Vol. 8 No. 16
I move:—
That a sum, not exceeding £1,816,960, be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1925, to defray the salaries and expenses of the Post Office, including Telegraphs and Telephones.
Last year I thought it advisable to make a preliminary statement on these estimates. I propose to follow that rule on this occasion. When discussing these estimates twelve months ago I predicted that a scheme of retrenchment which was then in contemplation would result in the ensuing twelve months, in a very radical cutting down of the then existing heavy loss on the Post Office. In the interval, as the Dáil is well aware, because of the many questions that have been put here on the subject, this retrenchment has been followed up very vigorously. I predicted that the loss for the current year would be reduced to something in the neighbourhood of £750,000. At the moment, of course, in a department of this kind, a commercial department with very far-reaching accounts, accounts extending into other countries, it is not possible to give the exact figure. But roughly, the figure may be taken as £768,000.
That is the loss, as far as we know, up to date on the working of the service for the past year. During these twelve months Revenue increased by £219,000. This is up to anticipations. During the same time retrenchments and greater output resulted in a saving of roughly £200,000. In addition to this £419,000 the sum of £150,000 was needed to meet gratuitities on retirements under Article X. of the Treaty; and a further sum of £50,000 was needed to meet gratuities on retire-during the campaign of 1922 and 1923. In other words we have worked a service to the tune of a nett improvement during these 12 months of £600,000. I must confess that this sum exceeds our own anticipations. We believed at the best that it would be possible to reach the half-million figure, but as events have turned out we have exceeded that sum by £100,000. I think it will be agreed here and elsewhere that so far-reaching an improvement as the sum of £600,000 in one twelve months is a fairly satisfactory achievement.
The loss on the Irish Post Office for the year 1921-22—and at this time we had not to take Partition into consideration—has been estimated at £1,400,000; in 1922-23 the loss was reduced to £1,132,000; for 1923-24 the loss was worked out at £768,000; and estimated deficiency for 1924-25 is £696,000. In view of rather substantial improvement in Revenue during the last few months and also in view of the fact that we have been able to expedite certain retrenchments I believe I can confidently say here that the loss for the coming twelve months will not reach the £600,000 figure.
During the year one would imagine that we had dismissed some thousands of men and that we had closed some hundreds of offices. As a matter of fact retrenchment took many other lines and lines far more beneficial from the standpoint of Revenue—retrenchment in railway cost, carriage of mails, and matters of that kind. Only 65 sub-offices have been closed.
How many more do you contemplating closing?
As a matter of fact, the anticipated number will not reach a score, I should say. The number of part-timers was 550; and the number of posts reduced in frequency has been 1,350. We have followed in this retrenchment a very carefully thought out plan provided by our predecessors. In estimating the value of rural posts or post offices certain figures had to be produced, and if these figures did not materialise retrenchment followed. We have not departed from that plan in this retrenchment, and as a matter of fact we find that the same thing is in operation in England at present. Even there in that wealthy State with its big Post Office service, this retrenchment is in full operation. The allowance made here in estimating the value of rural post is 2d. per letter and 4d. per parcel.
The figure followed by England in pre-war days was a halfpenny per letter and one penny per parcel. If the former rates of 2d. and 4d. did not in themselves suffice to pay the wages of a rural post, the postman in that walk is curtailed to four, three or two days per week, according to the output. In this reduction we have avoided any curtailment as far as factories, creameries, and industries of that kind are concerned, even though these result in a loss. In many of the provincial towns we have found it advisable to reduce the number of deliveries from three to two, or from two to one per day. We consider that one delivery per day is ample—more than ample in most cases, for our experience is that our staff are engaged in distributing English advertisement matter or bills. We cannot afford to pay a staff for a repetition of this work, at least unnecessary repetition, and we have reduced these posts in the provincial towns, but in order to enable shopkeepers and business people generally to get their post with reasonable frequency, we have introduced that system which operates very fully in Australia, known as private boxes. We have tried to get every merchant or shopkeeper, one might reasonably say, to secure one of these boxes, and to add to the convenience, also a private bag. The former cost of a private box was £3 10s. a year, and in order to encourage him to avail of that new departure we have reduced that charge to £2 2s. In the case of private bags we have reduced the fee from £1 10s. to £1 1s. These charges are lower than operate in England at the moment. It has been frequently suggested to us that we should bring about a reduction in the postal rates. That reduction would mean, if it were to fall to the English level, a loss to the revenue of £300,000.
This is a matter, I think, for the Minister for Finance, I should say, more than for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. If the Minister for Finance at any time thinks the finances of the State can afford to drop £300,000, that is his affair. I should say, however, that whilst comparisons are made between the postage rates operating in this country and those in England, that the position here is quite as favourable as in most other countries—in fact, I do not know of any country in which the position is favourable, except England. For instance, in Australia, Belgium, Holland, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland, the current rate is 2d.; in Denmark, France, Norway, and Spain, 2½d., and in Italy 5d. Twopence for a letter pretty well corresponds to the increase in cost of living, as against 1d. in pre-war days. I do not know whether the State would be justified in giving a definite grant, because that is what it means, to one section of the community, I mean the commercial section. However, that is a matter for the Minister for Finance and the Dáil. In another direction, that of parcels post, we have felt that the time has come to give a definite lift to trade, as far as the Post Office is able to do that. For some years past it is clear to everybody that this country is being flooded by English parcel post. That increase, I think, has resulted very largely from the increased circulation of English newspapers here, and, with the increased circulation of newspapers, an increase in the circulation of circulars. As a matter of fact, at present we receive from England almost twice the amount of mail which we send to that country. We consider the time has come when definite encouragement should be given to warehouses, and to the smaller people in this country who may be inclined to use the parcel post to do so. We have decided, subject to the final approval of the Minister for Finance—and I think we may take it his approval will be forthcoming—to reduce the parcel post rate to the English level. On the other hand, it is proposed to impose a charge of 6d. for examination and delivery. This charge will apply equally to all external countries. We have found recently that it is possible, and quite feasible, to extend the night mail train service, and bring it back to pre-war days, and also to restore later on the parcel post on Good Fridays, and on certain Bank Holidays. These services are not as general in the neighbouring countries as they are here. It is a concession which is not enjoyed to that extent in Great Britain.
Also we have availed of the opportunity of the increased number of Sunday trains to send letters not only to important parts of the country but outside the country. In other words, whenever a Sunday train runs we avail of it for the carrying of communications. One could not expect that we should go to the expense of running mail trains on Sundays. I do not believe that that will ever be reverted to. It was a very expensive medium, and the volume of correspondence was necessarily small, nor is it under consideration or in contemplation at the moment to extend the Sunday postal arrangements beyond their present limits.
Representations were made to me during the year to facilitate people attending fairs. Formerly there was no differentiation, as far as the Post Office was concerned, between a fair day and an ordinary day. We have come to the conclusion that a fair day is a very exceptional occasion, and that everything possible ought to be done to enable cattle dealers, pig dealers, and others to get through their work, and we have as a consequence agreed to an earlier opening of the Post Offices on these occasions. During the year direct mail services were inaugurated between this country and France, Germany, the United States, Canada, and Newfoundland, and we are considering the making up of these services to Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and the Federated Malay States. It may not be understood that the system prevailing in the service at the time of our predecessors necessitated the transhipping, so to speak, or the re-sorting of Irish mails in London. This meant a certain amount of delay, and it was open to risk from other standpoints. At any rate, I think it will be agreed that we have had some justification for making up direct mails with a great many countries. This policy is being followed. The same applies, of course, to parcels. The question of aerial mails came up at frequent intervals during the last twelve months, and we felt after going into the matter very fully that we would not be justified in recommending any aerial scheme involving money. It has been tried on certain short routes, and it is not voted a success; as a matter of fact it has been dropped in a few cases. We have, however, brought to the notice of some Continental countries, and England, the advantages which may be derived from an aerial service between Cobh and their respective capitals, and this matter was taken into consideration by more than one country. I do not think that it can be regarded as finally disposed of yet. We stand to gain no advantage from a service of this kind, except the fact that it would result in more mail steamers calling to our southern port.
It will be observed that we have gone in for a system of motor vehicles. We find these economical. We find that we have been, by the extended use of these light motor vehicles, able to extend the time of posting in Dublin and elsewhere, and we intend to extend that system. Likewise we have, I think, stood alone in introducing motor cycles for the delivery of telegrams. The former system here had been to transmit these telegrams from the central office to the sub-offices, resulting in loss of time and loss of money. The system of motor cycles has proved itself to be far more advantageous, and more economic, not only in time, but also in money, and this system is being extended until such time as the sub-offices, which in Dublin formerly handled something like four or five thousand telegrams a day, will be discontinued for that purpose. During the year we restored communication to 518 telegraph offices and 300 railway signal cabins. These were the residue of destroyed offices not dealt with in the last report. At present we are arranging to re-fit coastal life-saving services to the number of 100 circuits. These will also be utilised for coastguard purposes, I expect, later on. The subject was discussed on another Vote the other day.
We have devoted a certain amount of attention to the extension of our wireless service, and in the Estimates there is a sum dealing with direction-finding stations at Malin Head, Valentia, and Carnsore. We are also about to instal a wireless station at Cobh with a view to tapping incoming ships. The necessity for this has been brought home to us on more than one occasion by the shipping companies in this country.
I do not propose to deal very fully with telephones, as the matter has already been covered in a recent debate. I merely want to say that during the year we opened 3,255 new stations. We closed 1,470, which were mainly military stations, but these 3,255 will be considered as a definite expansion, and a very big expansion, considering that prior to our time only 20,000 telephones existed in the State. During the coming year I should not be surprised if we instal anything up to 5,000. This is largely a matter of technical equipment—the shortage of technical training. We have also opened during the year 35 private branch extensions with an average switchboard capacity of 11 lines. Fifteen new extensions and 79 call offices were also opened.
For cities, of course.
In certain cases we have found that the Minister for Finance has been prepared to make a reduction in the cost of installing these small provincial exchanges. For instance, approval has been got for this reduction in the cases of Rathdrum, Dingle, Moate, and Dunlavin. We anticipate that this will apply to a great many others—in fact, we hope that it may apply to all future similar exchanges. The proposed reduction would place these small exchanges on the same basis of charge as that applying to cities and larger towns. One of the barriers to the extension of the 'phone in provincial towns has been this heavy charge. We have decided to chance a very substantial reduction, practically a 50 per cent. reduction, in the case of these new installations in the hope that the public may more fully accept the telephone system. I should also explain that quite recently we announced a reduction in charges for call offices. They are at present, I think, on a practically equivalent basis to the English charges for a similar service.
Our Savings Bank during the year collected for the State a sum of £2,085,000. It refunded £505,000, leaving a net surplus for national purposes of one and a half million. Likewise, through the medium of Savings Certificates, we collected a million pounds. Therefore, the total sum of money collected by the Post Office for these two purposes amounted to £3,000,000, and it has cost the State comparatively little to collect this money.
Could the Minister give any estimate of what that cost is; I mean, roughly?
Not without notice. In determining the cost of any particular item from a multiplicity in a service of this kind it is necessary to get returns. Possibly I could have if I had got notice. These figures are at our disposal, though I have not them here. We are continuing to use the old over-printed postal order, but in the very near future an Irish postal order will be available. I notice that no sum of money is set aside in the Estimates for the rebuilding of the General Post Office. We had hoped that this would be the case, but I expect that it has not been found possible. I may say, however, that we are still suffering rather severely through the absence of space. It is impossible to conduct a very big department of this kind in pockets—to do it with thorough satisfaction and with the maximum of efficiency. You can do it, but not without added cost, and I must say that the feeling of the Department is that the sooner the Head Office is set up the better it will be for all practical purposes.
Examinations are now in vogue for practically all entrants to the service; many of them have been held. As a matter of fact, this system of open competitive examination is wider than that which pertained at any time under British rule. During the year the Contracts Department of our factory and stores dealt with stores amounting to £373,000 and tested practically the entire woollen and cotton goods of the Forces of the State. So far we have not heard any grievance under either of these headings, so we assume they are giving satisfaction. We come now to a further reduction in our charges. Six months ago we introduced a Cash on Delivery service. At the time it was thought advisable for one reason or another to make the initial charge somewhat high—mainly, I would say, to give the department an opportunity of getting into its stride in tackling a service of his kind. The initial charge was and is still as a matter of fact up to the end of this month, for parcels not exceeding £1 in value, 1/-. This shilling is in excess of the postal charges and it will therefore be seen that both charges were rather on the heavy side. In the interval, however, we have again gone into the matter, and it has now been decided to reduce these charges in the case of parcels up to £1 to the level of 6d., from £1 to £2, 9d., and for sums exceeding £2 but not exceeding £5, 1/-. Considering that nearly 50 per cent. of the parcels which will normally find their way through this system of cash on delivery, and that the new postage rates and the new cash on delivery rates make 1/- in all, one may reasonably hope to see a very big extension of that service.
The duty of collecting rates is an experiment that has been switched on to this department, and during the last four or five months we have been trying that experiment in the Counties of Sligo and Kerry. We have collected up to the 30th April the sum of £121,000. All the reports that I received to date, both from the county councils and from my own department, are satisfactory and are in favour of not only a continuance of this system of collecting rates, but its extension. I might explain here that though we are not doing the whole work in connection with the collection—there are some things we do not do, some smaller points—I would like to emphasise that while it formerly cost the citizen 8d. in the £ for the collection of his rates it is now costing him 4d., and I do hope, and I believe, that this work will be done far more efficiently and with far less trouble to the country than in the past. The experiments in two counties, the most backward and difficult from the standpoint or rate collections, has proved a success and has proved that we are able to handle this problem satisfactorily. Likewise, we have had recently to take on the work of unemployment insurance; it also is in the experimental stage, but I think I am right in assuming that the whole of the unemployment insurance work will be devolved on this department in the near future.
I have only to say further that one hears in the Dáil constantly the grumble and the grievance that workers are not giving a satisfactory output. One would imagine that a State department should not be the department to give a lead in increasing output. From the returns we have taken quite recently we find that the very high level of efficiency which obtained in the British service in pre-war days has not been reached but it is very near it; we are entirely satisfied that we are approaching that high-water mark and we are also satisfied that we are getting a very fine and very satisfactory return from our staff. It would be unreasonable not to pay a tribute to their work. When men and women give an honest output and a fair decent return for the moneys paid to them I think it should be stated and I wish to say so here.
I had intended when I came into the Dáil this evening to move a reduction of £500 in this Estimate, but I do not propose to do it now. I do not think it is quite necessary. I have some notes about the statement made by the Minister, but I think other Deputies are going to refer to what I intended to refer to. I will only refer to three points. The first is that the Board of Works accepted responsibility for the maintenance of the several Post Offices throughout the country. The amount spent on the maintenance of these Post Offices is charged on the Appropriation Accounts against the Board of Works. The Post Office being a revenue-producing department, it really ought to put in a true and accurate balance-sheet. I refer to this because last year, for instance, there were certain sums of money spent by the Board of Works on Post Office affairs which were not debited to the Post Office, but which were charged to the Board of Works account. I think if we are going to know what any particular department is losing or gaining that the expenditure in respect of any item in the administration of that particular department should not be hidden away under another Appropriation Account. I am very glad that the Minister has stated that he is going to reduce the parcel post rates. He mentioned that the post here from England resulted in an avalanche of English advertising literature. I wonder would he consider for a few minutes the point whether if he reduced the rates he might not have an avalanche of Irish advertising literature? One can send a letter across from England to Ireland for 1½d. If I want to send a letter across the city I have to pay 2d. I think it would be well for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to consider whether the £300,000 that would be lost to the revenue by the reduction in the postal rate is not a myth. He put forward as a satisfactory achievement that he spent £600,000 on improvements last year. Well, now, I wonder what value the public got for that £600,000?
On a point of order, I wish to say I did not say that. I said that the financial improvement in the work of the service last year amounted to £600,000. Deputy McGarry has got the thing the wrong way.
That was due to the fact that the Minister had his back to me and I could not hear him. Now, there is another point I am coming to and I understand that the Minister may contradict it. That point is that it has been the practice of the Post Office to purchase stores from the British Government when the contract prices at which they are offered here are not as low as the British Government contract prices at the other side. I do not know who pays the carriage. Perhaps the Minister would contradict me if I am wrong. None of the goods, I am told, purchased from the British Government have been manufactured here. In nearly every case there are agents here who are paying rates and maintaining premises and a staff on the little bit of profit they get off the stores we purchase from them. I think if the Minister is going to make the Post Office pay at the cost of putting these people out of business here—as it would mean that in some cases—that is not economics. He talks about reducing losses. Apparently if we live long enough we may be able to see all the losses cut away, but we will have to live a long time. Retrenchment has taken place to the public disadvantage, as I am sure some Deputies will tell you later on. You can very easily have retrenchment if you are going to dismiss 550 employees per annum. But you will, very probably, have these same people getting the dole. I do not know whether that is retrenchment or not.
Now, one particular thing I want to say is this and it may be regarded as more or less personal. During the debate on the Broadcasting Scheme the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs admitted that he sent an agent down—I do not know what his particular title would be—Intelligence Officer or Investigation Officer—to the lobby to listen to the conversation of members of the Dáil.
On a point of order, I wish to say I did not admit any such thing or make any such statement.
This matter was dealt with when we were discussing the Broadcasting report.
I was in hospital at the time. It concerns me personally, and if you will allow me to make a personal explanation I would be obliged. At the time, being in hospital, I did not have an opportunity. The same officer came to my office without any business reason but as an agent provocateur to put into my mouth words that he thought I should have been saying or was saying. I think it was most improper on the part of the Minister, apart altogether from the fact that he was using a public official for his own private affairs. He sent an agent-provocateur to put words into my mouth which he thought or which somebody told him that I was saying. I think I will leave it at that, because if I were to say any more I might say something that I would be sorry for. I will stop at that by saying that it was a most improper thing and I do hope there will be no repetition of it.
I cannot help regetting that in dealing with this Estimate we are dealing with it very largely in the dark. It is a very long Estimate. It covers twenty pages and if the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs could have seen his way to letting us have a White Paper containing some of the facts and figures which he has given us in the statement he has just made we should have been much better qualified to deal with it. That has been done by the Minister for Defence, and I cannot help thinking that where very intricate figures are involved our criticism would be more useful and more helpful to the Minister if he informed us on these points.
I have taken a note of the figures the Minister gave us just now but I must deal with the figures as I find them in the Estimate. He stated just now that there was a saving on the Post Office service of, roughly speaking, £200,000. In the Estimate the saving is £36,000 short of that, and I am afraid that a great many of the savings are of a more or less illusory character. In some cases there seems to have been a determination to bring down the Estimate so as to make a good show on paper. Law charges are reduced by half. They were £600 last year, and this year they are £300. I do not know how the Minister can guarantee that there is going to be a reduction in those charges unless he intends to refrain from proceeding against people who offend against the Post Office, which is hardly a moral course.
There is a still larger reduction under the heading of Losses by Default, Accidents, etc. That item was £25,000 last year, and it is only £10,000 this year. I do not see how the Minister can possibly be sure of making that reduction. How can he be sure that losses will not occur in the post? If he really intends to reduce that charge by more than 50 per cent., his law charges will go up, because he will have to fight a great many claims which may be made. That policy of cutting down seems to run through the whole Estimate, so that all the reductions are more or less illusory. I wish to refer to another point, and in connection with this I think also if we had a White Paper it would instruct us. We have here absolutely no statement of the receipts of the Post Office. We have the expenditure of the Post Office, but we have no idea what the receipts are. The only item we have is the loss on the current year, which is £750,000, and the increase in revenue, which has been £219,000. Those figures the Minister gave us in his opening statement. I suppose if I had time—though, like the Minister for Justice, arithmetic is not one of my strong points—I could work out the receipts of the Post Office having this figure of £750,000 as a basis. But I think we should have a clear statement of what the Post Office costs, and what it brings in when we are judging it. It is common knowledge that the reduction in this Estimate has been obtained by a serious curtailment of services in the rural districts. I am sorry the Minister for Fisheries has gone away. I thought he would be here to support me when I protest against Sligo and Kerry being described as the most backward parts of the country. Of Kerry, I know little. All I know about it is that it is very near Cork. Of Sligo I have some knowledge, and, certainly, Sligo, in many respects, is not one of the most backward parts of the country. Apparently the Minister thinks so from the manner in which he treats its postal services. I am very well acquainted with a small town seven miles from Sligo. In the old days you could post a letter in the morning to Sligo and get your answer that evening. Now, if you post your letter on Monday morning, you will get your answer on Wednesday morning. That is not entirely satisfactory to the people of the district. They think it places a handicap on commerce. If they write to shops in Sligo ordering goods they do not get a reply—saying, perhaps, the goods are not in stock— until Wednesday, and they are thus placed at very considerable inconvenience. Even though the Minister for posts and Telegraphs thinks Sligo is a backward place, it is a place which nine trains run into and nine trains run out of every day. But in order to obtain economy the postal service there has become extraordinarily ingenious and intricate.
I congratulate the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs on the economies he has made, but I am not sure that they are really worth while. The economy is not commensurate with the amount of inconvenience that has been caused, for the reason that while sixty-five sub-offices have been closed down and 550 men dismissed, the overhead charges continue on practically the same scale as before. You have to pay the same railway charges, the same amount for conveyance of mails, the same rent for sub-offices, whether you have one mail every three days or three mails every day. The same rent has to be paid, and the same salary has to be paid to those attending, so that a really greater inconvenience in proportion to the expenditure required is caused by this effort to cut down. Take an instance of this. I spoke of the rent of post offices. Sixty-five sub-offices have been shut down. I suppose no rent is paid for them. Nevertheless, the estimate for rent, fittings and so on, is increased from £25,500 to £27,300. Though you have shut down sixty-five sub-offices you still pay more rent for those you retain. The sub-head I have referred to deals, of course, with rent, office fittings, light, and so on.
In the whole proceedings of the Post Office there is, I think, a lack of system and a lack of thorough supervision. I will give an instance of that from the suburbs where I live—Dalkey and Dun Laoghaire. About eight months ago all the plates on which the hours of collection were inscribed were removed from the pillar boxes. They went away and they stayed away. I asked the Minister a question about them here and about a month after I asked the question the plates came back beautifully inscribed in Irish and English, and giving all that one required in the way of information. That was about a month ago. About a week ago they vanished again—for correction, I suppose. Why could not they have been done as they were intended to be done in the first instance? That is the sort of thing that shakes confidence in the Post Office. It makes one feel that there is no settled policy, and that money is being spent needlessly. I presume it cost something to inscribe those plates, in the first instance, and if they all have to be called in, it seems money is being thrown away. Again, it is within the knowledge of Deputies that about eighteen months ago all the pillar boxes in Dublin were painted. They are now being painted again. I do not know if that is to be kept up. If it is, it is going to involve a certain amount of cost, though the Minister may console himself by getting the money out of the Board of Works. I am not so sure about that or about who does the painting, but the ratio of re-painting is rather high, and the average citizen would rather have an extra delivery every day than bright, green pillar boxes every year.
The absence of an evening delivery in Dublin is felt very seriously by some people. I am afraid the Minister will not sympathise with me on this point, because he holds, I think, that one delivery per day is ample for anybody. At the same time, people in the country do feel at a disadvantage when their letters arrive here at 7 o'clock or 7.30 in the evening and are not delivered until the following morning. Their letters are also delivered on the following morning in London. The Minister was very impressive and very eloquent in emphasing that our business people should not be placed at a disadvantage by reason of the post with those in England. But here he is practically encouraging the man in the country, who, perhaps, reads an English newspaper, to send his orders to London rather than to Dublin, because they will reach the merchant as soon in London as they do in Dublin. It is true that the Minister for Finance will prevent the articles being delivered as quickly from London as from Dublin. Dublin has an advantage as far as that is concerned, but so far as the Minister's policy is concerned it favours the English merchant rather than the Dublin merchant.
The Minister referred to one matter on which I would like to have a little more light. He said that the Ministry had gone in for motor vehicles. I do not see that he has gone in for that. I cannot find a word about motor vehicles in the Estimate. The only thing I can see is that the conveyance of mails by road has been reduced by about £7,500. I do not know whether that means that the Minister has gone in for motor vehicles. I was very glad to hear him say that he has done so, because it was exactly what I was going to urge him to do. In a country where the mail service is such that you cannot, as the Minister says, run trains specially, the conveyance of mails by motor, within a radius of fifty miles from Dublin, at any rate, would be more useful and more efficient. Twenty years ago the English Post Office were using motors for the night mail to any place within fifty miles of London. I think such an arrangement would be satisfactory here. Certainly it would be the most satisfactory arrangement for the conveyance of mails from Dublin to Dun Laoghaire.
The present state of affairs is a ludicrous, and even a farcical, one. Do Deputies know what time you have to post a letter in Ballsbridge in order to catch the night mail to England which leaves at 8.45 p.m.? In order to catch that mail you have to post your letter at 3.30. Ballsbridge is about five miles from Dun Laoghaire, and the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs takes five hours to send a letter five miles. Of course, I know it comes to Dublin, is sorted, put into the Dublin bag, and left in a van at Westland Row for an hour. It is not a very efficient or satisfactory achievement. I cannot help thinking that if consideration were given to the matter there would be some improvement. We are in the anomalous position that you can post at Skerries—twenty miles from Dublin —later than you can post in Ballsbridge and catch the English mail. In fact, I believe, unless they have altered the arrangement recently, you can post at Mullingar, fifty miles from Dublin, later than you can post at Ballsbridge and catch the English mail. I think the introduction of a motor delivery service to Dun Laoghaire would obviate this difficulty. You could have the letters sorted at Ballsbridge. A van could call for them, and you could post possibly up to 5 o'clock, as we do on the other side of Dun Laoghaire, where we have a much better service. I do not know if the Minister has ever been to Westland Row at 6.30 in the evening. If so, he would see a most depressing sight. He would see a train shunted into a siding and bag after bag of mails being carried in two hours before the train is due to start. It really is unnecessary. A little real thought and reorganisation would obviate that.
There is only one other point that I wish to refer to, and that is the statement of the Minister that a charge of 6d. on parcels from England had been introduced. He did not know whether it was in operation or not. I believe it is. The introduction of that charge without consulting the Dáil is a breach of faith on the part of the Government. When the Finance Resolutions were being discussed, I pressed the Minister for Finance on that point. He said it was not a matter that would require legislation, but that between himself and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the charge would be introduced. I said: "Will you give a pledge that the Dáil will have an opportunity of discussing and deciding the matter before it is introduced?" He said: "I think I am safe in giving that pledge." It is a breach of faith to introduce it after that pledge being given.
I have not said that this charge, as far as the Post Office Parcels Department is concerned, has been introduced. I said it is in contemplation—that the matter is being referred to the Ministry of Finance, and that in all probability our proposals in this respect will materialise. But I did say that I believed a similar charge operated at the moment in respect of parcels brought in by other means.
I did not say it was a deliberate breach of faith. The Minister for Finance is ill and I do not think the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was here when the pledge was given, and it might easily have been accidental. As a matter of fact, the charge has been collected, and I can give the Minister one instance in which that charge of 6d. has been collected on a parcel from England, if he wishes to have it.
That is the prevailing charge of the Customs Department, the Customs collection of 6d., which has operated since 1st April twelve months.
Then I apologise to the Minister. If that charge of 6d. on English parcels is brought in without being brought before the Dáil, and the Dáil having an opportunity of pronouncing upon it, the Minister for Finance's pledge will not have been fulfilled. I am not sure that it is a sound policy to check any natural channel of commerce. I believe, in the long run, you will do the Irish shopkeeper a good deal of harm, because he has not big enough trade to enable him to stock all that is required, and there are not at present, and there do not seem likely to be big wholesale houses which would stock goods in all branches. Therefore I do not think this policy of checking English parcels posts— while I am delighted the Minister has seen his way to reduce our internal parcels rates—will work well, at any rate for the first two or three years. It will impose a sudden check upon a natural flow of trade and, when sudden checks are imposed on natural flows, the consequence is generally that something bursts somewhere.
Under heading "A2— Metropolitan Offices," I notice a decrease of £17,220 is shown. I should like to know to what extent this decrease is due to the reduction of Sunday work at the Head Office, and what further reductions will result from the total abolition of Sunday duty at that Office. I should also like to know if night mail despatches are made up for England on Sunday nights in Dublin; what is the cost of that service, and if similar facilities on Sunday nights could not be afforded in Irish provincial offices. Under heading "A3— Provincial Offices," I note a decrease of £89,350. I take it that a considerable proportion of this reduction is due to the restriction of the rural deliveries, with the consequent disemployment of auxiliary postmen. Generally speaking, the rural posts have been reduced by half, and for business purposes this restricted service is practically useless. It is quite natural to expect—in view of the present financial stringency—that economies must be practised, but I think that some more equitable arrangement than the present arrangement could have been adopted. Under this arrangement the rural population seem to be the principal sufferers. Not alone have they to suffer as regards the postal service, but also as regards the telegraph delivery service. Special extra delivery fees are being charged in rural districts, which make the telegraph service a luxury. It is a service now that is not within the reach of the ordinary poor people in country districts. I think that is not as it should be. In order to get over the difficulty, I suggest that a common delivery fee should be charged, say twopence on each telegram, and that it should be collected at the office of origin. Such a scheme would not present many difficulties, I take it, from the administrative point of view, and it would tend to remove some of the grievances that the people in the rural districts are labouring under at the present time. It would certainly be more equitable. I would be glad if the Minister would consider the suggestion.
I am not going to let the Minister off as easily as my colleague did. In considering this question, I would ask the Minister, or those responsible for Government policy—I am quite sure the policy of the Post Office can scarcely be the policy of one particular man—to pay some attention to the suggestion that Deputy Wall made, and that is, that all receivers of telegrams within the Free State, if there is going to be a charge, should be charged at a uniform rate. I do not know that any reasonable man can defend the practice that, while telegrams within one mile from a Post Office are delivered free, beyond that distance a charge of one shilling begins. In some cases the charge amounts to 3/6, according to the distance from the Post Office. For what reason is a man outside the charmed circle asked to pay the extra charge as compared with a man who lives within the mile? Is he penalised because of the situation of the Telegraph Office or for some other cause over which he has no control? Is that the form of citizenship and justice that the rural population are to receive at the hands of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs? When the Minister is replying, I hope he will be able to tell us is it the policy of the Government to discriminate between citizens? I will come to the figures that were given by the Minister later on. The Minister omitted to deal with these questions in detail, as the Vote, while it covers a good many pages, is not explanatory.
He has not told us why offices and sub-offices throughout the country were closed. When asked, the Minister told us how many sub-offices had been closed, but he did not tell us why collections have practically ceased in rural areas, and why we have only biweekly or tri-weekly deliveries. If the Minister knew the country he would know that delivery does not mean collection. If a postman is in the habit of going to a particular house and has no delivery, no collection is made there. As a result, the people must find other means for posting their letters.
From many districts in my constituency I have been inundated with complaints about the changes in the postal service. All over the constituency sub-offices have been closed and services curtailed. In almost two-thirds of the constituency people have to post their letters themselves, and have to walk four and five Irish miles to do it. Otherwise they must wait on the chance of getting some passer-by to do so. Still we are told that the citizens are being treated fairly and impartially ! At the present time telegraph services are being carried on at the expense of citizens outside the one-mile radius. I will explain that later on. Citizens who live outside the arbitrary limit fixed by the postal authorities are denied the rights of citizenship. I say that deliberately. The rural population in this country get very little benefit from the services. The one service they have the benefit of is the postal service. Is it the policy of the Government to deny them a satisfactory postal service? We know the facilities and the services that are provided for the towns. They have good postal, telegraph and telephone services. It is true that in proportion to area they contribute more in the way of fees. That does not give them any right whatever to get these facilities at the expense of the rural population. Citizens in the rural areas bore their share last year, and in previous years, of the £1,400,000, or almost one and a half millions, that the postal service cost the country. They are doing that for years. The Minister told us that the loss last year on the Post Office services was £700,000, and he assured us that it would be £600,000 for the next year. As taxpayers the rural citizens have to bear their share of that loss. I would like to know, what is the method by which one citizen is put on a different level from another? It would be as sound a proposal for the citizen to refuse to contribute his share to the National Exchequer as for the Minister or the Government to refuse any citizen his share of the national services. You cannot discriminate. If citizens in the rural districts say, "We will not pay for the services of this State," that would be as logical and reasonable as if the Minister said, "We will not give you your share of the services except at a price which is more than the ordinary citizen pays." We will come to the price later on.
All of us do not live in villages, towns or cities. A good deal of the population of this country lives in rural and scattered areas. Is it the policy of the Government that in order to be entitled to the rights of citizens we must live in towns or communities where the population reaches a certain figure? Is that the suggestion? I would like to know is that the policy of the Government, or is it the policy of the Minister? Not alone have we in the rural areas to pay for our own postal service in the ordinary way, but we have to pay a share of the annual loss on the service. In addition, we are charged up to 3s. 6d. in some cases for the delivery of telegrams. I know citizens who, at a small calculation, pay £5 yearly for the delivery of telegrams alone. I know others who pay from £10 to £15 for the same service. The Minister has spoken about the telephone service and what it will do in the future. If the postal and the telegraph services are any criterion of what the telephone service is going to be, it would be very little advantage to the rural population.
This Estimate looks as if it were Governmental policy on this question. It would appear from it as if the people in this country who have the most in wealth, comfort and luxury are the people who are going to get the most, and that the people who have nothing in the way of wealth, comfort or luxury are going to get nothing, as far as the services provided by the Post Office are concerned. That is the policy of the Post Office summed up in plain English. I am sorry I cannot use plain Irish, but if I could my words would be the same. I understand there are very small savings on this question of rural postmen; that instead of being paid full time they are only paid half time. I would like to know how much is the saving as regards the employment of half-time as against whole-time postmen. I do not think this Estimate will be complete until we have figures to show that.
As I said earlier, the delivery of letters, or rather the lack of delivery of them, is not the only important thing that we complain of. The collection of the letters is of equal, if not of greater, importance. It is no uncommon thing for people to have to send some member of their family on a bicycle four Irish miles into Kilkenny or some other town in order to post a letter. Up to a month ago that system did not obtain. We had a system then, and though it was not very satisfactory, still it was fairly satisfactory, and we were content with it, but the Minister and his Department have changed all that. Only yesterday evening I was told that another sub-Post Office in my district was about to be closed. This closing sub-Post Offices in rural districts is a matter of constant complaint. I want a clear statement of policy from the Government on this question, and I challenge any Deputy in the Dáil representing a rural area, it does not matter whether he comes from the Labour, Farmer, Independent, or any other bench in this House, to support a policy such as that which is now put forward by the Minister. It is up to every Deputy in the House to speak out on this question and to say whether or not he backs the Government policy on that. We can, and ought to have, retrenchments, but unfair and unjust retrenchment, such as this is, and discriminations of this description are something that ought not to be practised or supported by any self-respecting body of citizens. We in the rural areas do not grudge citizens in towns or cities the deliveries they are getting now. They have free delivery of telegrams and all the other facilities that I have referred to, but what we do say is, that they deserve no more than we do. Their wealth enables them to live in Dalkey, Killiney, Seapoint or Monkstown, but that is no reason why they should have better and cheaper facilities than any other citizen in this country.
The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, in the course of his speech, gave us some figures. He told us that a sum of £200,000 was effected in retrenchments this year, and that revenue had been increased by £219,000. Out of that sum of £200,000 I think he said that they had made new arrangements with the railway people, and that portion of that sum effected in retrenchments could be attributed to these arrangements. I would like to know if that is right. There have been other forms of retrenchment, and I am very anxious to know how much money has been saved by the curtailment of the rural postal services. I want the Minister to take a note of that question and to give me an answer to it. I am particularly anxious for an answer to that, because I maintain that the telegraph staff has not been largely reduced. I want to know also how much retrenchment there has been in extras in the telegraph service. I maintain that the extra charges for delivery outside the mile radius has not reduced the staff on that account. I also want to know if the increased revenue referred to will be laid up for the relief of those who are charged for the delivery of telegrams.
I want to prove to the Minister and to the public that almost all this change in last year's balance sheet is due to penalties inflicted on the rural population. As I said earlier, one man —it happened to be myself, so that I can speak from experience, and I am only an ordinary citizen of the country—would be getting off very easily at £10 a year as the delivery of telegrams to him only costs 1/- a telegram. At the present time we know that postmen do not walk all the way with their deliveries. There was a time when they used to, but at present they have different modes of conveyance. They have bicycles, and as regards the cities, we have been told that motor bicycles have been provided. I wonder what has the rural population got out of the introduction of motor bicycles, or even what benefit have they got from the introduction of the ordinary bicycles. How do we compare now with 10 or 12 years ago? The Minister talks about the restoration of a night mail service. What is that service for? Is it for the rural areas, where you get a bi-weekly or a tri-weekly delivery and no collection? Is it for that that this night mail service is to be restored? I want to know what is the difference in wages between a part-time and a whole-time postman in rural areas. The Minister referred to extending the hours as to posting time for cities, and he attributes that to the introduction of a motor service.
I desire to say quite plainly that all the catering in this service is done for the cities and big towns. There is nothing at all done for the rural population. In fact, the only attempt made is to curtail the services in the rural areas, to sack their postmen, curtail their deliveries, and make their collections nil. I, with Deputy Cooper, desire to ask for detailed information with regard to this Vote. I suppose that when the Minister comes to answer my question I will be given the economic reason, that it does not pay to deliver letters or telegrams in rural areas, and that it does not pay to keep sub-post offices in rural areas. We will be told that the Budget must be balanced. If the Budget is to be balanced at the expense of the rural population the Minister and the Government ought to be quite honest and say so plainly. They ought to be quite honest and say: "We do not want to give you the rights of citizenship. All our time is devoted to finding facilities for the cities and towns and providing them with motor services and suitable times for the collection of their letters." Let them talk out and say plainly that the rural population is outside the pale of citizenship in this country. I want them to defend their position clearly, and if there is any Deputy in the House who is prepared to support a policy of that sort, I will be glad to hear him give his reasons for so doing. I repeat what I said earlier, that I challenge any Deputy in any side of the House who represents a rural constituency, to support such a policy.
I was glad to hear the Minister say at the conclusion of his statement that he was satisfied with the manner in which the staff had been carrying out their duties, and to hear him pay a tribute to the staff for what they had done. I think if the Government or his department took steps so as to diminish, or to remove the discontent which is undoubtedly in the Post Office, not, I admit, to the same extent that it existed some five years ago, he would find greater reason for expressing satisfaction with the work of his staff, for undoubtedly there is a considerable amount of discontent amongst the staff. It is due to various causes. I think he will see it is reflected in the statement he makes himself as to the extent to which Post Office servants have retired under the terms of Article X. of the Treaty. I believe that a large proportion of these retirements is due to the fact that there was this element of discontent among the staff, and an element of uncertainty as to their future prospects and treatment. The action of the Government in refusing to accept, and to put into operation, the Douglas Report, is responsible, to a very considerable extent, for this dissatisfaction and discontent amongst the staff. I need not, I think, dwell upon that any further. It was discussed at very great length, and debated at great length in this Dáil on previous occasions.
at this stage took the Chair.
In that Douglas Report there was a unanimous recommendation urging the Department to set up special machinery within the Post Office for the discussion of points of difference between the staff and the administration, for the devising of machinery for the adjustment of those differences. As far as I can learn, that recommendation has not been acted upon. I would be glad if the Minister would say what is his intention with regard to the recommendations of the Douglas Report. Then statements are being made that there has been a certain amount of victimisation of Post Office servants who took part in the strike of 1922. It is not easy to get definite cases of that, but there is one aspect of the case that has been brought to my notice that I think is deserving of the attention of the Minister. It is the case of those who have had their increments stopped on account of that period, and that is a matter I think that should be examined by the Minister.
With the complaints made by Deputy Gorey and Deputy Cooper I am largely in sympathy. I think that the economies which have been effected by the dismissal of rural postmen, and the curtailment of rural services are not worth the inconveniences which have been caused by those so-called economies, but I think the fault is due to the fact that the Department have tried to approach this business of the Post Office from the commercial point of view solely. They look upon the Post Office as a commercial concern, and a concern which they hope to make pay for itself at least. That, as one can judge from the Minister's statement, seems to be their ambition. If that were to be logically carried out they would deliver no letters to the scattered rural areas at all.
They do not.
I mean they would not deliver even once a week there because it would not be a paying proposition. I believe the cost of the Post Office in the rural areas would be greater than the income even if there was only a weekly delivery and that is why I say it is because they are trying to approach this matter from the purely commercial point of view that these inconveniences are caused to the public in the rural areas. I agree with the general principle enunciated by Deputy Gorey that the citizen who contributes equally to the national Exchequer is entitled to equal services from the State. There is, undoubtedly, very great complaint from the rural population regarding this curtailment of service and the dismissal of rural postmen. There is one aspect of this question of the auxiliary postman, as he is called, that deserves consideration. It is unsatisfactory, I think, to have those men employed for half time, or quarter time, and I think that with proper organisation and the introduction of the motor bicycle to the rural areas it could be so arranged that you would have whole-time men employed, and do away with the position of auxiliary postmen or rather with the auxiliary character of their position, and that whole time employment could be found for them.
The Minister referred to the inconvenience to the staff caused by the want of space in Dublin. Undoubtedly, there is very great complaint from the staff on account of the inconvenience which they are put to because of the restriction in space but, I think, that is not a matter for the Minister. I only referred to it to emphasise the point he made as to the necessity for making early provision for proper facilities in the Dublin sorting offices.
Like Deputy Cooper, I would like to draw the Minister's attention to the extraordinary delay there is in the delivery of letters. I would suggest to him that the postmark of the office of delivery should be stamped on each letter clearly and legibly in the same way as in the office of dispatch, so that we could trace the cause of the delay; otherwise there is no use in going to the Minister and saying, "I received a letter on such a date with the postmark of the office of dispatch," say, on the 10th of the month. He will not believe you; whereas if you had the office of delivery postmark on the letter you could find out where the delay was caused. I received a letter on the 16th July, with the Athy postmark of the 14th, and it took two days to get to Newbridge. Do you call that an up-to-date postal service? I say it is disgraceful and a scandal, and the sooner you put a stop to it the better. Another matter is the cheeseparing policy in regard to rural postmen. Does the Minister expect men to work half-time and go pulling blackberries for the remainder of their time? You will not get good, loyal servants to carry out that policy. I would like to call the Minister's attention also to a habit which some rural postmen have. If there is a prominent resident at the end of his walk, he will deliver his letter to him, but will not think of going to a poor lone woman with the letter which perhaps will find another billet. Several complaints have reached me about this practice, and I think a little vigilance should be exercised with regard to this habit of, to put it mildly, misplacing letters. The only way to put a stop to the unreasonable delay in delivery is, as I have said, to have the postmark of the office of delivery on each letter.
I wish to raise a question with regard to the telephone subscribers, whose grievance is that the Post Office furnish their accounts to them only every three months. This necessitates a large amount of money belonging to the subscribers lying on deposit, because the Post Office are in the happy position of demanding from subscribers an amount of at least 33 per cent. of the probable amount due to remain to their credit at all times. If the Post Office would furnish accounts every month instead of every quarter a large amount of the money on deposit would be released. I have no doubt that it would help very considerably in improving the telephone service. I would suggest to the Minister to have the accounts sent out monthly, and subscribers would not then be asked for large sums of money, sometimes up to £50 or £60.
I will give a concrete example to the Minister. A Deputy said that because we live in country districts we are denied the rights of citizenship, but I will give an example where people living in towns are denied such rights. A train leaves Dublin at 7.30 in the morning, carrying mails to the south. It arrives in Ennis at 12.45, and there catches the train leaving for West Clare at one o'clock. There is a town in North-West Clare with one thousand inhabitants, and the mails get there at 2.15. They are then taken from the station to the Post Office, where they arrive at 2.30. It seems strange that these letters should lie there from 2.30 on Monday until 10.30 on Tuesday morning. There is a return train to catch the mail train, and if you get a letter arriving there at 2.30 on a Monday you cannot reply to that until the following day. Five o'clock is the hour of the return mail train. That is a serious state of affairs in a town with one thousand inhabitants. References have been made to the curtailment of the services, and I am in entire agreement with them. I think that the towns are also sufferers by this parsimonious policy. I hope the Minister will try to remedy the present unsatisfactory state of affairs.
There is one matter to which I would again like to draw the Minister's attention. He stated that he thought that one delivery per day was sufficient for rural districts. Some time ago I drew his attention to a case in which letters when delivered are a day old. They leave a particular town before the mail train arrives. Conse quently the letters delivered by the postman are those of a previous day. This entails a serious inconvenience to a large number of people. The Minister was kind enough to say that he would look into the matter and communicate with me later, but I am afraid he has forgotten all about it. I also desire to say that in my opinion it is a serious thing to do away with so many offices, and great inconvenience is being felt in the county which I have the honour to represent by having so many post offices closed. There are some offices which the Minister is willing to open, but he has not yet done so, and I think it is very doubtful economy to have these offices closed. When they were open they gave a large amount of employment, and they should again be opened, especially when unemployment is rampant all over the country.
Deputy O'Connell rebuked the Minister for approaching the question of the Post Office service solely from a commercial point of view. There is one matter in respect to which the Minister has not approached the question of his department in the Estimates he laid before the House from a commercial point of view. In regard to a great many of these Votes it is almost impossible to know exactly what the nature of the Vote laid before the Dáil is until there is such a statement of incomings and outgoings as will enable each of the separate items of the Vote to be tested in regard to their proportion to the whole. Particularly is that true of the Post Office. I think it would be truer of the Post Office because of the greater element of a commercial nature which it has over any other department. To expect the Dáil to be able to examine the working of the department simply because of estimates based on the forthcoming year as compared with the past year without knowing what proportion this Vote and the items in this Vote bear to the total expenditure of the department, is to ask the Dáil to do a thing that is impossible. Strictly, I would like to see that principle extended. I agree entirely that the citizen is entitled to a certain service, and from that point of view, the purely commercial consideration cannot weigh. I agree with that, but there is one point of the commercial procedure, one point of business expectation, that ought to be observed, and that is that departments of this kind, coming before the Dáil and asking its approval of its expenditure for the forthcoming year ought to lay before this Dáil what would be equivalent to a company's balance sheet. We have no such sheets at all. We get items in respect of salaries, wages, and allowances coming to more than one and a half millions. In order that we might be able to discover whether those wages, salaries and allowances are a proper proportion, it is necessary that we should know what the turnover of this concern was for the twelve months. Then any business man might be able to sit down and work out for himself a fair percentage proportion of the cost of working a department in relation to the turnover of that department, looking at it purely from the point of view of a business concern. That we have not got. I only take that particular item now as an example. I do not choose it as the most unfavourable example, though perhaps it is.
We are told, in regard to salaries, wages and allowances, that there is a decrease of £113,674. That means nothing. Strictly, it means nothing whatever, because the proportion of the turnover of the Department might be so very much less that that decrease might not mean what it appears to mean as set out in this exact fashion. There is one particular reason why the form of estimate for which I am asking, and which I hope will be given in the case of the Post Office in the future, and of certain other spending Departments, appears desirable when one considers the big question of policy the Post Office has to deal with. I refer to the rates to be charged for letters and parcels. I stated a year ago, when the Post Office estimates were before the Dáil, that I believed a reduction in the letter rate from twopence to 1½d. would mean no falling off in actual revenue. That may or may not be the case. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs might say that is not true, we would not get the revenue. I might say the contrary. We each would be guessing, and there would be no sure test. But, if we had the kind of estimate I am asking for, and if the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in regard to one particular item did as he forecasted to-day he would do with regard to the item of parcels, and we had next year the income of that Department as compared with the previous year, we would know exactly whether the reduction in the rate of carrying parcels meant more parcels were being carried. Similarly with regard to circulars, we would know that exactly, if we had the income of each Department set out in different heads with the outgoings in separate heads. Until the items in the Department are set out in that way we will not have a complete return.
The Minister states that he desires to regard the Department as primarily a commercial concern. There are other matters that follow from that. I desire to touch upon one or two of those quite briefly. One is in regard to the alleged saving that is made in country districts because of a curtailment of the service. We do not know exactly what the result is. We know what the result is from the point of view of finance. Every Deputy who has in his constituency any part of a country district must be constantly receiving letters, complaining under this head, and this head alone. If we can get the turnover of the Department stated fully before us, we would be then able to see what I venture we might even guess at fairly accurately now, that is, that the saving itself is little and the percentage of saving with regard to turnover is negligible, and certainly negligible in regard to the considerable amount of inconvenience and irritation it is creating. One also gets, in County Dublin particularly, many strong and bitter complaints with regard to both collections and delivery.
Deputy Cooper referred to delivery of the mails in the suburbs of Dublin. He might equally have referred to the delivery of mails elsewhere. There are many business men whose business letters are often sent to their homes, and who do not get them for the purpose of dealing with them until after he has left for the city. It is becoming more and more the case that letters sent over from England and up from the country are delivered later in the morning than used to be the case. That is creating great inconvenience. The Minister may reply with a great show of reason, that it is impossible in the present state of the national finances to have all those niceties of efficiency that are required. I say that although those economies may be desirable, apart altogether from the inconvenience they are causing, we would be able to see the true nature of them, if we got a kind of a balance-sheet here, together with the Estimates, such as many Departments should lay before the Dáil, and which I urge this Department should lay before the Dáil. To a certain extent, we had this last year when the Minister put a White Paper before the Dáil dealing with the details of his Department. This year we have not had that, and we should have a fuller and more complete statement instead of a less full and less complete statement.
I do not know what the Minister thinks about the proposition to submit a business balance-sheet in regard to the Post Office service. No doubt he will in due course—perhaps has done already in regard to the previous year—provide somewhere, hidden away, perhaps laid on the table, and forgotten, statements showing the revenue from the postal service proper, and the telegraph service proper, and from the telephone service, but if he accedes to the request to endeavour to present a balance-sheet, I hope it will not be expected of the Deputies to assume that this balance-sheet does represent, actually and precisely, the position of the various departments. I do not think we will be able to learn exactly how the particular Department stands. These are phrases that were used by the Deputy when claiming that a balance-sheet should be presented. I defy anybody to regulate exactly and precisely how much of the time of country post offices is devoted to the postal service as distinct from the telephone and telegraph service. Where you have the great majority of the country post offices with the same persons doing all the various classes of work, it is not possible to keep a record of the time occupied by the people in this particular service in supplying twopenny stamps, or in answering telephone messages or in receiving telegrams. I suggest that the costing method is impossible.
It is done every day in business.
It is not done every day in business. You cannot go into a grocer's shop and say how much time was occupied in handling out a pound of fruit and how much time in handing out bacon. It is not done in mixed departments of that kind, and I say that if you try to estimate the time spent and the cost of allocating to the postal side as against allocating to the telegraph side, you may have a cost, but it will be a cost that will not be precise and accurate, and will, therefore, be useless for any purpose of comparison. I want to draw attention to the principle which has been advocated by Deputy Gorey, and which in general I subscribe to, that is to say that this is a social service, a service of communications and, speaking generally, all the citizens should have equal access to that service of communications. But I wonder whether Deputy Gorey or any other Deputy is prepared to apply that principle to its logical conclusion. It is a principle that, I think, should, as far as possible, be applied, but I suggest that we have to consider whether the fullest application of that principle would not involve too great a cost upon the whole community. We supply main roads for main traffic, but we do not supply an equally good road up every mountain side to every house. Why? Because there is not the traffic, and because it would be an impossible, unprofitable, and uneconomic proposition from the social standpoint. But they are all equally entitled to it, if it is due to any, on the principle of equality of service. I think that it is a question as to what line we are going to draw. Undoubtedly, on the standpoint of social equality of the service we should have a telephone line up every mountain side where there is a house.
I did not suggest that at all.
No. I know you did not suggest it, I know you have more common sense than to suggest it. But if you are going to maintain that principle fully it has to be done. Therefore, it is a question as to where we should draw the line as to the amount that is to be given, and, therefore, I say there is the difficulty the Postmaster-General will find himself in in arguing with the Minister for Finance. Inasmuch as we have habituated the country to this social service in regard to postal delivery, and to a very great extent in regard to the telegraph service. I say that we should not retrogress, and deprive the citizens of the service they have had in the past, and that that is a line that should be drawn. The line that should be drawn is a line that was already fixed as a social advance, and we should not go back on the line of advance we have already reached.
I should think that the Minister would press and insist upon that position, and that he should come to the Dáil for its backing against the Minister for Finance, if necessary, to maintain the line we have reached in regard to such social service as letter deliveries and telegraph services. Do not let us recede from the position that we had already achieved. There is surely going to be further advances in respect of communications. Let us consider the question as to the rapidity or extension of these new developments, but let us at least maintain the advance which we have reached. The Minister has been challenged to say what the saving has been. I do not know whether he will be able to give it, but roughly judging by the figures he has given as to the amounts saved, at least the reduction of loss as between 1922-23, 1923-24, 1924-25, and the amounts of saving in other respects, I suggest that his saving on curtailed deliveries is not more than £100,000. Is it as much as that? I further say that a saving of £300,000 is dearly bought at the expense of the community in these social services. You cannot run the Post Office, you cannot run this business of communications and distribution of messages, as a commercial proposition throughout the country, so that you have to face a loss, and charge that loss against the communal interest. And I say that in a scattered community, though it is no doubt a fact that we are losing the advantages of the crowded community which we have cut ourselves off from deliberately, and knowing what was to be the cost in these matters, we should not retreat in this matter of social advancement. We ought to bear the cost of these rural services, and I think that the mind of the Ministry should not be directed towards cutting down the benefits of services of this kind, but rather how to supply these services by new methods equally efficient. The motor method of service should be applied, and I think could be applied, to save a lot of the drudgery of the postal service in rural districts, and will give very nearly, if not absolutely, as good convenience to the public as was hitherto given. I think that the complaint that is made with regard to the charge for telegraph delivery outside a mile is a well-grounded complaint, and the new charge is utterly indefensible. The old charge beyond the three-mile limit was bad enough, but this new proposition that you are going to charge beyond the mile practically says that you must warn all your correspondents never to telegraph. I would strongly urge upon the Minister that he should alter that regulation. I think it is a scandalous imposition, and could not be justified by any commercial, certainly not by any social, test whatever.
The criticism of this Estimate has fallen under two main heads, and the chief criticism is that directed against retrenchment. Now, it is no pleasant duty for a man at the head of a Department to be compelled to face all kinds of criticisms because of what he has done in pursuit of what he considers a duty. It would, undoubtedly, be more popular and be an easier course simply to leave matters stand as they are, to swim with the tide. I should like to remind the Dáil, however, that this is the only commercial undertaking within the State, run by the State. And the public have not been slow to make comparisons. A few years ago, when this service was losing heavily, the public and the Press, and even members of the Dáil, took frequent occasion to remind us that the loss was due to the fact that this service was run by the State, that, in fact, were it not run by the State the loss would not have existed.
That is tommy-rot.
Of course it is. But the fact is that it was being worked home and it was being swallowed and it was being brought up in every argument, inside and outside. Now, you cannot blow hot and cold. You cannot give all these luxurious and, to my mind, unnecessary services without their being paid for. That is obvious. You cannot have a big, burly postman trotting up a mountainside, morning after morning, paid 30s. or £2 a week, with perhaps a few halfpenny circulars in his pouch, and show anything like a reasonable balance. Yet that is the case. Members here would be astonished to see the very small and mediocre character of this correspondence—some of the correspondence that strong able men are engaged in carrying.
Is it any different from the Dalkey standard of correspondence?
It is very different, I think. It should be remembered, with regard to the Dalkey standard, that you have there, and in all the suburbs of cities and towns, a good deal of commercial correspondence. People living in the suburbs very frequently get their commercial communications addressed to their suburban homes, and the kind of correspondence which is delivered there differs very materially from the kind of correspondence that one gets in a countryside.
I want to know, when the Minister is explaining, is he the judge of what is to be inside a letter, if there is a stamp placed on it? What further interest has he in the nature of the correspondence once there is a stamp on it?
One would imagine that when we are making certain reductions in rural deliveries that we are bringing about a state of affairs that never existed before. We all know very well that, until very recent times there were few or no rural deliveries. This rural delivery is a very recent development; and when we are seeking to curtail these deliveries in certain quarters, we are not striking out on any new policy. The British, after they had spread their wings very far, proceeded to curtail, and were actually cutting down rural services before this State took over. If we have expedited matters in the interval, it is because we felt that, in common with every other department of the service, we were bound to retrench there. We cut down second deliveries in the towns; in some cases we cut down two out of three deliveries. So that the townspeople have also suffered. We have also penalised the townspeople in common with the rural population; and I do not think we have unduly discriminated against the latter. The saving in the rural post through this retrenchment has amounted in the past year to £46,000. That is a consideration, a very important consideration, in the total saving. In addition, we have saved the sum of £69,000 by the reintroduction of the charges for the delivery of telegrams. Up to eight or nine years ago, this same charge, or, at least, a charge per mile, was imposed for the delivery of telegrams. At that time it was abolished for some reason or other, but when we introduce it again it is nothing new to the public.
Would the Minister say beyond one mile?
Beyond one mile.
How long since?
It may be over three miles. You may be right—a three-miles' limit. At any rate, we have modified it to one mile. But the same principle obtains; and I suppose if it is right to charge for beyond the three-miles' limit, it is equally right to charge a proportionately reduced fee beyond the one-mile limit.
Why not charge for a yard?
Order, order.
There must necessarily be a limit. We could not—nor would the country permit us—continue to bear the heavy loss that was being experienced in the Post Office, nor would it have been good policy from the standpoint of actual service to the public to have continued that loss. We contemplate at the moment extending the telephones. Does anybody here suppose that it would have been possible to get a considerable sum of money for that extension had the service been losing so heavily as it had been previously? It is because we were able to show a very effective saving that the Minister for Finance agreed to experiment with pretty large sums in the way of this extension. That is only one point. All the other innovations referred to have been made possible by the fact that we have shown a far-reaching saving in the service. This justified us in asking to be permitted to strike out in a new channel. We have no intention of finally depriving the rural people of postal services. As a matter of fact, we hope that in the very near future it will be possible to give a better service than ever they got before. It may be possible to introduce the system obtaining in a few other countries, whereby a single motor cyclist could cover the work of, say, half-a-dozen men and give a daily service. That is a thing of the future. It is a scheme we have given careful thought to, but we cannot introduce it at the moment without disemploying men. It is the obvious way of tackling this rural problem; having pillar boxes every mile or two of the road for the letters of that district, and having these letters delivered every morning and the letters collected every evening by a mounted postman. There is nothing new in that idea, but we have to take our time, and we do not wish, as I say, to disemploy more people. That is all I have got to say as far as retrenchment is concerned. It has been suggested or urged by more than one speaker that in a case of this kind a balance sheet should be produced. We have not had to wait until now to see that this is necessary, that it is the obvious thing to do in a commercial undertaking, but it has never been done before. It was never done in the British time. At the same time, I feel such a balance sheet should be produced and circulated. I do not say that you can do it at the production of the Estimates, that it might be done at this particular time, but that it should be done at some time in the year, and the same principle as applied to an ordinary commercial undertaking is reasonable to expect, as far as we are concerned; I do not see any difficulty in having it done.
I believe that we can, for instance, circulate to the Dáil in the course of three or four months, a balance-sheet showing the working of the services during the year ending 31st March last. It takes a long time to make up the accounts of a service of this kind, for the reason that you have got foreign accounts, but I do not see any reason why the Dáil should not be placed in possession of such a balance-sheet, and except there are difficulties which I do not foresee at the moment, that will be done.
Does the Minister realise that that would mean a valuing of stores and charges for depreciation, and would it be worth the cost of making it up?
I do not think that the skeleton balance-sheet which has hitherto been produced in England, only a skeleton balance-sheet for the information of the service itself, contained these particulars, and, in fact, I think it would be impossible to give all these details. I think the balance-sheet must confine itself to profit and loss, revenue and expenditure. I am sure the Dáil would accept that as being a fair effort at the information. Some Deputies criticised, or attempted to criticise, our deliveries and collections, and set them forth in the light of a disimprovement. I refer to the collection and deliveries here in Dublin. As a matter of fact, it is the other way around. Our collections here for outgoing mails are very much better from the point of view of time than they have been since pre-war days, and in certain parts of the city they are even better than they were in pre-war days. Collections here in the centre of the town, for instance, for outgoing mails, are much better than ever they have been hitherto. As far as deliveries go, these deliveries have been fixed in consultation with the Chamber of Commerce and with the people mainly concerned, and they are perfectly satisfied. We have had no complaint from them. Deputy Cooper wants to know why the sum set aside to meet losses through destruction and pilferage are less this year than they were in the previous year. That is because the condition of the country has improved and there is more safety Deputy O'Connell has urged that the increments stopped because of the period of the strike should be readjusted. That is a matter for Finance rather than for my Department.
Is the Minister prepared to recommend it to the Department of Finance?
I think the Deputy should address his query to the Minister for Finance.
Is the Minister prepared to make that recommendation to the Minister for Finance?
I am not prepared to answer that question at the moment. There is nothing else that I have to add. I think I have dealt with every point.
Are we not in Committee, and are we not entitled to speak three times?
Yes, but Deputy Gorey has spoken for twenty minutes already.
I know that, but I have ten more minutes according to the rules of the Dáil. Is not that right?
This is a sub-head.
You can bring it in under a sub-head, and we will get through more quickly.
I do not mind not getting through quickly at all. That does not concern me very much. Am I entitled to speak?
The Deputy is entitled to speak, but of course we took it that all Deputies had finished before the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs got up to speak.
Allow me to put this aspect of the procedure before you. The Minister can reply three times. It is within his right also, and except you are going to curtail our rights I am entitled to speak, and so is the Minister to reply.
You are entitled to speak for ten minutes.
The Minister told us that the amount of money recovered for this extra charge for delivery is £69,000. Is the Minister able to stand over that figure——
He is.
That this £69,000 is the amount that has been collected by reason of this charge for delivery? We want to be very clear on that, because I am not prepared to accept it, except I see the accounts in black and white. The Minister's speech, to my mind, was the most disappointing speech I have heard for a long time, and from the method of its delivery he gave me at least to understand that the policy in connection with this Vote is his policy, and not the policy of the Government. I want to be quite clear on that. I want to know whether this is the Minister's policy, or the policy of the Executive Council, or does the Executive Council support the Minister's policy. I think I never heard a more retrograde, a weaker, and a more unsubstantiated statement in my life. Economy is running through the whole of it, regardless of how the Minister gets results from that economy. Method and justice did not seem to enter into his calculations from one end of his speech to the other. He referred to the services in the rural areas as "these luxurious and unnecessary services." I wonder is the Minister in his right mind and responsible for some of his statements when he speaks of luxurious and unnecessary services—that a bi-weekly or a tri-weekly service to a considerable number of the population is luxurious and unnecessary. Perhaps the delivery of telegrams also is luxurious and unnecessary, and the payment of this £69,000 that the Minister admits receiving is not luxurious and unnecessary. It tells us that it is only recently we got a service in rural areas; that only recently was there a telegraph service up to the three miles limit. I fancy I remember as long as the Minister, and I do not know what his interpretation of the word "recent" is. I know that the three miles limit was in existence 30 years ago. I wonder what the Minister will call "recent." I wonder if he is referring to the time of the last Tailteann Games.
Perhaps we could understand him if we took a period like that. I could understand him saying that we have advanced a little since then. He also said that if we have suffered in the rural areas people in the towns and cities have also suffered. He has curtailed them also. He has cut them down from three to two, and he calls that suffering also! The citizens of Foxrock and around that charming aristocratic neighbourhood are not a bit better citizens than the citizens of the mountains and rural areas, and they do not deserve a better service, either in justice or from any other standpoint. They are not better citizens than the rest of the country, and whether they are or not we all deserve the same service. I would like the Minister to say we do not, and to justify his assertion. I do not accept the £69,000 as being the amount only that has been recovered from the delivery of telegrams. It may be true or it may not, but I want to see the figures, and I want to see them audited. The Minister tells us that this motor service could do the work of half a dozen men. I am satisfied to have the Post Office experiment in this motor service in the hope that it will bring us some kind of delivery in the rural areas. Perhaps the work of the half dozen men who have been sacked could be restored to the community, and a good many of the speeches in connection with this Vote seem to be because of the people who have been disemployed, or the people who have been put on half-time. I think that is a very small attitude on which to approach this matter. I approach it from a different aspect. I approach it from the point of view of the people who have been deprived of State services, services they are entitiled to. The Minister's whole speech was based on discrimination, based on his right of discriminating between the rural and the urban population.
I want to make the Minister a plain proposition. According to him the citizens outside of the mile radius have not the right to be put on the same level as the citizens inside it. But if you look at the geography of the country you will see the number of people who live outside the mile radius of the post offices, and if you try to make a calculation of the amount that these citizens contribute to the national Exchequer, contribute to the million deficit on the service last year, what would the proportion of that be of the whole? Perhaps the Minister would give us that with the big staff at his disposal, and I think that it will be found that the amount we in the outside areas are contributing to the upkeep of this service would provide a service of our own, without the assistance of the Minister and his staff. I offer it here as my convinced opinion, that this £69,000 is money robbed from the citizens. I am not prepared to accept this Vote except the Minister agrees to suggest that a Commission be set up to inquire into the manner in which this service should be run. Except he is prepared to do it now, I will move that this Vote be referred back for reconsideration.
Sub-heads A, A1, A2, A3, and A4 ——
What are you putting to a vote? I am objecting to the total Vote. I did not think we were discussing sub-heads; I thought we were on the main question.
We have not a copy of the amendment that you propose.
I will get you a copy. Is the Minister not prepared to reply? Is not what I have said worth replying to?
I do not know if I have anything fresh to add, except that the whole losses on the Post Office services are incurred through rural deliveries, and in addition, we have spent on these deliveries the cumulative profits of the cities and towns. For instance, last year the Post Office in Dublin netted a sum of £75,000. All the cities, except Limerick, and a great many of the larger towns, produced a nett profit, and all that profit, in addition to the deficit to which I have referred, has been spent on maintaining a rural service. I think that is a sufficient answer. As for the sum of £69,000, there is no doubt whatever about it. That figure was given here some time ago. That is the saving effected through the introduction of this collection on the delivery of telegrams.
The saving effected or the moneys recovered?
The moneys recovered.
Then how can you put it down as a saving?
As far as retrenchment is concerned we have practically come to the end of the cutting down of rural posts and the closing of suboffices. Very few more of these will materialise, and when one considers that we have almost two thousand suboffices and that 65 are closed I think there is not a great deal of room for grumbling. Undoubtedly, many of these offices were being paid for doing practically nothing. They were superfluous and should have been abolished long ago.
resumed the Chair.
I suggest that sub-head A provides sufficient material for discussion in itself, and that it should be taken now. There is one particular matter under sub-head A2 that I could talk for two hours on.
The Deputy cannot talk for two hours on anything.
I think we have discussed all these sub-heads already. There is no use in our going over the same ground again.
I for one have not discussed one sub-head nor any particular matter contained in them.
The Chairman did say something about discussing sub-head E.
We were not discussing the sub-heads at all.
I was quoting what the Leas-Cheann Comhairle said.
It seems to me there is no difficulty in this matter. I was invited to take sub-head A. I could not take anything else. There is no difficulty in going on with that sub-head now.
I move a reduction in sub-head A of £100.
For what purpose?
To draw attention to the amount of money spent on the Metropolitan Offices as compared with the Provincial Offices. I see here just a half million of money. That represents the cost of the Metropolitan Offices, and I see that there is not quite a million for the rest of the offices in the Saorstát. I wish to know does that mean the Metropolitan area that is covered by the Corporation, or does it embrace the townships or do the townships go with the provincial offices? That is a matter that is vitally important in dealing with this Vote. On this question of the Metropolitan Offices, I can see in some streets in the city here that I am acquainted with two offices within 100 to 150 yards of each other. The Minister has justified his methods of economy in the rural districts because of the unnecessary and luxurious tastes of the people. But here in the city we have offices within a few hundred yards of each other. I want to know if the Minister considers this state of things unnecessary and luxurious, and if not why he does not? Is there a necessity for two offices in Baggot Street? Is that what the Minister means by economy?
Anyone looking at the figures here has material for thought. They amount to just a half a million. I think there is here a fruitful field for economy that the Minister might devote his attention to. He need not be chasing after a few odd thousands in the rural areas and depriving the rural population of the postal and telegraph facilities they had. He could, here in the city, without doing an injustice to anyone, accomplish a great economy. Surely, the Minister will not consider it a hardship and an inconvenience that people living at Baggot Street Bridge to come down here and post their letters. They would suffer no extra charge for delivery. Surely, the Minister does not consider 200 yards too great a distance for those citizens to come and post their letters, and transact any business they may have to do at the Post Office. The Minister says he wants economy. Why does he not begin here? There are other streets in the city where there are two Post Offices also. The Minister should explain why it is necessary to have these two offices within a few hundred yards of each other, and what injustice it would be to the population here if they had to walk two or three hundred yards for their postal facilities. I will not delay the Dáil further as I am anxious to hear the Minister's reply.
Perhaps the Minister would move to report progress.
Reductions have been effected in the Metropolitan area, and more are being effected. A number of sub-offices have been closed here.
And re-opened.
Others are being closed. There is no difference in the policy pursued in the Metropolitan area, and any other area in the State.
I move to report progress.
I would rather hear the Minister moving to report progress as he is in charge of the Vote.
I move to report progress.
