Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

The Bill provides for smaller tax increases of €7 for cars under 1000cc while the increase is €14 for larger cars of 1300cc to 1400cc — these are not huge sums.

Our primary concern must be safety. Despite horrific recent crashes, the Minister for Transport is making much progress on penalty points. Figures suggest that fatalities on our roads were approximately 600 per year in the mid-1970s whereas this dropped to 330 last year. While this is still a high figure, the number of cars has increased by approximately four times over that period. Safety is a key issue and I urge the Government to continue to work to improve it.

Signage on our roads is also important and I would like the new signs to be introduced quicker. Older signs are being interfered with, leading to confusion and misdirection for drivers. The finger-post sign is the optimum and I hope it will again become available. There have been many complaints about signs on regional and county roads and this problem must be dealt with.

The Minister said an annual report on the local government fund would be presented to the Dáil and Seanad, which is important. It should be made quickly available.

On accountability, it has been suggested that without Deputies and Senators serving on local councils, local authority officials and county mangers will not have their work effectively scrutinised. I do not accept this because good councillors are currently serving and more will be elected in June. The Minister and Members should urge our colleagues on county councils, without telling them what to do, to analyse and scrutinise the different policies which come before them. Moreover, in many instances it will be the councillors who decide the policies.

On local government employment, there has not been an increase but a reduction in the numbers employed although an increase has been alleged. However, there has been criticism of the work of retired county managers who, as one Deputy said, turn up on every interview board. It is useful to have a person as experienced as a retired county manager on interview panels and I do not think this is a disease breaking out. While it is difficult to decide who should serve on employment and interview boards, those who have worked in the local government service have done a good job in this regard and I hope they will be recognised as suitable for the work.

I compliment the Minister on his earlier contribution. He has gone well beyond his brief in not only discussing the tax increase but also the increase in the roads fund and the different types of funding which are useful in the area of regional and county roads. It would also be useful to discuss primary and secondary roads, which are the responsibility of the National Roads Authority and the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan. I hope the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gallagher, will bring to the attention of the Minister for Transport some of the issues raised during this debate. It would be useful if he knew of some of our debates not just on roads, but on public transport generally.