Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

——when I became involved in farm organisation and was doing more than 40,000 miles per year.

The Minister referred in his speech to supplementing the annual Exchequer fund towards roads. Currently local government is funded not just by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, but by charging for water. The Minister said recently that we are paying only a nominal rate compared to some other European countries, but we have increased that by charging for both water in and water out. This has caused serious problems for industry. There is also the issue of capital charges. In a town in my county, the allocation of a significant amount of money for a sewerage scheme was recently announced. I will not give any names to avoid causing difficulties for the company concerned. Everybody thought this was a Government grant, but they later found out that the Government's contribution was a small percentage of the total and that industry and others would have to pay massive capital sums towards the project. I ask the Minister to reconsider this before too much damage is done. If the sum of which I heard has to be paid by one company, it may mean the company, which employs large numbers of people in the town, will no longer be there. We must ensure that a balance is struck.

As one who lives on a regional road I appreciate the Minister's comments on funding regional and county roads. I refer to the spatial strategy and regional development. In recent months the Minister announced that in parts of County Monaghan one cannot build unless one has owned land for the past ten years. The Minister should think that over again if his statement on spatial strategy is to mean anything. County Monaghan has the lowest increase in population in Ireland, yet impositions are made without any thought. This has serious implications and I ask the Minister to re-examine it.

The Minister referred to the increase in prices. While there was no increase in taxation over the past few years, there was an enormous increase in the number of vehicles. The funding increased without the price increasing.

I refer to changes in CO2. As one who lives within a few miles of the Border, in an area where much of our business is done across the Border, I am more conscious than most of how these regulations work. I warn the Minister that, unless he changes some of the systems in July, it will encourage people to buy second-hand cars north of the Border, in England or elsewhere. Someone buying a car that has been taxed before 1 July in the South will find that the car will be burdened with a high level of road tax for the rest of its life. Buying a similar car north of the Border or elsewhere in Europe is not in the interests of the economy in the long term. I appreciate it any time the Minister tries to do something positive. Fine Gael has pushed for recognition of lower levels of CO2 emissions. I urge the Minister to re-examine this matter.

Fine Gael is in favour of the changes in CO2 emissions but opposes this structure, which will cause difficulty for second-hand cars. If we cannot sell our cars to garages because they cannot get rid of them, it will increase the cost indirectly. There are implications and I encourage the Minister to re-examine this issue.

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