Waterford City ask people to pay for Roads

spankmemunkey

Just reading the front page of The Munster that Waterford City Council expect speople to now make financial contributions to local road repairs out of their own pocket.

Leo Varadkar has also said there will be no major road projects started this year as there is no budget for it. They had also written that they aksed people to fix potholes themselves.

So theres a few things, why are we paying road tax, I know the answere but it is SUPPOSE to be for the maintenance of roads, and werent the new property taxes suppose to be paid directly to councils for the upkeep of their areas?

Also is there no legal issues with allowing members of the public try fix potholes, what if someone makes a bad job of that work and there is an accident? are they now liable?

mike65

We don't pay road tax, we pay MOTOR tax. About a billion raised goes into local government coffers

26.5
Motor tax is collected by twenty-nine local authorities and through Transport’s online service.

Amounts collected are paid into the Local Government Fund (the Fund), which is administered by Environment.

In the region of €1 billion is paid into the Fund from motor tax each year.2
1 Main legislation: Roads Act 1920; Finance (Excise Duties) (Vehicles) Act 1952 (changes to rates are made by amending the Schedule to the 1952 Act in various Motor Vehicle Acts), Finance (Excise Duties) (Vehicles) (Amendment) Act 1960, and Finance (No 2) Act 1992.

2
The proceeds of the 2012 increase in motor tax rates will be paid to the Exchequer. In the past, the Exchequer also contributed to the Fund, but no Exchequer funding has been provided in 2012. The proceeds of the household charge are being paid into the Fund. Page 2

346 ■
Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government

26.6
Expenditure from the Fund supports local authorities for general discretionary funding of their everyday activities, for improvement and upkeep of non-national roads and for a number of local government initiatives. The Fund also reimburses Transport for the driver and vehicle licensing costs incurred (€13 million in 2011)

So only some of it actually reaches roads.

Also is there no legal issues with allowing members of the public try fix potholes, what if someone makes a bad job of that work and there is an accident? are they now liable?

I doubt the idea is for you or me to smear some hot tar into a hole. Presumably a proper contractor is used.

Smiley Burnett

did the munster say that this scheme has been in place for decades?? did they say that it is normally over-subscribed and is very popular? did the munster say that it is for very minor roads that wouldn't get priority when drawing up the roadworks programme?

Potential-Monke

They can go an fuc. The roads in this city are shockingly bad, you only need to drive a car with hardened suspension to know that. And now they want me to pay more to fix them? I think not.

charlemont

Its a great country, Not !!

spankmemunkey

mike65 wrote: »

We don't pay road tax, we pay MOTOR tax. About a billion raised goes into local government coffers



So only some of it actually reaches roads.



I doubt the idea is for you or me to smear some hot tar into a hole. Presumably a proper contractor is used.

Go and read the front page of The Munster, they asked people to contribute or fix potholes themselves, thats what it said and Motor Tax fair enough you knew what i meant.

Motor tax is used to maintain and uprgrade the road network.
http://www.carz.ie/index.php?subj=readtopic&id=3

We know that in theory that is what it is suppose to be used for, but if they arent using it for this then they must tell us what they are using it for, accountability, in most other countries in europe your suppose to be told what the money they take off us is being spent on, its accounted for. we were told that the LPT was for local councils to run themselves that includes servicing of the roads, the thing is what they are telling us they are spending the money on and what they are spending it on are different things!

Sully

Well €42m has been re-allocated by Leo on the upkeep and maintenance of the existing road network. They money was to be used for road building previously. €2.7m of new money going into drainage works, as excess water is often a cause of road deterioration. The focus is on local roads - as national and primary roads are, in most cases, in good condition.

In terms of motor tax - we get about a third or so of the payments from our receipts. Local authorities then add to the State grant from the remaining two-thirds of its road taxes allocation, or from other sources of funding such as parking charges, or other subsidies.

The problem is that the state doesn't have the finances to keep every single road up to-date and also its how our local authorities spends the money it gets. It often puts the money into houses, sewage, parks and so on and not roads. Some of our national papers covered this problem before and showed how the councils didn't spend a large chunk of the money they got from motor tax receipts on roads. This is how it currently works.

In terms of this particular scheme, well, I didn't read the article so I don't know if this useful nugget of information was provided but the scheme has been in place for some years now. Such schemes saw businesses, and local chambers of commerce either contribute labour or finance the road maintenance. The scheme is up to half payment, with the remaining coming from the state.

mike65

Ireland has more paved road per capita than just about anywhere else on the planet, a rod made for our own backs. Go up the mountains in Italy and you see plenty of dirt roads with a short paved section where there is a house.

spankmemunkey

Sully wrote: »

Well €42m has been re-allocated by Leo on the upkeep and maintenance of the existing road network. They money was to be used for road building previously. €2.7m of new money going into drainage works, as excess water is often a cause of road deterioration. The focus is on local roads - as national and primary roads are, in most cases, in good condition.

In terms of motor tax - we get about a third or so of the payments from our receipts. Local authorities then add to the State grant from the remaining two-thirds of its road taxes allocation, or from other sources of funding such as parking charges, or other subsidies.

The problem is that the state doesn't have the finances to keep every single road up to-date and also its how our local authorities spends the money it gets. It often puts the money into houses, sewage, parks and so on and not roads. Some of our national papers covered this problem before and showed how the councils didn't spend a large chunk of the money they got from motor tax receipts on roads. This is how it currently works.

In terms of this particular scheme, well, I didn't read the article so I don't know if this useful nugget of information was provided but the scheme has been in place for some years now. Such schemes saw businesses, and local chambers of commerce either contribute labour or finance the road maintenance. The scheme is up to half payment, with the remaining coming from the state.

Its on the front page of The Munster, The thing is they were saying "Local Residents" were being asked to contribute to funding for repairs on local roads with the difference being paid by the council, failing that they asked locals to fix the potholes themselves.

Sully

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Its on the front page of The Munster, The thing is they were saying "Local Residents" were being asked to contribute to funding for repairs on local roads with the difference being paid by the council, failing that they asked locals to fix the potholes themselves.

Its not applicable to just Waterford people. I would have assumed with the high standard of journalism in the Munster, they would have made what I said clear in their article. The headline will always be misleading.

Waterford people are not being singled out and its not a Waterford charge. That's a fact.

ziedth

Sully wrote: »

Its not applicable to just Waterford people. I would have assumed with the high standard of journalism in the Munster, they would have made what I said clear in their article. The headline will always be misleading.

Waterford people are not being singled out and its not a Waterford charge. That's a fact.

Careful you'll anger Dermot again :pac:

robp

mike65 wrote: »

Ireland has more paved road per capita than just about anywhere else on the planet, a rod made for our own backs. Go up the mountains in Italy and you see plenty of dirt roads with a short paved section where there is a house.

I have seen this in Germany and not in the mountains either! I guess the reason we can afford to maintain so many roads is that we have less of the snow on ice.

spankmemunkey

Sully wrote: »

Its not applicable to just Waterford people. I would have assumed with the high standard of journalism in the Munster, they would have made what I said clear in their article. The headline will always be misleading.

Waterford people are not being singled out and its not a Waterford charge. That's a fact.

Its written in the paper what areas in waterford they were talking about. tis on the front page like.