Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

While the Taoiseach claims this legislation is only technical, it is of major importance. Since I entered the House, the one issue I have had to deal with more often is our road network. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, County Cavan, I recall, was known as the pothole county.

I welcome the transfer of the two functions from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to the Department of Transport. One must be concerned, however, if this is correct knowing the history of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey, for messing matters up.

I welcome the statement by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, that the implementation of this change will not involve a negative impact on funding for non-national roads. However, I question his claim that the national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, system enables all vehicles and driving licence transactions processed to be updated in real time. When one drives down the M1, cars break the speed limit without any worry of being caught. Up to a quarter of those who should have received penalty points did not have them imposed because they are not on the NVDF. When one considers the number of accidents with such drivers, one must ask what efforts are being made to update the NVDF and ensure all drivers are brought into line.

With the transfer of functions between Departments, the funding implications for non-national roads are serious. While the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government claims the integrity of the funding will not be compromised by the transfer, the Minister for Transport will be in charge. I am concerned about comments made by him when he opened the Castleblayney bypass last week.

County Cavan has 2,476 km of road, 108 km of which are national primary and secondary, the remainder consisting of county and regional roads. It is also a county that has many drumlins, a topography that consists of heavy and wet underground soils which require much drainage and make road maintenance expensive. The Minister suggested county councils will have to provide 30% of the costs of funding from their rate base which will impose serious difficulties. The Border region has had serious problems over the years with lack of investment and a subsequent lack of a rate base. I urge the Minister to re-examine this suggestion for the Border region.

Recently I was in County Donegal attending a pleasant function to record Deputy McGinley's 25 years in the Dáil. There is a major problem with the road network between counties Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal and Northern Ireland. While I agree tremendous progress has been made through the St. Andrews Agreement, it is important the Minister for Transport works with his Northern Ireland counterparts to ensure the N2-A5 is upgraded, along with other cross-Border routes.

Anyone travelling on the N3 from Dublin to Donegal will know the poor state of the road between Cavan and Enniskillen. Much of the debate about the upgrading of the N3 has centred on the court cases over Tara. There is nothing to prevent the Government from providing the funds to bypass Virginia and Belturbet. It is important that the Minister takes into account that little moneys have been spent by the National Roads Authority in the past several years in counties Cavan and Monaghan.

When the Minister opened the Castleblayney bypass, it was pointed out much damage was done to the surrounding local roads during construction. Engineers estimate it will cost up to €5 million to repair these roads. As the Minister will meet local groups on the matter shortly, I urge him to provide funding for these repairs. Up to €125 million was spent on the bypass. To leave the surrounding county and regional roads in a state of disrepair would be a failure to recognise the problems the local people went through while the bypass was being constructed. To finalise the bypass, a road between Keady and the old N2 needs to be completed. While the funding has gone to part 8, the funding must be put in place as soon as possible.

I have not covered one tenth of the issues I wished to raise. While I welcome the Bill, I am concerned by the failure of the Minister for Transport on the driving test and other issues. I wonder if he is capable of this job.

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