I move the adjournment of the Dáil until 3 o'clock tomorrow.
FINAL REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON WIRELESS BROADCASTING. - ADJOURNMENT—CURTAILMENT OF RURAL POSTAL SERVICES.
I gave notice that I would raise on the adjournment the question of the curtailment of the Postal Services throughout the Saorstát. For some considerable time alarm has been caused and indignation has been expressed in a great many of the rural districts in the Saorstát in consequence of the curtailment of the postal facilities they used to enjoy. To my mind those complaints are justified. I want to say, at this stage, that the Postmaster-General is, to my mind, the Minister who is most amenable to reason in the Government, and I am sorry to have to make these complaints against him. What I want to really find out is: Is this the considered policy of the Government or is it merely Departmental policy? Whoever is responsible for it, I think it will be generally agreed that it is a retrograde step. For the past two days we have been discussing the question of the protection of industries, and we have heard complaints from the farmers that no effort has been made to protect their particular industry. Instead of protecting the farming industry, so far as I can see now, the Postmaster-General's Department, by the step he is taking in the curtailment of postal facilities, is rather doing something in the opposite direction.
We have also been discussing wireless for some considerable time, and the newspapers have been filled with it. While we are discussing wireless, the Postmaster-General's Department is making an effort to have some of the rural areas letterless. I do not think anybody thought when this country was about to form its own Government that one of the first steps which would be taken would be to remove, to all intents and purposes, the postal services in many of the rural districts. The postal service has always been looked upon as a great boon by the people living in the rural areas, and I think it will be generally agreed that, if this system of curtailment of services is persisted in, the business of the farming community is going to suffer, and suffer greatly. The step being taken is, to my mind, going practically to isolate the farming community, and I do not think that we ought to give the farmers anything else to growl about. Some people say they are always growling, but the Postmaster-General ought not to give them any other cause for growling. While this is a serious aspect of the situation, and one that affects intimately the farming community, who are engaged in the chief industry here, and while the cutting off of the rural areas is detrimental to the best interests of agriculture, there is another aspect of the situation. There have been men employed as postmen, auxiliary postmen if you like, who have been engaged for a great number of years in the delivery of letters in these different areas that I mentioned. Their services have been dispensed with without any compensation being made to them, good, bad or indifferent. Some of them have been kept on to carry on the delivery for two or three days a week, but if they have, they have been kept on at a low rate of wages. I do not think that is fair, and I do not think anybody will say it is fair, because, after all, if you take the services of a man for two or three days in the week it means he is not available for any other employment. If a man is to be engaged on alternate days of the week he ought to be given a weekly wage. I do not think it is fair at all to give an auxiliary postman any different treatment than that which was meted out to higher officials, who in consequence of the Treaty have vacated their positions and got certain compensation.
I think everybody will agree that the bottom dog is entitled to as good treatment as the higher official, and that advantages that are given by a certain article of the Treaty to certain officials in the Post Office Service ought to be also extended to such people as the auxiliary postmen, because it is in consequence of the Treaty being signed between Great Britain and Ireland that this change has been brought about. It may not have been contemplated when the Treaty was signed in London, but at the same time it is in consequence of the Treaty being signed that this change has taken place. I do not think it is fair for any Department to treat men as these auxiliary postmen have been treated. What I want to know is, if it is by the considered policy of the Government that these changes have been brought about, or are they Departmental changes? I think the Dáil is entitled to know. If they are Departmental changes the Government has a right to investigate the matter and go into the whole question thoroughly with a view to seeing whether it is in the best interests of the country. If it is economy I say it is economy gone mad. It is a retrograde step, and it is against the best interests of the country. We should try to extend postal services and to extend the telephone service to every hole and corner of the Free State. Instead of that we are taking the very opposite step, and it is a step that is detrimental to the very best interests of the country, and it is going to put the farmers in a worse position than they have ever been before.
On my own behalf and on behalf of my fellow-Deputies, perhaps I may be allowed to express my gratitude to the Deputy for the kindly interest he has shown in the farmers. I agree with him that the limitation of the postal services throughout the country and the closing of sub-offices has caused great inconvenience and great discontent amongst the people. Some years ago it was looked upon as a great boon by people living in the country to have a regular daily delivery of their letters. That in a great many cases has been altered to a tri-weekly service, and a great many sub-offices have been closed. It has caused considerable inconvenience not alone to people who receive letters, but also to old age pensioners who in many cases have to travel long distances to receive their pensions. I am sure it would be a great satisfaction to the people of the country if the Postmaster-General could see his way to reconsider the position and to grant the same facilities as the people have hitherto enjoyed.
This matter has been sprung on us this evening. The Postmaster-General knows that the estimates are to be discussed and that this question will be raised and talked to very seriously. He will have our point of view as well as some of us know how to express it. I did not know that this matter was to be raised this evening. I was waiting until the postal vote would come up. What I have to say on this question I will say then. I have already given my views on the matter privately to the Postmaster-General. I hope the Postmaster-General will have his mind made up to meet us. If he does not meet us we will do our best in the matter.
As a Deputy from what is considered a rather backward county, where we have had little postal facility at any time, I should like to express the opinion that the curtailment of the postal facilities there is inconveniencing and greatly hindering both the economic and social life of the community. The sub-offices are being closed, one might say almost indiscriminately, and the rural auxiliary postmen are being dispensed with and the telegraph services are being curtailed. We find ourselves in a somewhat backward position. There is one thing I should like to ask the Postmaster-General for a definite answer on. It is: what is the volume of business at which it is considered desirable in the interests of economy or in any other interests to close an office, or what is the volume of business at which it becomes necessary in the case of a delivery to dispense with the services of postmen, messengers, or auxiliary postmen?
I expect this matter will be very fully gone into when the Post Office Estimates come forward. For that reason I expect we can confine ourselves to the definite points raised in the discussion. Now, this is a matter of Post Office expenditure on which the country cannot blow hot and cold at the same time. For the last two years the Postmaster-General and his Department of Government have one and all been seriously and vigorously attacked by a section of the community, backed by the Press, for the heavy financial commitments which this country is called upon to bear because of the work of the postal service. As a consequence it was my duty to see whether the system handed over by our predecessors was not reasonably subject to modification. I announced the policy of modifications, and at that particular time, I have a recollection that it was well received and that there were very few protests made against it at the time. Now, we have in our employment something over 20,000 officialsI think, roughly, the number is 20,400. These would include permanent and temporary officials, and in a force of this kind it certainly is possible to make a great many alterations without seriously interfering with the economy of national life. We have closed, out of 3,000 sub-offices, 60 offices up to date. Out of 7,000 postmen, covering temporary and permanent postmen, we have modified or dispensed with 550. That is not a very radical alteration in the machinery of the Post Office.
May I ask the Postmaster-General, apart from the announcement he has made, if he will say how many districts in the Saorstát now are subject to deliveries on every alternate day?
The number would be something in the region of 400. I have the exact figures to date, but a little while ago it was 400—that is, when the matter was last before me. Considering that we have 7,000 permanent and temporary postmen engaged, and that we found it necessary to dispense with 500 temporary postmen, who have no claim whatever on the establishment, I do not think that we have made any radical alteration, as stated by some of the Deputies, nor have we reduced the number of sub-offices, when it is remembered that out of 3,000, we have only closed sixty, and if the facts of these cases were laid before the Deputies, I think they would acknowledge that we were perfectly justified in closing them. In the past, in many cases because of influence used by Members of Parliament and others, pocket post offices were put up for some reason or another, sometimes within a mile or a mile and a half of a neighbouring office. We found, when reviewing the position, that there was no justification for these offices; that they were all unnecessary expense to the State, and that the services which they were intended to cover were unnecessary expenses to the State. With reference to the old age pensioners, we have made a point to see that the old age pensioners do not suffer because of our retrenchments. We have made arrangements whereby the suffering, if it may be so termed, is reduced to a minimum, to a disappearing point, not only through the medium of the postmen, but through the arrangements whereby pensioners are paid locally. Now, I say we were bound, because of the very heavy loss incurred by this Department, to recast the whole position. I do not think that we would have been justified in continuing to employ men for the mere sake of employing them.
When I say that, I refer to postmen who have been employed and who have been engaged covering large tracks of the country with practically no correspondence. That has been very general. It was found that in many instances postmen did not carry letters, taking the total postage into consideration, aggregating 50 per cent. of their wages. You could not justify that. But we have made it a point where any industry, apart from agriculture, such as a creamery or a factory, is concerned, no modification in the postal arrangements shall take place. As against these reductions to which I have referred. I would remind Deputies that I am as keen as they are in seeing that unemployment should not be increased because of anything I do. Whilst we have abolished non-serviceable posts, we have, within the last twelve months, created an engineering industry in Dublin, employing close on 200 men who are much better paid than rural postmen. It is an industry which bids fair to be a big thing in the city. That is not all. We have been able to do that because of the fact that we have retrenched elsewhere, but we have found it possible, because of these economics, to approach the Minister for Finance and get his sanction for a general national extension of the telephone service. It is our intention—you can take it as a certain policy—to push the telephone service into every town and village in this country. We have already taken advanced steps in this direction, and big gangs of men have been taken on with a view to that great scheme. We hope when this scheme of telephones has developed to see our country as advanced in really rapid communication as competing countries like Denmark, Holland and the United States. We feel that whilst the savings in unnecessary posts are perhaps a bit irritating, we know very well we cannot make big economies without rubbing the public the wrong way—that we are really doing a great service by lopping off these loose and unnecessary ends and diverting the savings to real live channels which will have far-reaching effects for the nation later on. I have no apology to make for the policy I have pursued in this respect. I hold, and I think the Dáil generally will agree, that there was room for change, and that the system handed to us was not exactly a system that suited this country. The Farmers' Party feel they are being pinched more sharply than others. The whole loss in the Post Office is in the rural districts. The towns in Ireland pay their way, and it would be well for the farmers to remember that. Notwithstanding that fact we are prepared to meet them in this better service, this live service, of telephones.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.15 p.m. until 3 o'clock on Thursday, May 8th.