I move:—
That a sum, not exceeding £1,911,345, be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1945, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (45 and 46 Vict., c. 74; 8 Edw. 7, c. 48; 1 and 2 Geo. 5, c. 26; the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1928; No. 14 of 1940 (secs. 30 and 31); No. 14 of 1942 (sec. 23; etc.); and of certain other Services administered by that Office.
The estimated Post Office expenditure for the year 1944-45 amounts to a total of £2,928,345 representing a net increase of £115,890 on the provision for 1943-44. The gross increase amounts to £147,453, of which approximately £70,000 is due to additional emergency bonus. The balance is made up chiefly as follows:—Sub-heads A (1) to A (4)—Salaries, etc.—Increase, £59,410. The increase is due to normal incremental increases; to the cost of new work which will fall on the Post Office in connection with the Children's Allowances Scheme and widows' and orphans' additional allowances; extra staff provision to meet general increase in telephone traffic, telegraph money order traffic, food and fuel voucher business, etc.; substitution of officers on loan and on military service; etc., etc.
Sub-head E (5)—Conveyance of Mails by Air—Increase, £5,430. This is to meet payments to other administrations of outstanding ordinary air mail accounts for previous years and in respect of the airgraph service, which was introduced in 1943. Sub-head G (1)—Non-engineering Stores—Increase, £8,245. This is due mainly to increased prices of mechanical transport stores and gas-producer plants and to greater provision in respect of the purchase of mail bags and cycles consequent on delay in deliveries by contractors during the current financial year. Sub-head G (3)—Manufacture of Stamps, etc.— Increase, £2,050. Mainly provision for cost of watermarked paper for children's allowance orders.
Sub-head M—Telephone Capital Repayments—Increase, £3,798. This represents repayments in respect of annuities created under the Telephone Capital Acts, which authorise the Minister for Finance to borrow moneys for the development of the telephone service. The amount to be provided each year is advised by the Minister for Finance. Sub-head N (1)—Superannuation Allowances—Increase, £2,615. Due to anticipated increase in the number of retirements.
Sub-head N (3)—Agency Payments in respect of Compensation Allowances— Increase, £4,000. The provision under this sub-head is in respect of payments made on behalf of the British Administration to officers who retired from the Post Office service prior to 1st March, 1929, under the Treaty of the 6th December, 1921. The retiring allowances in these cases were fixed without an overriding maximum in regard to cost-of-living bonus, and the British Administration repays the difference between the bonus figure at the time of retirement and any higher figure which may subsequently become operative. The amounts paid are recovered from the British Administration and brought to credit under Appropriation-in-Aid (T. 12) Sub-head Q (2)—Civil Aviation and Meteorological Services—Increase, £6,775. This represents the cost of additional equipment for the Shannon Airport.
Against the gross increase of £147,453, there are off-setting savings, totalling approximately £31,563, due to reduction in the contract remuneration for the conveyance of letter mails; to increased relief from telephone capital funds; reduced provision for the purchase of engineering materials owing to supply difficulties and to abnormal provision in 1943-44 for replacement of plant, etc., destroyed in the factory fire; smaller provision for Savings Bank losses; and to increased receipts under Appropriations-in-Aid, etc., etc.—making the net increase in expenditure, as already stated, £115,890.
Before dealing with the general activities of the Department it is customary to give the Dáil some information as to the financial position—on a commercial basis—of the three main services—postal, telegraph and telephone. When, in November last, I presented the Estimate for the current financial year, I indicated that, at the end of 1941-42 (the last year for which commercial accounts were at the time available) there was a net surplus of £156,058 on the three services, i.e., a surplus of £91,466 on the postal service; a surplus of £180,165 on the telephones; and a deficit of £115,573 on the telegraphs. At the end of the financial year 1942-43, this net surplus had increased to £190,929, at which figure it approximately still stands. The main profit comes from the telephone service, due to the remarkable growth of traffic, especially trunk traffic, the surplus of revenue over expenditure on the telephones being at present about £245,000.
True revenue, that is, actual cash receipts for the financial year just ended, is estimated at £2,600,000, an increase of £158,000 on the actual revenue for the previous year. The recent suspension of the cross-Channel telephone service and the serious restrictions of train and mail services which are about to become operative will, I fear, have markedly adverse effects upon revenue in the coming year if they continue for any material length of time. No useful estimate of the reduction is, of course, possible at this stage.
So far as internal mails are concerned, the further and extremely drastic restrictions of train services which, through the difficulties of the coal situation, are to be introduced on the Great Southern system on the 24th instant, will involve, I regret to say, a material deterioration. Every effort will, of course, be made to minimise public inconvenience in relation to the transmission and delivery of correspondence as far as possible, but the situation is one over which the Post Office has little effective control owing to the difficulties of the transport services generally.
The new mail arrangements are at present being worked out and I am unable, at the moment, to give precise information as to the services which will be operative at any particular office. But, taking the principal sections of the Great Southern system, I understand that two services are likely to be available for mail purposes in each direction, each day, on the Dublin-Cork main line; one service a day, each way, on the Limerick-Waterford section; the same on the Mallow-Tralee section. On the southern branch lines generally, and on the eastern and western sections, it is hoped to convey mails by goods trains on four days a week and by passenger trains on two days although, by reason of over-lapping, this may not necessarily mean a service on each of the six days. The details of the services and the possibilities are still under discussion with the company and I am not yet in a position to say to what extent, if at all, it will be possible to have mails conveyed by road transport on days when no train services will be available. The House may, however, rest assured that everything that can be possibly done will be done to give the public the utmost facilities that the situation permits and also to keep such staff reductions as may be involved within the narrowest possible limits.
The cross-Channel services are also being seriously curtailed as from the 24th instant. The morning service from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead will run on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays only and the evening service from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only. The precise mail arrangements which will be operative have not yet been arranged with the British Administration, but it is hoped that, by the employment both of the passenger services from and to Dun Laoghaire and the cargo services from and to the North Wall, a mail service in each direction every day may be practicable.
The position as regards foreign mails remains substantially the same as last year, with the exception of the Vatican State and Northern Italy; communications with these are temporarily interrupted. All foreign mails are, of course, liable to interruption and serious delay.
The airgraph service, introduced 12 months ago for communication with Commonwealth countries, has proved extremely popular. The number of airgraphs despatched now amounts to about 1,000 a day and the traffic is growing. The facility has naturally had an effect on the volume of ordinary air mail traffic for Commonwealth destinations which shows a decrease.
The inland cash-on-delivery service continues to be reasonably well supported. The traffic in 1943 amounted to 12,809 parcels on which trade charges amounting to £30,939 were collected.
The expansion of the internal telephone service continues, influenced, no doubt, in material degree by emergency conditions. As I have remarked on a previous occasion, every additional limitation of ordinary public facilities seems to react immediately on the telephones. Local calls during 1943 numbered approximately 40,000,000, an increase of 1,725,000 on the figures for the previous year, while trunk calls numbered 5,940,000, an increase of 440,000. In comparison with the figures for 1938, the year before the war, the present local and trunk traffic represents a growth of 30 per cent. and 70 per cent. respectively.
Under normal conditions, a material growth in traffic, especially trunk traffic, would be catered for by ample provision of additional circuits. Owing, however, to the existing impossibility of procuring further supplies of line construction stores and exchange equipment, it is not practicable to make provision in full for current trunk requirements. We have done our best, but there are many places throughout the country where we would be glad to provide extra circuit accommodation if the necessary plant were forthcoming—even though we might have doubts whether the traffic would continue at its present level when emergency conditions had come to an end. Taking all factors into account, however, and considering the very difficult conditions under which telephone business is at present being transacted, I think I am entitled to claim that the service generally is reasonably good and that, except on long distance routes at peak traffic hours, delay is not excessive.
So far as trunk calls from Dublin are concerned, the recent opening of the new trunk exchange in Exchequer Street has resulted in a considerable improvement in service. The speed of answering from "O" (trunks) and "31" (inquiries) has dropped to an average of about four seconds. Further, it is now generally practicable, except on the busiest routes at peak periods, to connect the caller to the number called without his having to leave his telephone. Judging by the many expressions of appreciation we have received, I think that the great improvement which has resulted from the opening of the Exchequer Street exchange is generally recognised. But it must, of course, be understood that, even with expeditious answering from "O", delay on trunk calls from Dublin is, from time to time, unavoidable owing to heavy point-to-point traffic in various parts of the country.
The telephone service between Ireland and Great Britain was, as Deputies are aware, suspended by the British Administration on and from the 6th instant. The suspension is, no doubt, a very serious inconvenience to business people but the matter is one over which my Department has no control. I am, however, glad to say that by an adjustment of the leave and training arrangements it has been found possible to provide useful work for all existing telephonists in Dublin and, so far as can be seen at present, the number, if any, of temporary and part-time telephonists likely to be disemployed during the next few months will be very small.
Practically the whole of the material used by the engineering branch in its activities is manufactured outside Ireland and, in normal times, was imported not only from Great Britain but also from other countries in Europe and from the United States. The possibility of importing such materials no longer exists and considerable effort has been necessary to maintain satisfactorily the services for which the engineering branch is responsible and to provide such additional facilities as are absolutely essential while, at the same time, ensuring that the volume of work is kept up as far as possible so that disemployment of staff may be avoided. These ends have been attained by getting the utmost possible life out of all spare and recovered materials, expending on their reconditioning money in excess of what would be justified if normal sources of supply were still available. The difficulties in providing for growth of services are becoming more serious each year but, so far as the coming year is concerned, there is every hope of being able to carry on satisfactorily and to keep all our full time regular staff fully employed.
I take the opportunity here of again referring to an allegation which is sometimes made against the Department of want of foresight in relation to the provision of reserve stocks. This charge is wholly without foundation. The fact is that, as far back as 1938, when the European situation showed signs of disturbance, we purchased reserve stocks to the value of £100,000. At the outbreak of the emergency we had actually a reserve of three years supply—quite a reasonable provision at the time, as I think will readily be agreed. But the emergency brought its immediate telephone problems and the huge network of communications that had to be arranged for the Defence services, on a scale that could not possibly have been anticipated by the Post Office, ate rapidly into the reserve. Supplementary stocks, up to the limits obtainable, were subsequently secured, but they had to be drawn upon to meet the requirements of abnormal emergency traffic, with the result that stocks generally are now running out and there is at the moment no prospect of replenishment. The fact, however, that we have been able to keep going for over four and a half years under conditions or extreme difficulty, catering adequately both for Defence and for general public needs, disproves, I submit, that there was any remissness or want of foresight on the part of my Department in regard to the laying in of adequate supplies. There is, of course, a financial limit to the possible amount of supplies that can be laid in against an indefinite contingency.
I move to report progress.