asked the Minister for the Environment, having regard to the rapid and substantial growth of Dublin city and the adjoining urban area in the county, the steps being taken by his Department, in conjunction with the local authorities concerned, to improve substantially signposting to different suburbs and arterial roads to, from and within the urban area in order to reduce the considerable confusion and related traffic hazards arising out of a dearth of such signposting.

The provision of informative traffic signs is a function of the road authority concerned. As the Deputy may be aware, a new improved system of such signs for national roads is being implemented by road authorities and is being financed by way of special grants from my Department. The signposting of national primary roads in the Dublin county area has been completed. A scheme of informative signs for the national secondary road N.81 has been prepared and the necessary signs have been ordered by Dublin County Council. Dublin Corporation have provided route number direction signs for national roads and a grant of £7,000 has been allocated this year for the provision of further such signs.

The cost of providing informative traffic signs on roads other than National roads is chargeable to the authority's own resources, including its annual block grant allocation. Road authorities are from time to time reminded of the need to rectify deficiencies in traffic signs. In notifying road authorities of road grant applications for 1981, attention was again directed to the provision and maintenance of traffic signs.

As one proud to be a servant of the people and not an officer, would the Minister agree with me that it is desirable for the people of this country and visitors to it to get where they want to go and that reliance on traffic signs designed in the days of horse-drawn traffic is unlikely to facilitate this objective?

The second question is this: about seven years ago now money was allocated for the establishment in the Department of Local Government, as it was then, of a special division to bring about substantial improvement in road signs. To date there appears to be little evidence of the success of that division. I wonder if the Minister can comment on that?

The last point I want to make is this: having regard to the fact that car tax has now been restored, would the Minister use his good offices to ensure that a very significant slice of the revenue yielded as a consequence will be used to improve the roadsigning all over Ireland, bringing it up to international, and certainly European standards?

Yes, I would agree it is necessary that signposting be as clear and as helpful as possible to travellers on the roads. Certainly the signposts used previously are not now suitable. One aspect of those previous signs was that they were placed at a height that could be seen from the box car as one travelled along the road. Obviously that does not apply now. The division established in my Department, about which the Deputy spoke, is functioning. Even from observation I think the Deputy would agree, and certainly I would hope that there has been a very significant improvement in the quality and number of signposts. I cannot speak about inside Dublin that well because there would be another constraint in erecting signposts inside urban areas, that is, one does not want a proliferation of what are called street furniture on roads. This city is already sufficiently cluttered with dustbins, parking meters and all sorts of other signs. There is already too much on the pavements creating a real difficulty in this respect. Outside the city, certainly on the roads I travel, the quality of signposts and their frequency has been very much improved. The third part of the Deputy's question was?