Martin Brady (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The main feature of the Bill is to provide for necessary legislative amendments of a technical nature to facilitate the transfer to the Minister for Transport of non-national roads and the national vehicle driver file, NVDF. As the Minister stated, the Bill is required to give effect to the Taoiseach's announcement on the formation of the Government in June 2007 that responsibility for non-national roads and the national vehicle driver file was to be transferred from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to the Department of Transport.

The Bill provides for amendment of the Local Government Act 1998 to allow for payments from the local government fund to the Minister for Transport in respect of non-national roads and the Minister's expenses in maintaining NVDF records and in administering motor vehicle tax and issuing driver licences. These expenses are met from the fund and the legislation provides for their administration following the transfer of functions. The legislation also provides a statutory basis for the Minister for Transport to make regulations in respect of the NVDF functions being transferred to him. It also vests in the Minister for Transport all ministerial consent provisions in respect of railway orders where the works involved are likely to affect public roads.

With regard to non-national roads, following the general election in 2002, most of the departmental administration and ministerial functions relating to roads, road traffic and road safety were transferred from the then Department of the Environment and Local Government to the then Department of Public Enterprise. I agree there is no longer a rationale for having two Ministers and Departments dealing with aspects of the public road network. The Government decided that overall responsibility for the non-national road investment programme should be vested in the Minister for Transport and the Department, which currently has responsibility for overall transport development generally. The Government will continue to provide significant finance for non-national roads in addition to the massive investment being made in the development of our national road network. This year alone a record €600 million is provided for non-national roads. I am happy the Minister has assured the House that the funding for the non-national road investment programme will not be affected as a result of the new arrangements.

As the Minister said, the NVDF is a database of national strategic importance, which contains details of all 2.4 million registered vehicles and 2.5 million licensed drivers in the country. The file is the product of a major computerisation project completed in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in 2002. The system enables all vehicle and driving licence transaction processing to be updated in real time. As such, the NVDF is critical to the management of the national motor tax and driving licence services, including the optimisation of these services to the motoring public. NVDF data play a key role in vehicle and driver regulation and in supporting the critical road safety agenda. In this context, the Government deemed it appropriate that the system and its support staff should transfer from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to the Department of Transport. The Bill is necessary to give effect to the transfer of functions relating to non-national roads and the NVDF to the Department of Transport. The Government will make a transfer order to coincide with enactment of this Bill. I support the Bill's passage through the Houses.

Senator Coffey referred to the issue of road signage, which is deplorable in some parts of the country. It is confusing and I do not know how tourists get around. When I canvassed during the Seanad elections, I encountered signage obscured by trees and so on. Approaching Galway city, drivers must negotiate 11 or 12 roundabouts. The signage for one roundabout, in particular, is displayed only a few yards from it and I was informed by a local garda that accidents occur on almost a daily basis because people are confused as they approach the roundabout.