Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 8 Jul 1938

Vol. 72 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Vote 59—Railway Tribunal.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move:

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £1,923 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1939, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí eile an Bhínse Bhóthair Iarainn (Uimh. 29 de 1924 agus Uimh. 8 agus Uimh. 9 de 1933).

That a sum not exceeding £1,923 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, 1939, for the Salaries and other Expenses of the Railway Tribunal (No. 29 of 1924 and No. 8 and No. 9 of 1933).

This Vote calls for no comment.

Mr. Linehan

So far as the Minister is concerned, this Vote may call for no comment but, at the risk of being entirely out of order, I should like to ask the Minister whether the position will ever be reached when the railway situation will be looked upon in a proper light from the point of view of the people who may be regarded as "lost soldiers." There is a tribunal to fix passenger rates and freight rates. There is another body which fixes the rates of wages but there does not appear to be any body to take an interest in the people who are really the owners of the railways. While rates of freight and rates of wages are being fixed, the unfortunate people who have their money invested in the railways are being squeezed out. I do not know whether I am advocating legislation or not.

An Ceann Comhairle

That matter does not arise on this Vote. The Deputy might have raised the question yesterday, as one of policy, on the Minister's Vote.

Mr. Lemass

I do not want to press that point because there was some desire to finish the Estimate yesterday and the Deputy might not, on that account, have availed of the opportunity to raise the matter. The only question, however, that arises on this Vote is whether or not I have paid the salaries prescribed.

Mr. Linehan

I merely take the opportunity of saying that soon the position will have to be gone into. A number of people are interested who could not be regarded as ordinary shareholders. I refer to those people who were trustees for orphans and to old ladies and gentlemen who had money invested in the railways which they regarded as excellent security. These people were depending on the income from their investment which was an excellent one 20 or 30 years ago. By legislation and various other circumstances, they have lost their income from that source. They are as much entitled to compensation as a lot of the people who shriek about what happened to them in respect of the railways during the last 15 or 16 years.

Mr. Lemass

I do not agree with that. Any action taken by the State in relation to the railways has been designed to assist them and increase their earning capacity. The fact must be faced that very large sums of money which were invested in railways in this country have been lost. Railways which were built had to be abandoned. The capital which went into these railways and which earned money for a time has been lost. It would be a big burden upon the economic life of the country if we were to try to make the remaining railway system carry not merely obligation to pay interest on the capital invested in that system but interest on the capital invested in railway lines that had to be abandoned and which, as the Deputy is aware, were established originally by separate companies from the Great Southern Railways Company which now survives. All these small railway systems throughout the country were forcibly amalgamated by legislation in 1924, and arrangements were made at that time for enabling the amalgamated company to carry the loss which it was anticipated it would incur through the operation of these systems. That arrangement involved the payment by the State of a substantial sum of money to the amalgamated company for a number of years, but at the end of that time, these railways are still being run at a loss and the policy is to abandon them wherever that is the case, particularly where adequate road services can be substituted for them.

General Mulcahy

Does the Minister think that there is a possibility of the Railway Tribunal's job being made easier and more successful in the future? There are some very definite things sticking out of the present situation. The railways find themselves in such difficulties that at present, if the Minister or any of his friends are travelling third class from the West of Ireland, particularly in the latter part of the year, they will find that although they pay their full fare, they will have to stand, because the position of the railways is such that they are saving in every possible way, and one of the ways is to keep some of the rolling stock off the lines. The Minister will find that, week after week, passengers travelling from the West of Ireland, after reaching Mullingar, have to stand for the rest of the journey, simply because the tendency of the railway receipts as shown by the Minister's figures is to go down and down. The average weekly railway receipts in 1931 were £95,750, they were lower in 1934 and 1935, and in 1936 they had decreased to £85,050. Last year they were still further down, being £84,225, and so far as the figures are available for the first three months of this year, they are still further down. The railways have been put in as favourable a position as possible. Rates of all kinds for the last couple of years have been increased. There is a regular vicious circle, but the tendency is for the receipts to go down and down.

They have been put in the favourable position, too, of controlling all the road traffic, and of being enabled to squeeze traffic on to the railways which would otherwise desire to travel by road. We have the position as shown by the figures that, while the number of passengers tended to rise during the last few years, back to 1934, the tendency for the number of miles run by the buses is to decrease, so that apparently in the road services there is a skimping of the running facilities provided, while the number of passengers increases. If the Minister takes up the attitude that there are certain of the railways existing at present that will be found to be uneconomic and are going to be cleared away, the sooner we have a review of that situation the better, but the economic position generally as disclosed by the position of the railways, as one of the factors in our economic situation, is very bad. There is a steady decrease in railway receipts; there is inconvenience to people travelling; and there is a steady rise in railway rates, whether for passengers or carriage of goods.

Mr. Lemass

I think the Deputy will jump to wrong conclusions if he studies the figures relating to railways only. The essential idea behind the 1933 legislation was that road and rail transport should be put under joint management, and operated as part of a single system. Consequently, any attempt now to estimate the position of the company itself, or the trend of events in transport, by studying the figures relating to the railways only will be misleading. The whole service must be studied and the position of the service, which is a combined road and rail service, taken into account.

I am not pretending that the railway company is not facing certain difficulties. That is undoubtedly the case, and nobody will say that the transport facilities which they are able to provide are adequate or fully satisfactory because that is not so. The circumstances are such, however, that an improvement of these facilities by the company is a matter of great difficulty but improvements are being made — gradually, it is true, and not nearly as rapidly as we should like to see, but nevertheless of not inconsiderable dimensions. The expansion of the road services operated by the company accounts in large measure for variations in the utilisation of our rail services. The closing of branch lines and the transfer of the business from these lines to road services, and similar changes, have all operated to affect the figures relating to the rail services only, and, of course, only figures relating to rail services are published in these official returns. The company is not making a profit in the sense that it has been able up to the present to pay a dividend on the ordinary shares, but nevertheless there is accruing to it from these road services a return which must be taken into account when calculating the financial result of its operations.

However, it is undoubtedly the case that there are many problems to be solved in connection with our public transport. There are a number of branch lines which will, I think, inevitably go and be suostituted by road services as soon as it is possible to provide these road services, and there will have to be a further offort to secure effective co-ordination between road and rail services so as to provide in each part of the country that type of transport facility which the circumstances of that part of the country make most suitable. That was the idea behind the 1933 legislation. That idea has not been fully implemented, because difficulties have arisen in the operation of the legislation and because some people have discovered means of avoiding its provisions; but if we succeed in making that idea effective, I think we shall have done everything possible to provide this country with the best transport services which its general circumstances will make possible.

Mr. Dillon

Might I put two considerations to the Minister?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may ask a question, remembering that the Minister was called on to conclude.

Mr. Dillon

I want to put just this to the Minister. The Minister speaks casually of the probability of the winding up of branch lines. Will he keep in mind this fact: although it may be made out on paper that an adequate road service can be substituted for a branch line, the effect of closing a branch line leading to a country town is virtually to kill the trade of that country town?

Mr. Lemass

Not necessarily.

Mr. Dillon

Let me make my submission to the Minister.

Mr. Lemass

Nobody will close a branch line which is making a profit, but what is going to happen to the line which is not making a profit? Who is going to make good the loss?

Mr. Dillon

I want this to be present to the Minister's mind: If a branch line to a country town is closed, it means that the facilities for carrying live stock become disreputable in the eyes of dealers. They have the idea that loading live stock on to a lorry, carting it a certain distance, unloading it and reloading it on to the main line truck so exhausts and disturbs the live stock that the town becomes disreputable as a centre for a fair. They simply boycott the town and concentrate all their attention on the main line towns. That is something that should be borne in mind by the Minister when he is excogitating the problem of the branch lines. I do not know whether it has ever been brought home to him that there is no use trying to help the railway companies until the railway companies face this simple fact, that their sundry traffic rates are archaic, out of date, and out of touch with modern conditions. There is no use fixing rates for sundry traffic on an economic basis according to the railway company's calculation, if my lorry is standing idle in my yard, because I can send that lorry down to Sligo and bring back two tons of sundries for which the railway company would charge, according to scale rates, £3 or £4. I can send my lorry round the town of Sligo, to the quays and to the establishments of various wholesale merchants, and take these goods back to my place for an out-of-pocket expense of 10/-. That is the real problem.

Mr. Lemass

That is really what the Railway Tribunal is for. This is the first relevant point raised in the discussion.

Mr. Dillon

What I feel is that the Minister, in implementing his railway legislation, has lost sight of the fact that though you may restrict road competition a great deal, there does come a point when you cannot stop a man from using his own lorry for transporting what are genuinely and honestly his own goods. So long as scale costs are applied to sundry traffic that must go on. That is one of the difficulties that have got to be faced. This is neither the time nor the place to go into detail on that matter, but that is the kind of traffic that has been growing immensely for the last two or three years. You probably must have a lorry for your business in any case. It is probably standing idle in the yard between jobs, and you see that you may save £3 or £4 by bringing some distance a load of sundry traffic for which the railway company would charge the scale rates. Until the railway company provide a competitive service, which I believe they can, by quoting you lower rates for sundry traffic, that is a problem that is going to be more acute with the passage of years. It is going to induce people, who do not at present use lorries, to purchase lorries. There are many people who simply keep a horse and cart to cart goods from the station, but if they see that, in addition to having that work carried out by a lorry, they can also use the lorry to take sundry traffic over longer journeys and thereby save considerable sums, they will get rid of the horse and cart and purchase a lorry. Therefore, if you are going to tackle that problem you should tackle it now before a large additional number of people are persuaded to buy lorries in order to save overhead costs.

General Mulcahy

I should like to ask the Minister a question regarding the financial condition of the railways which, I think, is relevant to the Vote. The average weekly receipts of the railway companies fell by about £1,000 last year as against the year before. Do I understand from the Minister that what was lost on the railway side would probably be made up from income on the road services? I should also like to ask him, if it is thought desirable to publish the average weekly railway receipts, in the form in which they are now published in the Irish Trade Journal, whether the figures from earnings on road traffic in so far as it is carried by the railway companies, are available, and why they are not published so that we could get a complete picture of the financial condition of the railway companies?

Mr. Lemass

There is a certain statutory obligation to publish statistics relating to railways. These figures, which were of real significance when the railways were the sole means of traffic, are becoming of much less significance nowadays. The point I want to make is that a decline in the volume of goods passing over the railways or in the number of passengers carried, does not necessarily mean a decline in the total quantity of goods or passengers transported because, in fact, there has been growing up beside the railways this entirely new form of transportation, growing with exceeding rapidity. In fact, there has been a diminution in rail services due to the closing of branch lines. If the Deputy wants to draw any conclusions concerning economic conditions from the statistics relating to railway transport, he has got to associate these statistics with whatever statistics are available relating to road transport services as well. The accounts of the Great Southern Railways Company will of course show their gross earnings from all sources and their net revenue for the year which is available for the payment of dividends.

General Mulcahy

Surely the Minister will admit that if it was important, at a time when the railways were prosperous and paid their dividends regularly, that we should have systematic and regular information with regard to their income, it is no less important now that we should have such information at a time when they are becoming a nightmare to the shareholders and a nightmare to some of the districts they are serving which are afraid that they are going to lose these services?

Vote put and agreed to.