Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No, it was in the last month.

The Minister also mentioned how an increase of €23 per year is just 44 cent per week. The problem here is a failure on the part of the Government to look at the cumulative effect of all of these charges. People were genuinely insulted when the Minister came out with the remark that the household charge is €2 per week. It is not the Minister's money, it is the money in the pocket of a person who is struggling, who has an income that is falling and utility bills and mortgage or rent payments that are going up. The cumulative effect of those increases is destroying families. It is insulting to reduce it to that sort of statement, as if nothing else was happening. The Minister should consider the impact on people's households.

Many people have no choice but to use their cars. Many public transport services are being discontinued or towns are being bypassed as a cost-saving measure. The like of the national transport provider is in a serious deficit position. Some of these services can only be viably delivered if they are subsidised and there is not the ability to subsidise them.

Although not of the Minister's making, there is an unsustainable settlement pattern. For its size, Ireland has one of the largest road systems in the world because of how our settlement pattern has developed. That brings with it a need for road maintenance that must be taken into account. In the region of 700,000 people travel to and from school or work by car every day. In parts of Kildare, approximately two thirds of people commute. Combined with high fuel prices and falling wages, this imposes serious additional financial pressure. RTE broadcast a programme not that long ago about Rochfortbridge, which, ironically, is seen as a dormitory town. It showed how people are failing even to be in a position to seek work because of the prohibitive cost of transport. Most of them can only rely on private transport. We must look at this in a broader context.

On the Local Government Fund, the Minister is stating that this year €150 million of motor tax income is being taken from the Local Government Fund to the Exchequer. I recall the advertisements that were placed by the Department last year when there was pressure on residents to pay the household charge and there were all sorts of wrong claims made about how this would go towards maintaining parks, playgrounds and all sorts. The local authorities now have very significantly less, and they will have less again. Essentially, people will be asked to pay more and they will see a reduced service.

Roads all over the country are failing. Deputy Cowen pointed to the type of foundations in the road system in parts of the midlands, which includes parts of Kildare, and the level of usage. We have not really recovered from the two recent severe winters. If the roads are neglected in the way they were, I see us in years to come going back to do what a predecessor of the Minister did, that is, waging a war on potholes. We are starting to see them appear in numbers and as the Minister will be aware, around the country there is competition on the more extreme cases.

Grants for road maintenance have fallen from €363 million in 2007 to €232 million this year. Local authorities contributed €406 million from their budgets to regional and local roads in 2008 and this has fallen to €175 million last year. They are not willingly decreasing the amount. They have no choice but to decrease it because in many cases the level of discretionary funds is such that they simply do not have the money to spend. After wages, heat and light, insurance, running waste water treatment plants, etc., are decided, one sees what is available for the roads fund.

The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, on Question Time the other evening, spoke of the considerable difference in the amounts spent on road maintenance and improvements by local authorities across the country. Some spend as little as 8% of their budget on it while others spend as much as 66%. That comes down to the level of discretion available. At this stage, one of the issues that needs to be considered in that context is the needs and resources model, which is a most discriminatory model because it looks at the historical situation and areas which are rapidly developing simply do not have those needs counted. In the case of the disabled person's grant which is being examined, for example, some local authorities cannot come up with the necessary local contribution. One can see that the level of discretion is better in some local authorities than in others. Often the local authorities that are regarded as wealthy are not wealthy at all because those are the ones which have a limited ability to draw down funds. That may account for the low level of funding that is distributed to road maintenance from some local authorities. The matter needs to be looked at seriously.

The major issue of the destruction of the environment is the other really important element of the Bill to which others have correctly drawn attention. The way this tax is designed, it will not reward good behaviour. In fact, it reverses what had been done on the culture change in the kind of vehicles people choose. It is immediately clear from the changes being made that no good deed will go unpunished by the Government. As I stated, motor tax has increased several times since the Government came to power and in each case those who made the conscious move towards lower-emission engines were punished severely. This Bill continues that trend. A 92% increase, as I mentioned earlier, applies to those in band A for emissions. If one did good several years ago by trading down the emissions bands, one is severely punished today. Encouraging positive environmental behaviour through taxation is a tried and tested method and there are wider societal advantages in doing so. It makes good economic sense because at some point if we do not meet our targets, we will have to buy carbon credits. Whether or not such targets are included in a Bill, Ireland has international obligations. However, such taxation requires trust on the part of the taxpayer and that trust is being destroyed by the approach adopted because we are not rewarding positive behaviour.

The approach on carbon tax is the same. Essentially, putting it into a general fund rather than ring-fencing it means it is not a carbon tax at all. It is merely another tag that the Minister puts onto general taxation. The revenue it generates should go into a fund to provide for retrofitting, wind energy etc.

The Government is also placing our obligations to reduce emissions in serious jeopardy. Transport makes up 21% of the national emissions profile and most of it falls outside the emissions trading scheme. We are expecting a climate Bill. Last week we were told it would be next week. We will wait for that. On the example of today's behaviour, it is obvious that the priority for Government is not being backed up by the practical delivery of measures that change people's behaviour.

I will finish on a couple of points. On the settlement pattern, it is intended to produce a new national spatial strategy.

It is clear, if it was not previously, that the way we have gone about our settlement has caused and will cause us very serious problems in future. I do not believe it is possible to dissociate that from the kind of provision in the Bill. There may be a way to unpick that. Clearly if cars are going to be put beyond people's reach given the costs, on the other side we must provide public transport to allow people to function. Clearly we are doing neither.

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