Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

The real achievement of the budget was that there was negligible increase in taxes. There is every sign that the people appreciate that and, what is more, as we can see from yesterday's figures, revenue is clearly buoyant.

On the source of the problem on non-national roads, we came from a base in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s of many non-national roads not being tarred at all, which I remember from my childhood. They were tarred, and many improvements were made, but then policy shifted, particularly in the 1980s, to concentrating only on national roads.

The bible of the Fine Gael-Labour Government in the mid-1980s, Building on Reality, states that approximately €210 million was spent on roads, in addition to some local authority resources. This was to be spent almost entirely on the national road network. As a consequence, from the mid-1980s and for several years afterwards, non-national roads were severely neglected. I heard moving pleas about the western railway. The same document indicated there would be a sharp cutback in railway investment. In fact, it stated there would be no investment in railways.

Obviously the country had very few resources compared to today. I calculated that approximately €210 million was spent on roads in 1986, plus some money from local authorities. Today €1,900 million is spent on roads, including approximately €1,200 million on national roads and an extra €700 million on other roads. It is a transformation. In my area, potholes which started to appear in January and February have now been filled in over a stretch of approximately five miles of country road.

As Senator Mooney and others stated, it was a transformation of local government to have a ring-fenced fund — in European terms it is referred to as "own resources"— and a reasonably buoyant form of "own resources" connected to the degree of buoyancy in the economy. If the economic signs we are witnessing are correct, there will be a bit of buoyancy in the fund this year. I accept it is the duty of the Opposition to play devil's advocate, but we should not crib about a minimal increase of 5%. One can argue that some aspects of motoring are quite heavily taxed here compared to other countries. However, that is not true of petrol and diesel vis-À-vis the North of Ireland, Britain and many other European countries. On the other hand, we have a lot of congestion which the road investment programme is trying to improve. It is difficult to make the case at this time, leaving aside the Government's need for revenue, that we should substantially cut motor taxation because our roads are barely able to cope with the current traffic levels, and we must bear in mind commitments such as those under Kyoto.

Senator Bannon is always strong in his opposition. However, the opposition has been very measured, particularly from Senator McCarthy. This is an entirely reasonable and non-controversial Bill but I understand the Opposition must do its duty.