Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I can assure Senator Brady that potholes are back with a vengeance, which is clearly a reflection of under investment, particularly in non-national roads. Senator Brady spoke about the supposed level of improvement in roads, but for a country as wealthy as ours – despite what we have recently been told – that should be reflected in the state of our roads. It is not. Instead billions of euro have been spent on roads which show no signs of being built. There have been massive overruns on projects, management mistakes in planning, a roads authority incapable of managing projects this size and general mayhem in delivering a national roads infrastructure.

On top of this comes a 12% increase in motor tax, suggested in such a way that we could expect a 12% increase in investment on roads or even a 12% improvement in non-national roads in particular. Of course we know the reality is very different. This is yet another attempt at a con job by the Government. When the 12% increase was announced in December one would have expected it to be matched by an increase in the local government fund or in the allocation to the local authorities for non-national roads. However, that is not the case. As members of local authorities know, the local government fund has been frozen at last year's level which, when inflation is taken into consideration, represents an actual decrease.

In January 2003, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government announced an allocation of €433.98 million to local authorities for non-national roads compared to the 2002 allocation of €438.46 million. This represents an actual decrease of almost €5 million, even before one takes account of inflation. In 2002, some €221 million was allocated for restoration grants but, in 2003, this figure declined to €216 million. This is part of the Government's trimming at the edges and constant undermining of public services in a culture of stealth taxes, which are intended to make up for the shortfall in revenue. It also underlines the Government's ideological position whereby, on one hand, it has reduced personal taxation and promoted itself as a low tax Administration, while, on the other, it increased indirect and stealth taxes at an extraordinary level, particularly since the general election.