Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

A sum of €2 million is being provided this year and, as already stated, there is extra funding coming into County Galway which should give us a good non-national roads network.

I also wish to refer to the local improvement schemes because they can make a good contribution to roads. I am concerned here with roads on which there may be no houses which lead into lands or bogs. A total of €800,000 is being provided for 2003 in our area and that is certainly a scheme which should be supported. The Minister has provided funding and in recent years we have seen that increase. I am glad that with CLÁR and the local improvement scheme, we are making progress in that regard.

The other import issue I wanted to raise is the link between motor tax and the local government fund. The Minister of State made that link clear in his contribution. We have seen the improvements in roads and local government services as a result of the fund and, from 1 January, these particular increases will be coming into effect to be ring-fenced for the local government road programme.

The Minister of State said that 60% of the national private car fleet is made up of cars under 1,400 cc. The owners of such vehicles should have to pay the lowest increase and the Minister has gone about providing for that in a real way, particularly when one considers the example I gave of what one must pay for a car over 3,000 cc.

It is also clear that there is not a bottomless pit of money for the Government and that the motorist must be considered. One of the real issues for people driving cars is not so much the payment of road tax but the question of insurance. That is an issue which we could find time to debate on another occasion. It is not particularly the Minister of State's area, but it is an issue which I hope we will discuss shortly in the Seanad.