Pat Moylan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I thank him, his Department officials and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for the work and improvements on our non-national roads. I came through the county council system and served for many years on a county council. Having listened to some of today's contributions, I wondered if I was in the same county or country, or driving the same roads.

I look at the situation as a county council member. Not very many years ago, before the system was changed so that motor tax goes solely to the local authorities for the purpose of improving road surfaces, I recall that the surface dressing rate in my county was once every 65 years. Had we continued with such a situation, I wonder where we might now be. We now see excellent road surfaces being applied. Great value is got for the money spent. We should consider the blacktop, the surface dressing, the improvements in roads and in bridges and culverts on those roads, as well as the removal of bends. Years ago we did not have a hope of doing anything like that. I recall in the past putting notices of motion to the council and questions to the country engineer and getting replies to the effect that, unfortunately, because of financial constraints, they could do nothing in that regard. That is not the current situation. We have improved our road structure substantially. I compliment the Minister and the Department in that regard.

One must have annual tax increases if one wants to keep up and make improvements. The motor tax income is the only fund over which local authority members have a real say in deciding how it is spent in their own counties. They can make the decisions and see the improvements. When one looks at increases averaging over 17% annually to the local authorities, with inflation at less than 5%, even at 2%, 3% or 4%, there have been improvements, which we welcome.

As Senator Burke suggested, one can talk to local authorities about signposting. I am aware that the Department is making major changes regarding the display of speed limits in kilometres rather than miles. It is difficult to ask a local authority to begin spending money and changing signs when many of those signs are already due to change later this year. We will improve the signposting of our towns and villages, in particular the advance signposting of junctions, because of the level of traffic on the roads and the traffic that is likely to turn into minor roads.

Regarding the Bill before us, the moneys given by the Department to local authorities constitute the best move made by the Department during my time as an Offaly County Council member. I spent 27 years as a councillor there and saw good, middling and very bad days. As I noted, there was a time when we were not able to fill the potholes. I remember a former Deputy from Laois-Offaly talking about us moving around with our kettle of tar. That is all we had. Now we look at the modern plant and machinery we have for surface dressing. We see how much work we can get through when the weather is suitable. We also note the training the Department and local authorities have given to their workforce to enable them to get the maximum value out of the money that is available. I foresee local authorities getting even better value. More of the work may perhaps be done by private enterprise because at certain times of the year one can get much more work done by private enterprise, so that one is not then depending on one's own maintenance staff to do that work when they are required for other pressing local authority work.

I welcome the Bill. I compliment the Minister of State and his Department. There have been substantial improvements around the country, particularly in the midlands from where I come, and we are very happy with what has happened.