Roads Functions) Bill 2007. On the formation of the Government in June 2007, the Taoiseach announced that responsibility for non-national roads and the national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, was to be transferred from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to the Department of Transport. This Bill provides the necessary legislative framework to facilitate the transfer of responsibility for these functions from my Department to the Department of Transport.

Following the Taoiseach's announcement, my Department engaged with the Department of Transport and the Office of the Attorney General to work out the legal and practical arrangements for the transfer. Advice from the Attorney General's office was that the transfer of functions relating to both non-national roads and the NVDF required some minor amendment of the primary legislation in addition to the making of a transfer of functions order under the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1939.

The drafting of the necessary transfer of functions order is well advanced with the intention of making the order to coincide with enactment of the Bill. The Bill is technical in nature. In summary, it provides for amendment of the Local Government Act 1998 to allow for payments from the local government fund to the Minister for Transport in respect of, first, non-national roads and, second, the Minister's expenses in maintaining NVDF records, administering motor vehicle tax and issuing driver licences. The Bill also provides a statutory basis for the Minister for Transport to make regulations in respect of the NVDF functions being transferred to him. The Bill also vests in the Minister for Transport all ministerial consent provisions in respect of railway orders where the works involved are likely to affect public roads.

I wish to explain the necessity for the Bill to be enacted within a short time frame. The Department of Finance has notified a deadline of mid to late November for enactment of the Bill to allow that Department the time necessary to make budgetary adjustments consequent on the transfer of functions in the 2007 and 2008 Votes of my Department and the Department of Transport. The enactment of this Bill and the making of the transfer of functions order will allow spending provisions for non-national roads and the NVDF to be definitively transferred to the Vote of the Department of Transport. In this way, statutory responsibility for these expenditure provisions will transfer to the Department of Transport. In due course, expenditure Estimates to be presented to the House will reflect these changes. I thank Deputies for their co-operation in facilitating early consideration of this Bill.

Following the general election in 2002, most of the departmental administration and ministerial functions in the areas of roads, road traffic and road safety were transferred from the then Department of the Environment and Local Government to the then Department of Public Enterprise, now the Department of Transport. At that time, it was decided that functions relating to regional and local roads should remain with the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The primary reason for this was that State grants for non-national roads were mainly financed from the local government fund, which is administered by my Department. The Government has decided that overall responsibility for the non-national roads investment programme should be vested in the Minister with responsibility for overall transport development. There is no longer any rationale for having two separate Ministers and Departments with responsibility for different aspects of the public road network.

One of the primary purposes of this Bill is to facilitate the transfer of the non-national roads function to the Minister for Transport and also the payment of associated State grants by that Minister. In the matter of funding for the non-national roads investment programme, I assure the House there will be no negative impact as a result of the new arrangements. While responsibility for non-national roads is being transferred to the Department of Transport, the local government fund will continue to provide significant finance for these roads. This year alone, in addition to €87.5 million from the Exchequer, €520 million is being provided from the local government fund. This will be the benchmark for the future.

The NVDF is a database of national strategic importance which contains details of all the 2.4 million registered vehicles and 2.5 million licensed drivers in the country. The NVDF is the product of a major computerisation project which was completed in my Department in 2002. The system enables all vehicle and driving licence transaction processing to be updated in real time. The NVDF is critical to the management of the national motor tax and driver licence services, including the optimisation of these services for the motoring public. NVDF data now plays a key role in vehicle and driver regulation and in supporting the critical road safety agenda and it is in these contexts that the Government deemed it appropriate that the system and its support staff should transfer from my Department to the Department of Transport.

The primary purpose of section 1 is to amend the Local Government Act 1998 to allow for the payment of moneys from the local government fund to the Minister for Transport in respect of non-national roads and that Minister's expenses in maintaining NVDF records, administering motor vehicle tax and issuing driver licences. These expenses are currently being met from the fund and this will continue after the transfer of functions to the Minister for Transport. Section 1 also ensures that moneys received by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister for Transport in the context of the motor tax and NVDF functions continue to be paid into the local government fund.

Deputies will be aware of the important role the local government fund has played in the financing of local government since it was established in 1999. The fund is financed from a combination of an Exchequer contribution — €537 million in 2007 — and the full proceeds of motor taxation, projected at €944 million for this year. The general purpose grant allocation to local authorities from the fund for 2007 amounts to €948 million. This represents an increase of 8% over the record amount provided in 2006 and is an increase of some 180% over the 1997 allocation.

It is critically important that the improvements that have been brought about in the financing of local authorities, current and capital, are built upon. In this context, it is essential the local government fund, which has been pivotal in this success, is in no way compromised by the transfer of functions. I assure the House that this will be the case. As heretofore, motor tax and the Exchequer will continue to provide resources to the fund, which will continue to provide a robust, buoyant and dedicated source of funding for local authorities by way of general purpose grants and non-national roads grants.

Section 2 contains amendments to the Roads Act 1920 which are required to facilitate the transfer of responsibility for the NVDF to the Minister for Transport. Under current legislation, the power to make regulations for the control and regulation of the motor tax system, which includes change of vehicle ownership, is vested in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the 1920 Act. Notifications of vehicle ownership changes are an essential part of the maintenance and updating of the national vehicle file. With the transfer of responsibility for the NVDF to the Minister for Transport, it is necessary also to transfer responsibility for making regulations in the area of vehicle ownership records and related matters. The purpose of section 2 is to amend the Roads Act 1920 accordingly. The opportunity is also taken in this section to update definitions in section 17 of the 1920 Act.

Arising from the transfer of functions in the area of non-national roads, I will no longer have a function in respect of public roads. Section 3 makes a minor amendment to the Transport (Railway Infrastructure) Act 2001 to provide that ministerial consent to the granting of a railway order, where the works in question would affect non-national roads, is to be vested in the Minister for Transport as the responsible Minister.

I reiterate that this Bill is technical in nature and simply provides the necessary legislative framework to facilitate the transfer of the non-national roads and NVDF functions to the Minister for Transport. The actual transfer of functions will be effected by a transfer order to be made by the Government. Drafting of the necessary transfer of functions order is well advanced and the transfer order will be made to coincide with enactment of this Bill. I commend the Bill to the House.

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