When I moved the adjournment of the debate on this Bill on Wednesday evening, I was dealing with certain features of it which, with your permission, I want to recapitulate.
Transport Bill, 1944—Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time"—(Minister for Industry and Commerce).
Debate resumed on the following amendment:—
"To delete all words after the word `That' and to substitute the following: `the Dáil refuses to give a Second Reading to the Transport Bill, 1944, pending the receipt by the Oireachtas of the report from the tribunal established to inquire into dealings in stocks and shares of the Great Southern Railways Company.' "—(Deputy T. F. O'Higgins and Deputy P. McGilligan).
Mr. Larkin
The Deputy may not recapitulate at length.
Mr. Larkin
There are just a few points that I would like to deal with briefly for the benefit of members who were not present the last day.
The presence or absence of Deputies does not affect the matter.
Mr. Larkin
I am not going to repeat myself, but I want to bring out certain points. The first is to suggest that the Bill is mistitled; the second is that, in another place an investigation is taking place which may change the whole outlook of the House and opinion throughout the country on this Bill, and that may compel a readjustment of the situation; thirdly, that this railway company has, on the submission of the Minister himself, proved its incapacity to carry on such an undertaking; fourthly, that the House is being asked to vote the considerable sum of £13,500,000 to be handed over to people for property for which, according to the Minister himself, there is no collateral; fifthly, that the company itself is in such a state of disquietude as well as being in a condition of bankruptcy almost that it would be unfair if not, to use a stronger word, dishonest, to tender £13,500,000 for a property that in certain quarters was valued at from £4,500,000 to £7,000,000. I am very generous in saying £7,000,000, because it has been stated that the property is not worth £4,500,000 as a going concern. This railway company has no goodwill to sell except the needs of the community. Furthermore, I suggest that these statements made publicly, as well as the atmosphere outside of this House, should convey to the Minister— he seemed to have a feeling of uncertainty within himself in the halting submission which he made to the House—and should convince the back-benchers in his Party, that this is a serious matter which requires further consideration.
I put some questions to the Minister when speaking on Wednesday which he failed to answer. I know that, with his usual courtesy, he will answer them when closing the debate. I put it to him, again, that this is a Bill born out of time; it is an abortion, born of mismanagement and fathered by cupidity. To that extent it is a measure that is going to affect the back-benchers opposite, in their relations with their constituents, in a very serious way. Their constituents are being denied the services to which they are entitled. The back-benchers in the Minister's Party ought to consider their position. If the Minister takes off the Whip, I feel sure that 90 per cent. of the membership of the House will vote for delaying this measure. If the Whip is not taken off, then, naturally, the back-benchers will respond to it.
I submit to the members of the Government Party, who represent the citizens of Dublin, that they cannot be a party to this merger because if so they will either have to lie here or lie in another place where they are carrying on in an administrative capacity. It is quite clear, in connection with this merger which takes in the Dublin Transport Company, that there is something to be explained. My submission to the House is that the Dublin Transport Company has nothing to sell. The Corporation of Dublin and its citizens, represented by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and elected councillors have. The corporation would not hesitate, if it were in the interests of the country even to forego their financial rights, founded on the security of the rates, and accommodate themselves to the needs of a national service of transportation, but what is clear from this Bill is that the Dublin United Transport Company is confiscating and presuming to sell something that it has no legal right to sell. It has no legal right to negotiate with any body outside the Corporation of Dublin. It has a life extension, under agreement, in this property up to 1966, but the company has violated every term and condition in that agreement. They never kept one of the conditions of the agreement. They did temporarily open up the Lucan line and they did temporarily supply electrical energy in the immediate area of the power station controlled by them: but they closed those two activities down, denying the public of Dublin the rights set down in the agreement. I hold that those two rights alone, having been evaded by the company, made that agreement null and void in law. It was the duty of the citizens of Dublin, through their elected representatives, to take into their own charge the use of the streets of the city.
This merger goes further than that. It provides that whatever way-leave rents were payable are to be matters of treatment before an arbitrator. The Minister specifically repeated that this question of arbitration as to the rights of the citizens of Dublin applies only to trams, yet in the 1925 Act the Corporation of Dublin is entitled to carry on omnibus services. That seems to have been forgotten.
There are two pertinent issues which I wish to bring before the House, without taking more than my share of the time. These two fundamental issues affect the workers in this country. In this Bill, officers and servants are segregated. The high officials, officers, who may be found redundant are compensated and there is no question of any difficulty about that. When it comes to the workers, the servants, however, if they go out of the service within six months after the merger, they will be entitled to consideration only if they are found redundant for certain reasons.
An amendment to the 1924 Act was drafted for the purpose of evading responsibilities to the servants of the railway companies. After many hundreds of men—close on 2,000—had got compensation, the balance of the men suing before the courts failed, through no fault of their own, because the law was subject to delays, there not being sufficent judges available to carry on every day and deal with those cases as they should have been dealt with—immediately on the discharge of the men. In that particular Act, there was a clause, which is inserted in this Bill. Deputies might turn to Section 41, where they will find it, as follows:—
"Every person who was, on the 1st day of January, 1944,
—so the Minister was sure this Bill would come into law by the 1st January, 1944, though this is a legislative Chamber, where every matter has to be discussed and where, after certain points of view have been talked over and considered, that matter may be made law, under certain procedure—
"...an officer or servant of any dissolved company
—and in this case there are two dissolved companies, the Great Southern Railways Company and the Dublin United Transport Company—
"shall, if his office or situation is abolished before the 1st day of January, 1945, directly and solely as the result of the amalgamation effected by this Part of that dissolved company and the other dissolved company and not
—mark this, he or she is entitled to compensation if in the service at that date and found redundant—
not—
"caused by decrease of traffic,
—I submit there will be a decrease of traffic as a certain number of branch lines have already been abolished by the dictator, with the approval of the Minister—
"reduction of renewal or maintenance work,
—in other words, the promise that these lines will be restored appears to be doubtful and, if the maintenance work is not of the same volume as previous to that particular date, he or she is disqualified from compensation—
"alteration in methods of working —the Minister himself suggested, and the House has considered, that there may be different methods of working, and that has always been visualised—
"closing of railway lines or other economic cause..."
What happened when the men were making application on the latter stage of the 1924 Act? The economy committee, which consisted of non-nationals, came in on oath and stated that, in the opinion of that committee and the company, it was to the economic interests of the company that these men should be dismissed. Ergo, they lost their rights to compensation. I would like to tell the aftermath of that in four different cases—suicide in one case, sudden death outside Trinity College in another——
The Deputy is now repeating himself verbatim.
Mr. Larkin
Under this Section 41 of the Bill, the men and women who may be found redundant may be dismissed without compensation. I think I would get strong legal support in making that submission. There is another matter which seems to have been overlooked. Though the Grand Canal Company is not being taken over, what do we find here? The Minister does not take over the canal services, but he takes power to decide—on the advice or without the advice of an advisory committee— that the rates charged by the Grand Canal Company may have a certain effect on the earning power of the new combine and, if he is of opinion, even without any expert advice, that the Grand Canal Company is not charging rates commensurate with the services rendered or is otherwise competing unfairly with the combine, he has power to compel the Grand Canal Company to reduce or increase the rates. I am not a defender of private enterprise, but I suggest to those interested in that particular form of activity that this is nothing but confiscation. It is perfectly right and proper for a State-controlled organisation to arrange terms of service and the rates they are to charge for them, but are they to be allowed to enter the premises and management of another concern and decide they will make those people—whether they like it or not—carry goods in such a way as not to be in competition with the State-financed concern? I do not know whether the Grand Canal Company has been informed of that or not. Even yet, if the ordinary laws operate in this country, they may have power to ask a question about that, since it means taking away certain rights and properties which they possess as a statutory company.
If the Minister had gone a step further and said: "We are going to take over the transportation system of this country," I for one would be with him. I am quite sure that the majority of this House is of opinion as Deputies have stated on all sides of the House that this problem can only be settled by public control and public ownership of the service. I believe the Minister would get a majority for that but he would only get it when it was carefully surveyed and certain well-considered plans had been prepared, after a certain price was paid for the properties now existing and after the investigation has come to a close and a considered verdict been rendered.
Even if the Minister gets the Second Reading of this Bill, all these Schedules and clauses will be debated and considered. I am quite sure the Minister, where there is unfair treatment of individuals, or even private companies, or contradictions in the measure, will correct them. A sop has been thrown out to private owners of lorries and road vehicles throughout the country who have been stopped by the fiat of the Minister and denied the right to carry on their business, for various reasons, including that of competing unfairly with the Great Southern Railways. Even if the Minister has approached this question by recognising in a limited way the right of these private owners to operate, after this merger he will qualify his permission by only allowing them to operate in limited areas with the limitation of the present permission of 15 miles outside certain areas. In the case of Dundalk he goes further, because there our authority does not extend beyond the three-mile limit near the Border. In conclusion, I am going to make a request—and I submit it to my three colleagues here—I ask them to live up to the declarations which they have voiced, that the property of the citizens of Dublin is being filched from them, is being confiscated. That means that we have got to increase the rates on the city, that every man and woman in the city will have to pay more for houses, and that business men will carry further responsibility. I do not think any of us in the city council would consider it fair that the way-leaves should be met by the corporation, because we have repeated again and again our claim that the streets of the City of Dublin are owned by the citizens. Of course, there is overriding authority of the national Government, but no national Government would take from a municipal, urban or rural council the rights which are inherent in its jurisdiction. These three representatives have always done their duty, and I suggest that they should do their duty in this crisis. There is another court of appeal, and I would ask the men of the West to consider the position, no matter what their political affiliations. In 1934, the service on the Midland Great Western Railway was cut by 50 per cent., and lines torn up, and the railway from Dublin to Galway singled. The Minister comes in here and admits that that was wrong, and that it may have to be corrected. What are you going to say to your constituents in regard to this matter? It was stated in this morning's papers that fish have had to be thrown into the sea, either because they had gone bad by bad handling, or because there was no service to bring them to where they could be sold. Then, with regard to the extreme south, everybody knows that the counties of Kerry and south-west Cork are not getting service. They are getting less now than they were getting. When you have done the long, painful passage to Waterford, you would think that Waterford was outside the State altogether. It is a long, wearisome drag that should have been cut by an hour or an hour and a half years ago. All these things, I suggest, are matters which you have to answer for to your constituents.
I will conclude by saying that although I do not know the mind of this House, I suggest to the Minister that the introduction of this Bill is ill-timed. There is no feeling of antagonism on the part of the critics. The only criticism we have offered is that it is a bad bargain and financially unsound as presented to the House, and there might have been delay. There is no reason why there should not have been delay in introducing the Bill because there is no urgency in regard to it. The urgency is just to mend this old crock and keep her going for a time until we get a clear, well-planned, well-considered scheme. Then bring in your scheme and I feel sure, as we have undertaken to do throughout this session, your submissions to the House will be considered fairly. In every submission you have made to the House on the Estimates, you have got comfort and support from the House. In this case I ask you to consider the claims of the people of the country and not to submit to the dictation of the Stock Exchange and the speculators. Before I finish I want to mention one or two things that happened to other workers. A gentleman who was some years ago in a transport company was asked to give up his position. Four years before they could have compelled him to resign. For that he got adequate compensation. He got a bonus in addition, to shut his mouth. In regard to the schemes for the betterment of the workers, I want to point out that in the case of this scheme for a particular form of insurance over 200 insurance collectors will lose their positions. I am quite sure these men are going to become articulate. But the money that used to go to them is now going into one particular office in which one of the heads of this alleged company is now a partner. The most offensive thing in the Bill that I can see is the section which gives power to this company to subscribe to charitable objects. I do not know whether that means the advisory board and that these gentlemen are going to get charity or whether the dictator-chairman is going to consider what he gets to be charity or the gentleman who is supposed to be the managerial expert and who is not known to the outside public. Why a public utility concern should take upon itself to become a charitable organisation I fail to understand. One of the most peculiar and amazing things in the Bill is that a person entering a clerical capacity must know Irish, oral and written but, strange to relate, what applies to the office-boy or other clerical officer is not enforced against the gentlemen with salaries, the advisory committee and the manager nor the imported gentleman, the two non-nationals. They are not compelled to know Irish. That only applies to the boy who pays attention to his studies and tries to get in by a close examination. I think it is fine that it is essential that he know Irish, but I would carry the thing a stage further. I say that every officer in the service, after a certain number of years, ought to know Irish.
The stations will be named in Irish. What a lot of foolish people we are! If your salary is over £500 a year you do not need to know Irish; if you do, it is only for the purpose of passing into the job. If it is a case of a man getting £2,500 a year, he can learn Sanskrit or any other language; he must know English. I was surprised that this Scottish gentleman did not know more than——
There is no proposal about a gentleman from Scotland or England in this Bill.
Mr. Larkin
With all due respect, if you bring a non-national in here to run the railways to suit his own purposes—a man with no railway experience whatever—it is a very strange proceeding. However, I shall have an opportunity later on of referring to that matter.
Mr. Lynch
The Minister, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, paid a tribute to the members of the tribunal who sat to inquire into public transport in this country and reported in 1939. I agree that it is a very useful and informative report, and that it contains, for the most part, very sound recommendations for dealing with the problem. But while the Minister paid a tribute to the members of the tribunal, the Bill, as introduced, pays them very small compliment, because, as a matter of fact, the Bill entirely spurns their recommendations.
The main principle of this Bill, the backbone of the Bill, is the merger between the Great Southern Railways Company and the Dublin United Transport Company. All the rest is, to a certain extent, padding, though necessary padding. There is not the slightest hint in the report or in the recommendations of the tribunal with regard to that merger. They have not made any such recommendation what ever. The recommendations of the tribunal are under various headings with regard to the different types of public transport. The report deals with the Great Southern Railways under one heading, and with the Dublin United Transport Company under another.
With regard to the Great Southern Railways Company, Deputies will see the recommendations starting in paragraph 170 of the report, page 82. Paragraph 170 starts off by setting out what the company has said about its difficulty in getting capital in order to carry on its business and it makes certain suggestions with regard to being allowed to borrow a further £2,000,000, setting out that that should be under a Government guarantee. There is some suggestion of that kind —that the Government should give a guarantee. The recommendation of the tribunal is at the end of page 82. This is what it says:—
"We have examined the question of direct investment by the Government in either debenture stock, preference stock, or ordinary stock and we are of opinion that direct investment is not the most desirable method of providing the company with the assistance it requires. Instead, we recommend that the borrowing powers of the company should be increased and that the Government should fully guarantee the repayment of the principal and the payment of the interest in connection with an issue, in such manner as the company considers most advisable, of a further £1,250,000 debenture stock..."
At 4 per cent. — a "draft" proposal.
Mr. Lynch
The paragraph proceeds:—
"...bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 4 per cent. Per annum and ranking pari passu with the existing debenture stock of the company.”
That is the recommendation of the tribunal, committing the country and the Government—the taxpayer—to £1,250,000 annually. And they did it with considerable hesitation. They refused to accept what the company said they would require—a little over £2,000,000—and they thought they were going quite far and were being very generous in putting forward a recommendation that the Government should guarantee £1,250,000. In paragraph 171 they say:—
"The adoption of the recommendations which we have made so far would impose upon the Government not only heavy financial obligations, but the responsibility for the imposition of additional duties on forms of transport other than those made available by statutory transport organisations."
They thought £1,250,000 was a heavy financial obligation. I wonder what they think of the suggestion to provide £16,000,000? They go on to say:—
"We consider we would not be justified in making such recommendations without reasonable assurance that the methods of administration of the company during the next five years would result in maximum advantage being obtained therefrom, and that an opportunity would thereby be afforded of measuring the commercial possibilities of the company and at the same time of formulating a more enduring policy in regard to public transport as a whole than is now possible."
Then they go on to make a recommendation to deal with the government of the company over a period of five years. They say:—
"We recommend that for a period of five years, instead of the business of the company being carried on by seven part-time directors, operating through a general manager, the board should consist of three directors, two of whom would act in a part-time capacity and would be elected by the shareholders, while the remaining director, who would be chairman, would act in a whole-time capacity and would be nominated by the Government."
Not one word of dictatorship; not one word that the chairman nominated by the Government should be the complete controller. They suggest two directors nominated or elected by the shareholders and presumably, because there is nothing said to the contrary, these two shareholders would have an equal voice with the chairman in the policy of running the railway. There is a further suggestion about controllers who are not members of the board, and the qualifications they should have are set out.
In paragraph 172 they speak of a national transport council. It is only when you come to paragraph 175 that they actually make a recommendation. They say:—
"To exercise such wide functions we recommend the establishment of a national transport council consisting of a small number of persons with special qualifications to deal with the complex economic, statistical, financial and general matters to be entrusted to their care."
The Bill does not provide any such council, but a council is given some duties. The last sentence in paragraph 172 is one the House should take to heart.
"In particular it is of great importance that a clear and dispassionate appreciation of the factors affecting the success or failure of the Great Southern Railways Company under the new conditions should be available before any final conclusions are reached as to its future commercial possibilities."
The suggestion there is that the transport council should be supervising the working of the railways under the new system of a chairman nominated by the Government, with two directors and two controllers watching it over a period of five years, and that a full report arising out of the inquiries they had made and the working which took place during that period should be available before any final conclusions were reached; in other words, before a Bill would be brought into this House and enacted. That is almost entirely the recommendation with regard to the Great Southern Railways.
Paragraph 173 goes on to deal with hauliers' licences. Paragraph 174 emphasises the supervision that there should be over this £1,250,000 that the State was to put up. It says:—
"The Government guarantee in respect of a sum not exceeding £1,250,000 for capital purposes should be utilised only after every precaution had been taken to ensure its productivity, and the council would advise the Minister as to the extent to which it was desirable that the guarantee should be made available. It would also fall within the scope of the activities of the council to have regard to the wider aspects of transport and to give consideration to such matters as the cost and condition of the roads carrying the bulk of the motor transport of the country and the incidence of taxation imposed for the building and upkeep of such roads."
That is a matter of very great importance to every local authority. That is the recommendation of the Transport Tribunal for dealing with the position of the Great Southern Railways.
They make recommendations also with regard to the Dublin Transport Company which start at paragraph 254. The Dublin Transport Company had suggested that they required to borrow a further £800,000 which should be repaid with the existing debenture stock of £300,000 over a period of ten years. This did not commend itself to the tribunal, because they felt, and I think very rightly and sensibly, that in order to repay that sum of £1,100,000 over a period of ten years, such fares would have to be charged by the Transport Company as would be unfair to the public. They saw no reason why that £1,100,000 should be repaid over such a short period. Instead, in the last sentence in paragraph 254, they say:
"We consider that the necessary capital should be raised by means of an issue of long-dated debenture stock, the company being empowered at any time after the expiration of, say, 15 years from the date of issue, to take advantage of the possibility of redeeming the stock by an issue of further stock at a cheaper rate."
That is the principal recommendation made by the tribunal with regard to the Dublin Transport Company. Paragraph 255 is of minor importance. Paragraph 256 refers to complaints made by the Dublin Transport Company with regard to competition by the railway companies in transport within the city, that is with regard to the running of buses for mystery tours, etc., and the recommendation in that respect was this:
"We recommend that the competitive passenger traffic between the Tramway Company and the railway companies should be the subject of a `pooling' arrangement. Such a pool would prevent wasteful and uneconomic competition, and would, therefore, be in the interests both of the general public and the companies concerned."
That is the nearest thing to anything in the nature of a merger. As to the suggestion for pooling, I suggest that if there was that competition still going on—probably there is not during the war years—there would be an excellent opportunity for arranging that pooling as between the Great Southern Railways and the Transport Company, at any rate. Since the managing director of the Dublin Transport Company has become chairman and practically dictator of the Great Southern Railways no difficulty can arise there now. These are recommendations which commit the State to nothing more than a guarantee of £1,250,000 to the Great Southern Railways. The tribunal made no suggestion that the debenture stock issued by the Dublin Transport Company should be under a Government guarantee and the total commitment the State would incur under the report of the tribunal was a contingent one of £1,250,000.
The proposal in the Bill is that the State should undertake the enormous liability of perhaps putting up the debenture dividends on a sum of £16,000,000. That that is a very serious matter we can gather from the statement by the Minister for Finance when introducing the Budget the other day, at the end of page 38 of his typed statement, he says with regard to this guarantee:
"The giving of this guarantee, which has become necessary for the protection and development of an essential undertaking, is one of the most important single financial transactions that has taken place in the history of the State. No Minister for Finance can assume without misgiving such a heavy liability—however contingent it may be and however hopeful he is of the prospects of rail and road transport in this country. In the present circumstances, when the impact of emergency conditions on transport is more severe than ever, and may, indeed, grow worse, no Minister in my place can be free from anxiety that the Exchequer may be in the shadow of coming obligations arising from this guarantee ... That is a possibility which must not be forgotten in any preview of public expenditure during the financial years that lie immediately ahead."
These are very serious words in connection with this guarantee of £16,000,000. I suggest to the House that they also should show anxiety with regard to committing the country to this contingent expenditure. Towards the end of that page the Minister says:
"If the full amount of guaranteed debenture stock authorised by the new Bill, viz., £16,000,000, is issued by the company, it will represent an increase of 44 per cent. in the total contingent liabilities of the State. Both absolutely and relatively this transaction is obviously one of outstanding importance."
In view of the fact that there is no such recommendation made by this tribunal who investigated the question of public transport, I think this House should not agree to the State undertaking that liability without further inquiry. The Transport Tribunal only recommended that the State should commit itself to a liability of £1,250,000. The Minister admitted that they had investigated the matter fully and he praised their report and paid tribute to them for the thoroughness with which they went into their work. The most they recommended that the country should be committed to was a sum of £1,250,000. Here, out of the blue, comes a proposal that the State should commit itself to a sum of £16,000,000 which, as the Minister for Finance points out, would mean an increase of 44 per cent. in the contingent liabilities of the State, and I assume that that means, in simple words, in the public debt of the State.
Deputy Larkin and other Deputies referred, very rightly, to the provision in the Bill dealing with officers and servants. For that provision alone, I think the Bill should be rejected unless there is some assurance from the Minister that it will be amended in Committee. The proposal is that if any officer of the company loses his employment after a period of six months has elapsed he may go without compensation, because that is, in essence, what it means. Deputy McGilligan referred to the Railways (Existing Officers and Servants) Act, 1926, which provided that the railway company, to avoid paying compensation, had to show that an officer or servant had not been dismissed as a result of the amalgamation of the railway companies during a period of seven years. I think that was the effect of it. Deputy McGilligan pointed out that he had discovered that the seven-years period was too short and that in fact there should be no period in relation to a matter of the kind. In other words, if a man loses his employment as a result of any piece of legislation we pass, no limit should be put to the period during which he would be entitled to compensation for dismissal.
It stands to reason. Why should there be a limit? If, when ten years have gone by, it is found that, entirely as a result of this Act—not because of any economies and not because of any alteration in the services—a man is dismissed, why should he, because that period of years has passed, be deprived of the right to compensation? We ought to cut out the period altogether but, at any rate, we should not be less generous than the 1926 Act which Deputy McGilligan, who introduced it, has since found was not fair to the officers and servants, or at least to one of them whose case came to his notice. We have a new departure here also, in that for the first time we find chapters appearing in a Bill. I do not think we have seen it in any of the enactments which have gone through this House.
The next section in the chapter, Chapter 42, deals with the inauguration of a superannuation scheme. It is a scheme which is to apply apparently to the new company. Section 43 refers to the existing superannuation funds of dissolved companies. I am given to understand that this is causing very considerable anxiety amongst railway officers who are members of the fund referred to in Section 43 (4), that is, the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund. The governing body of that fund, I understand, is called the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund Corporation, and I do not know how the Minister is to work Section 43, if he carries out the proposal in Section 42. I am entirely a child in these matters, but the officers concerned are very anxious about it, because they believe that, in the light of Section 42, it is not possible to carry out the assurances purported to be given in Section 43.
They say that the corporation dealing with this clearing system superannuation fund is a body of the general managers of all the railways, both in Great Britain and Ireland, which are parties to the scheme, and of the representatives of the staffs. It is established and conducted under statutory conditions laid down by the United Kingdom Parliament. They say that the funds are entirely controlled in England and that, in the case of the death of any member here, probate has to be taken out in England in so far as what that member is entitled to from the fund is concerned. They also say that no railway is admitted to this fund, unless the whole staff of the railway become members. If what they say as to the cardinal principle in respect of the admission of a company—that all its salaried staff must be entered— is correct, it is not possible to have Section 42, unless it is in addition to continuation as a member of the fund, and I think the Minister should see that it is very carefully looked into before Committee Stage.
On whatever date this Bill becomes law, the Great Southern Railways will cease to exist. The company will become a dissolved company and the members going over to the new company will possibly find themselves in the position that their rights are gone. The Minister shakes his head, but——
That is fully provided for in the Bill.
Mr. Lynch
If they are right in saying that the cardinal principle for admission of a company is that all its salaried staff must be entered, then it is not fully provided for, because obviously Section 42 intends to institute here a superannuation fund for the members of Coras Iompair Eireann.
For the employees of a company who have no superannuation rights at all at the moment.
Mr. Lynch
The members of the salaried staffs now and in the future will continue to be members of the railway clearing system superannuation fund. Is that the position?
The position will be continued so far as this new company is concerned, when established. What the future will be is another question altogether, but that is a matter for discussion and arrangement.
Mr. Lynch
I do not know whether the Minister appreciates that the railway company, when established, is a new company.
And it is not a railway company.
Mr. Lynch
It is a mixture of a railway and a transport company, but I think we can get over that point. At any rate, it would have to apply for admission.
No.
Mr. Lynch
Yes. The railway employees who are members of the fund would know more about it than I and I am sorry that Deputy M. O'Sullivan is not here.
Deputy Davin is here.
I am not a member of that fund.
Deputy M. O'Sullivan spoke about the matters here.
He realises the seriousness of what Deputy Lynch is saying.
The point to which he referred was entirely different.
You will hear more about it later on.
Mr. Lynch
The railway company will have to apply for membership and, if they apply, they will have to say that all their salaried staffs are becoming members. I do not say that, in ten years' time, they may not decide otherwise, that they may not decide to resign from membership and operate their own superannuation fund. But if they apply for membership, I under stand that they must give the assurance that all their salaried staff will be entered.
That is not correct either, nor are all the salaried staff of the Great Southern Railways members of the fund at the moment.
Is the word "salaried" defined in the Bill?
The Bill takes over all superannuation funds of any staffs.
Mr. Lynch
I shall leave it at that because I am not sufficiently well informed in the matter. Deputy Doyle asked me to raise it because some of his constituents are very anxious about it.
To come back to the Bill as a whole, I think that the Dáil should be slow to allow the country to commit itself to a very big undertaking like this and such a big commitment of the country's finances. The main principle of the Bill is to merge the Great Southern Railways Company with the Dublin Transport Company. That is not a recommendation of the tribunal which sat on public transport. We have not been told where the proposals came from and we have not been told the reasons for their introduction now.
We have been given no reason why the recommendations of the tribunal that a period of five years in normal times of peace should not have been considered, in order to make a complete study of the problem, before committing ourselves to any final limitation in this matter. If we adopt that suggestion, the country would not be involved in anything more than £1,250,000 gross debt, even if it were necessary over a period of five or six, or seven, or even eight, or nine years, while the problem was being studied, to subsidise the railways. It would be far better and cheaper for the country to undertake that subsidy than to commit ourselves to proposals which deal with such a huge involvement of public funds.
Deputy Lynch has made reference to the Report of the Transport Tribunal. I read it very carefully, and I must say that I thought it rather a dreary document. The best friend of that tribunal could not describe its report as a very inspired production. I invite the Dáil to turn its attention for a moment from a report, which emanates from that body, that Government guaranteed loans in this country should bear interest at 4 per cent., to the Minority Report of Dr. Henry Kennedy which, in my judgement, is a more valuable document.
I hope, Sir, before departing from the Majority Report, that we have passed for ever from the day when Government guaranteed loans in this country will be issued at 4 per cent. With the report of Dr. Henry Kennedy, the Minority Report, I want to say that I agree, and I want to suggest to this House that this Bill, stripped of its verbiage is really a speculators' Bill. It is a Bill designed to ensure that the speculators will get what they hoped to get. Here is Paragraph 2 of Dr. Henry Kennedy's report written in 1939:
"The full gravity of the financial position of the Great Southern Railways Company is not shown clearly in the accounts. Representatives of the company in evidence before the Tribunal have stated that, in order to maintain satisfactory standards, an average annual expenditure of £600,000 would be essential for maintenance and renewals of the permanent way and works, and an equal sum for maintenance and renewals of the rolling stock. These amounts are relatively lower than the figures for maintenance and renewals submitted by the Great Northern Railway Company for its undertaking. The officers of the Great Southern Railways Company have frankly admitted the very unsatisfactory condition of the rolling stock, and especially of the passenger coaches, explaining that that condition is due to financial stringency, and consequent inability to provide adequate renewals.
"3. The chief Engineer has in recent years given only a modified certificate with regard to the condition of the permanent way and works. The company has stated that expenditure has been reduced to the irreducible minimum consistent with safety. There seems to be no reason to doubt the accuracy of the estimate submitted by the company. One result of the reduced expenditure is shown in the evidence that in order to maintain services on the branch lines, which it is proposed to close, an expenditure of £1,238,070 would be essential over the next five years. The deficiency in maintenance, rather than evidence of the operating economy, seems to have been the major consideration in the proposal to terminate services on the branch lines."
This report, based on the evidence of the company's own officers, reveals that the rolling stock and permanent way of the company were not only inadequate, but almost dangerous, because the engineer was prepared to give them only a qualified certificate. This report shows that the company itself believed that immense sums would be necessary to put the company's property in a safe condition. Nevertheless, with that before them, the evidence on which it was based, and the summing up of a member of the Commission, speculators entered the market and drove the price of the stocks up by 100 per cent. on the Stock Exchange, and in some cases, substantially more. That having taken place, we are presented with a Bill which, in effect, proposes that the Great Southern Railways Company is to be bolstered up on the one side by the acquisition of the Dublin United Transport Company, a traditionally prosperous and well-managed enterprise, and on the other side by a £16,000,000 Government guarantee.
After you have read the chapters and paragraphs and sections of the Transport Bill, is not that what it amounts to, that every fellow who bought stock from poor people and held it until it doubled and trebled in value on the Stock Exchange, is going to get his plunder in the shape of the Dublin United Transport Company and £16,000,000 of public money? I exhort Dáil Eireann to vote against a Bill, the only substantial effect of which, so far as we can see at this stage, is to provide the speculators of the Dublin Stock Exchange with comfortable profits, and, mind you, not only the speculators resident in Éire but other cute international crooks who got wind of the word through the usual channels and have been operating on the London Stock Exchange as well.
I submit, Sir, that that is a matter which is sub judice at the moment.
Then why bring in this Bill when it is sub judice?
Surely the Minister does not want us to close our eyes to the fact that the Stock Exchange speculators have benefited by 100 per cent.?
The Deputy has suggested that individuals got wind of the word. That is a matter on which a judicial tribunal is sitting and I think it is improper that it should be discussed until the tribunal has reported.
Is it seriously suggested by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that some honest and public-spirited men on the Stock Exchange bought these shares of a prima facie bankrupt concern in order to relieve the widow and the orphan of their undesirable holdings? Or is it more reasonable to suggest that the “cute boys” went in and bought the shares in that undertaking to hold them in anticipation, in well-founded anticipation, that they were going to rise to double and treble their value because the Dublin United Transport Company would be absorbed by the new undertaking?
That is not quite the statement the Deputy made first. In reply to the submission made by the Minister: a tribunal has been appointed by this House to investigate the allegations of improper disclosure. The investigation should be left to the tribunal.
A judicial commission has been established to find out whether there has been improper disclosure of information. All I say is that these "boys" got the wind of the word.
And the public know it.
Neither Dáil Eireann nor anyone here is going to limit my right to tell the public about these irregularities——
The Deputy got an opportunity of telling the tribunal about it. Why did he not do it?
I answered every question I was asked at the tribunal. If the Minister wants to draw me into a discussion of rumours which should properly be investigated by the tribunal, the only thing I want to add is that the Milltown Golf Club was the principal centre of these rumours——
There are many others who have said that.
All I want to do now is to record the fact that the Stock Exchange quotations for Great Southern Railways stocks have appreciated two or three times. That proves that those who held the stocks during the period were right. That is the only substantial and concrete factor of significance in this Bill. I am asking Dáil Eireann to say to the speculators, foreign and domestic, that they have slipped up, and that they are not going to get the swag they expected, and let them sell their shares as best they may. I would be glad if the House took the decision, so that these sharks would be left with their shares, and would not be given time to unload them on unwary people who would otherwise be left holding the baby.
I listened with some dismay to my friend Deputy Fionán Lynch. His speech was trenchant and clear, but I gathered from it as I listened that his proposal is that we should set up another transport tribunal. We have had several transport tribunals, and surely it is not proposed that we should set up another? If we are going to establish a transport tribunal every five years, the history of transport in this country will be a history of transport tribunals, because every time we try to make some progress, it can be argued that the report on which we are proceeding is out of date. In the meantime, the grass will grow on the railway lines and the transport system will collapse.
A Deputy
It is growing already.
I want to make a proposal to the Government which I think is reasonable and right. The railway company is "bust"—"bust" wide open—and everybody knows it. The only thing that has maintained the company is the monstrous increase in railway freight rates which has taken place, with the Minister's approval, over the last two years. I think very few Deputies realise the reckless and unscrupulous way in which railway rates have been increased in the past two years. I direct the attention of the House to the Quarterly Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank, which gives a return of railway receipts. That return, No. 15, shows that the goods train receipts have risen from £3,500,000 in 1941 to £4,242,000 in 1943. Let me make a comparison. In 1939, they were £2,635,000. In 1943, they were £4,242,000, and in 1944, they are still rising steeply. Will anyone argue that there is a larger volume of goods carried over the railways to-day than in 1939?
Much more.
If there were, the increase might be in the order of not more than 50 per cent. That would give Deputy Davin a full and ample margin. The increases, however, amount nearly to 100 per cent., and certainly to 75 per cent. I could have brought here freight bills to show the specific additions to the charges, but, perhaps, at this stage it is scarcely appropriate to go into such great detail. It is known to anybody interested in transport that railway rates have shot up and that it is only the increased revenue derived from that increase which has kept the railway company in existence.
I propose to the Government that instead of pursuing the utterly disreputable and fantastic Bill now before the House, they should make up their minds to adopt the minority report of the Railway Tribunal and set up a transport board analogous in constitution to the Electricity Supply Board, which would take over the railway company, the Transport Company and, if necessary, the Grand Canal Company. I suggest now the names of two persons who might act as directors, Mr. Reynolds and Dr. Henry Kennedy. Dr. Kennedy is the kind of man, I believe, who would effectively represent rural interests on the board. I think these two men should be accompanied by three others so that you would have a board——
Not of yes-men.
I think we should have a board constituted almost identical with the Electricity Supply Board, and I say that my experience of the Electricity Supply Board is that after it had got over its teething troubles— it was inclined to be somewhat dictatorial in the earlier stages—it matured. I can only speak of what I know in saying that in dealing with the Electricity Supply Board, as it is now, you are dealing with an efficient, a reasonable and expeditious body. You have the feeling that that organisation has developed what is so difficult to secure in monopolies such as this is: a desire not only to serve the community as a whole but also a desire to ensure that every customer it has will be satisfied with the service it offers. I suggest that, the transport board having been established, we should, by legislation, authorise it to take over the railway company, the Dublin Transport Company and, if thought desirable, the Canal Company, at the average Stock Exchange quotation for the year 1938. I do not think it would be fair to fix the year 1939, because the incidence of the war caused a downward tendency in share values on the Stock Exchange in 1939, but if we take the valuation placed on the concerns in 1938, then I feel that although we are not being over-generous, at least we are not being unreasonable and we are giving the shareholders in those two companies a reasonable price for their enterprise. Nobody would argue that the condition of the railway company improved since 1938, and I do not suppose that the Dublin Transport Company would argue that the condition of their enterprise had materially improved since that date.
That having been done, I do not think I want to say at this stage that it is possible for Dáil Eireann to set itself up as a board of directors to run a transport company. There is no use in my pretending that I can sit down here and discuss transport with the same authority as men who have been in the transport business all their lives. I think it is a great mistake for the Legislature, even when it decides to nationalise a public service, thereupon to resolve that Dáil Eireann must be consulted about every detail of the administration of the service it has been decided to take over. No body of shareholders claims the right to check up on the day-to-day policy of the board of directors of a company, nor are they competent to do so.
Shareholders, ordinarily, invest their money in an enterprise, which appears to them to hold prospects of success, on condition that the board of directors of that company is a body of men in whose judgment and capacity they have confidence. I suggest, therefore, to Dáil Eireann that if we take over the business of transport in this country, and are resolving to operate it, not as a speculative undertaking but as an essential public service, we have an opportunity, having taken over that enterprise, of choosing the best men that we ourselves want and appointing them as directors of the company. That done, and despite my devotion to the principles of democracy, I think we should leave the management of the transport industry to that board of directors, and then, if we find it unsatisfactory, if we find that adequate facilities have not been provided, if we find that charges are unreasonably high or that labour conditions are not consistent with what we think right and proper, we have an opportunity in this House of dealing with that board of directors when their annual report is presented here. When the transport board reports to this House annually, in the same way as the Electricity Supply Board does, we can call the whole conduct of the board into question and we can call on the Government of the day to carry into effect any changes that we think requisite in the constitution or administration of that board to secure the broad objectives which we consider are not being adequately served by the board as then constituted.
Now, no matter how good a board we establish, I suggest that it is a desirable thing to preserve the element of competition in order to spur that board on to its best endeavour. The longer I live in this world the more I am convinced that competition is the greatest blessing that any businessman can secure. The old view was that if you had a shop, you wanted no rival set up against you in your immediate neighbourhood. My experience, after 20 years of running a shop, is that the more Woolworths, the more Liptons, the more Home and Colonials that are set up near me, the better I do my job and the more money I make, and I also found that the less Woolworths, the less Liptons, and the less Home and Colonials are set up near me-the less competition, in other words, which used to be called unfair competition— the more I am inclined to stick my foot in the ground and grow like a cabbage.
For that reason, having created such a monopoly as I have envisaged, I think we should ensure for the consuming public, the users of transport, that competition should be preserved, and the way to secure proper competition here is to guarantee the right of every individual citizen to use his own vehicles for the transport of his own goods and for the transport of his own person, thus ensuring that if the Transport Board does not give adequate service, larger and larger numbers of citizens will purchase their own lorries and their own cars and travel on the roads in preference to using the railways or the vehicles made available by the board. I do not think that we should, on establishing this new board, close down the railway company or the railway system. That would be a mistake, but I think we should make up our minds to the fact that the railways are dying and that in a comparatively short time they will be as archaic and out of date as the Bianconi coaches of former days.
It may take 20 years or it may take 30 years, but certainly the younger Deputies of this House will live to see the entire goods and passenger transport of this country on the roads, and I think that one of the essential steps necessary to take—and I observe with interest that it is also contained in both the majority and minority reports of the Transport Tribunal—is to plan and put in hand without delay a system of roads in this country adequate to carry, not the volume of traffic at present available, but the volume of traffic that those who are most competent to judge forecast as being available 30 years from now. There, is a project upon which labour could be employed. There, is a project for which 85 per cent. of the raw materials are available here in our own country. There, is a project which would make possible a suggestion which I intend to make in connection with the Budget debate, and that is that the payment of the dole to unmarried men in this country should for ever cease and let every unmarried man who is looking for the dole get out and help the nation to build that system of roads that the nation will require, if and when the forecast that I now make comes to pass.
Now, some people will say that, strategically, it would be suicide ever to close down the railways and thus leave ourselves dependent on the rubber and petrol requisite to operate road transport. That is a shortsighted view, and an ignorant view, to boot. Firstly, I do not think that petrol will be the principal fuel of future transport. I think that the principal fuel is much more likely to be fuel oil, and that the Diesel engine will supplant the petrol-driven engine in a comparatively short space of time. A certain amount of imports from abroad would be required in that case, but the fact is that any system of railways in this country depends almost entirely on the import of raw materials. Many people think that if you can fuel the locomotive engines with turf, the trains could run for ever. That, of course, is nonsense. You could run small trains on branch lines for short runs with reasonable efficiency by using turf as fuel, but when it comes to the high-powered engines on the main lines, they could not be operated on turf; they could not generate enough steam on turf to make a long run with a heavy train. Furthermore, no train can be run for more than a day without lubricants. Even if we had all the fuel that we required, the lack of grease would bring the transport of this country to a stand-still. There is also the question of spare parts which are not available in this country. Steel and iron are not available in this country unless we import them, and these are constantly requisite to keep a railway in running order. The rails for the railway trains to run on have to be provided. All these things represent imports with just as much force as do Diesel oil, petroleum and rubber. Even the Taoiseach and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Local Government and Public Health have come to the conclusion that self-sufficiency is all "cod" and they are beating a strategic and dignified retreat from that position. Sooner or later the more obscurantist and childish of their followers will realise that the Chief has turned tail though he is still looking in the same direction, and proceed to back gracefully out of the self-sufficiency position. That they have all to get out of it is manifest, from the point of view of maintaining essential services. Whether these services depend on rail or road transport, certain supplies from outside are necessary and, in effect, no more for road transport than they are for rail.
I hear it frequently alleged that people who get up here to discuss legislation confine themselves to criticism and that they refuse to make alternative proposals. I have made four proposals here to-day. Each one of them, I think, is first-class. One I made was to disappoint the speculators. Let us leave them holding the baby. That would be a great day's work for this House. If we made it clear to-day that we were not going to give the speculators the swag they calculated on, just imagine the effect on the Dublin Stock Exchange. Imagine the "boys" who had £75,000 worth of debentures waking up to discover that these were worth only £30,000 and that they had to make good the £40,000 or £45,000 which they had borrowed from the bank to speculate in these stocks. Imagine the dismay of the worriors who had bought some £60,000 or £70,000 worth of preference shares from poor widows and their neighbours who had held these shares for years without getting any dividend. The swag taken from these widows has trebled and quadrupled, but imagine the speculators waking up to find that what they thought would be worth £20,000 was worth only £3,000. Would that not be a public service? I invite Dáil Eireann to join with me in that pious public service of taking from the burglar his swag, taking from the brigand his spoils.
My second proposal is that instead of paying out £16,000,000 of public money to line the pockets of the Stock Exchange speculator, we ought to take over the transport enterprise of this country at a fair price and give to the owners a fair price, that we ought to provide an element of competition by the preservation of the right of the private individual to run his own lorry and car, that we ought to build an adequate system of roads forthwith to carry any traffic that may accrue over the next 40 years, and that we ought to make up our minds hereafter that, if there is to be any profit made in the transport of goods in this country it will accrue to the community, and that if this great investment is essential in order to preserve adequate transport for the commerce and trade of the country, the profit on that investment will accrue to those who make it, the community as a whole.
Lastly, I want to make this suggestion. Everybody says that post-war one of our most valuable invisible exports will be our tourist traffic. Large sums are being made available to the Tourist Development Board in order to improve the amenities and beauty spots of this country for the tourist trade. An absolute sine qua non to the full user of those facilities is an adequate road system because 95 per cent. of the post-war tourists are going to be in their own cars. They are not going to travel to any remote part of the country without carrying with them the assurance that they can move freely about to any particular beauty spot they have chosen to visit. Good roads then will be an immense additional inducement to foreign visitors to come to this country, roads prudently and discreetly constructed, adequate for the real needs of the country but not constructed in such a way as to destroy the amenities of the remoter and more secluded parts of the country which must ever remain less commercialised than those areas where the system of transport must be designed to meet commercial needs.
I want to make one more suggestion. If my proposals were put before the House to-morrow morning they would be carried unanimously. Is there any single Deputy who would object to taking over control of the present transport system of the country and using it for the good of the country through a transport board which we could establish for that purpose? Is there any single Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches who objects to the principle which I adumbrate? The Government's proposals are to ram down our throats a proposal to vindicate every unscrupulous speculator who has been operating on the Stock Exchange, at a cost described by the Minister for Finance as one of the most formidable liabilities this State has ever undertaken. That is the proposal which it is sought to thrust upon us by holding the whip over the reluctant heads of members of the Fianna Fáil Party who do not believe in this Bill. I am making a proposal which I believe will be acceptable to every member of the Government Party, which will be accepted, I am sure, by the majority of the Fine Gael Party, which certainly goes very much nearer to what the Labour Party stands for than the present proposal and which, I think, will meet with the approval of Clann na Talmhan.
If this is a democratic Assembly, and if our purpose is to do that which the majority of the House think best, why not withdraw the Bill and accept my proposal? It is really a proposal that does not reflect on anybody; it will achieve justice for all, and it will be launched with the best of good-will from all sides of this House. The Minister's mangy proposal is to be thrust down the throats of the Opposition and forced upon the reluctant members of the Government Party. Which is better? Surely mine. I understand the proposal I put forward now bears some likeness to proposals that were once adumbrated by the Minister himself. Why has he changed his mind?
Several times.
Why has he changed his mind? Why has he run away from what he used to advocate at one time? I always believed that if these things could be operated by private enterprise it would be better to maintain that system but I am forced to the conclusion by the course of events that the maintenance of a satisfactory transport system in this country open to competition is no longer possible. Whether that is the fault of the directors of the old railway company or is due to the trend of world events I am not in a position to say and I do not think it is profitable to discuss the matter. The facts confront us. Let us think the whole thing over and do the best we can. If we do half as well with the Transport Board which has been adumbrated as Deputy McGilligan did with the Electricity Supply Board, we shall have every reason to be proud of it. There is, probably, as much ability available to manage the affairs of this Transport Board as Deputy McGilligan had at his disposal when he established the Electricity Supply Board and, given in the early stages, the goodwill which the Electricity Supply Board received from the majority of our people, I think we should be able to make a success of it. The Electricity Supply Board was adversely criticised at one time by influential members of the present Government. I can remember the Minister for Local Government and Public Health screaming about the horrible white elephant which had been left to the incoming Fianna Fáil Government by their predecessors in office. I often wonder if the Minister now scratched his head and asks himself where we would be but for that white elephant of Cumann na nGaedheal. The Electricity Supply Board was misrepresented in its early stages and vigorous efforts were made to destroy it by the Party which now constitutes the Government of this country. If the Minister sets up a transport board on the lines I suggest, no efforts will be made to destroy it and no lying campaign will be preached against it. No slanderous suggestion that it is a slave camp will be made. On the contrary, all Parties will do what they can by way of advice and recommendation to make it a success.
I look forward with hope to the emergence of something enduring which will reflect as much credit on the State that established it as the Electricity Supply Board. I make a suggestion which will be acceptable to all sides of the House against the Minister's suggestion which, in truth, is acceptable to none. There is time for the Minister to mend his hand and arrive at agreement with the Dáil on his proposals. If he does not, I think that the future of transport is extremely gloomy. If he does, I think we may reasonably anticipate success.
Deputy O'Higgins moved a motion which is being discussed with the Second-Reading Motion in connection with this Bill. That motion provided for the suspension of further discussion of the Bill until the report of the tribunal at present sitting is available. I should like to support Deputy Dr. O'Higgins's motion as strongly as I can. Deputies on non-Government Benches have facilitated the Government with any legislation required. They were always ready to give the Government, in exceptional circumstances, the measures they desired with the least possible discussion. There has been no instance in which that help has been refused. The Opposition do not believe that there was any necessity for hurrying this measure in the manner in which it has been hurried. When the transport difficulty arose lately, the matter was referred to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. They recommended that certain privileges be given to the Government in connection with the Estimates. They also suggested that the House sit all day on Tuesday and Wednesday of each week. That arrangement placed at the disposal of the Government more time per week than has ever been available to any Government here. The Government has at its disposal a greater number of parliamentary hours per week than was available at any time since this country became self-governing. Notwithstanding that, the Government asked us to rush the consideration of this measure. It was considered so important that it could not wait for a week or two so that Deputies would have a chance of discussing it properly. Most Deputies live far from Dublin. I live 150 miles away. We come up here on Monday to facilitate the Government owing to the rush. We travel all day on Monday and work all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, without a moment to attend to the other business which Deputies have to discharge. If Deputies desire to transact other business for their constituents, they must either stay here over the week-end or do their business by correspondence from their homes. That takes a great deal of time and effort. Between the time the Bill was presented and Deputies were called upon to discuss it, reasonable attention could not be given to it. I venture to say that only a few Deputies on the front benches of the different Parties had knowledge of the details of this Bill on the first day on which this debate opened.
If other Deputies have a better knowledge of the Bill now, that is mainly due to the speeches delivered by Deputies who had more time than country Deputies to read and understand the measure. I frankly say that at the time this Bill came before the House, I knew nothing about it. I had not the time at my disposal to read it or to try to understand its contents. I have somewhat more knowledge of it now but that is mainly due to listening to men who knew more about the subject than I did and who had more time to consider the provisions of the Bill. I think that the House ought to support the motion that the discussion be postponed until the findings of the tribunal, which has been set up to inquire into certain matters which have been mentioned here, are available.
As to the Bill, Deputy Dillon said that the Great Southern Railways Company, as it exists, is down and out. I do not know that those were his exact words, but that was their effect. I am in agreement with that opinion. Everybody knew during the past seven to ten years that the Great Southern Railways Company could not profitably carry on. Its existence as a profit-making undertaking had ceased. It was only by various remedies, if they can be so described, that it was kept in operation at all. A number of things were done to help the company. There were amalgamations. Following the amalgamations, a number of competing transport concerns were put out of operation. Then, there was a watering down of capital, so that overhead charges, in the way of interest on capital, would be less if there was any chance of a profit being made. The remission of the rates in connection with their agricultural lands was a great boon to the railway company. Yet, with all these facilities in the way of reduction in capital charges, remission of overhead expenses, the company was insolvent and most people envisaged a situation, in the not far distant future, when the operations of the Great Southern Railways Company must collapse. That was a position that the Government would have to meet, but I am quite sure nobody expected that they would meet it by asking the House, without any particular discussion, to pass £16,000,000, and probably £20,000,000, to bolster up a concern which everybody knows is in a decaying and dying condition. It would be different if the House were sure that this £16,000,000 or £20,000,000—I frankly admit that I am not quite certain of the sum involved—would mean that the company would be put in such a position that they could guarantee efficient transport service for ten, 15 or 20 years, and that it would be able to repay the principal and interest.
I should like to know of anyone who sees any probability that, even with the extra facilities which the Minister proposes to give them in this Bill, the company will be able to provide interest on its stocks in the years to come. If, in the past, with monopolies and other facilities, the company was not able to pay a dividend on most of their stocks, is there any probability that in the years to come, when conditions will be changing and when there will be greater competition with other forms of transport, the company will be in any better position in regard to earning power? I know the Minister is attempting to place them in a better position by wiping out all possible competition but even with that, as far as anybody can foresee, there is little probability of their being able to repay the interest on the money which it is proposed to grant them.
The Minister stated that he disliked subsidies and that he hesitated to give subsidies that might be considered necessary in other circumstances. But what is this but a subsidy? What are the proposals the Minister present to the House but subsidies? Is not the guarantee of capital and interest, under present circumstances, a subsidy? As far as one can see, it is a direct subsidy because nobody foresees that the capital or interest will ever be repaid. Is not the compulsory acquisition and handing over to this company of another successful and solvent company a direct subsidy? If it is not, I do not know what subsidy means.
There will be strong objection to the proposal in the Bill to set up the new company under the authority of one man. I do not care who the man is that it is proposed to select, the House generally considers that no one man should be entrusted with the powers that it is proposed to give him under this Bill. I do not know if there is in this country any man with such comprehensive knowledge and experience of railway working, who has earned such a record for railway traffic management in this or any other country, that he could be entrusted safely with the powers proposed in this Bill. When the Minister thought fit to entrust the management of the Great Southern Railways Company practically to one official, he did not select a railway man; he brought in a man who had no knowledge of railway working. We do not know whether or not under the new Bill somebody with very little knowledge of railway working may be placed at the head of this concern, who, for a number of years, may learn his business at the taxpayer's expense and, through lack of knowledge and experience of the particular work, may create all kinds of difficulties.
I should rather favour the proposal of Deputy Dillon that, if we must have a national transport concern, it should be something on the lines of the Electricity Supply Board, consisting of a board of four or five or six of the most competent men the country could select, some of whom would have the best possible experience in the management of railways. The transport of this country should be entrusted to such a body. Experience has proved that it worked well in the case of the Electricity Supply Board although, when the Electricity Bill was first introduced, there were hardly any men in the country who had extensive knowledge of that particular problem.
The difficulty that most Deputies will find in voting for this measure is that the entire management is entrusted to one individual who may or may not have, and probably will not have, any extensive knowledge of railway traffic.
I have one other great objection to the Bill, that is, the reappearance of the compulsory acquisition clause. It is proposed compulsorily to acquire the assets and business of the Dublin United Transport Company. Compulsory acquisition is not altogether a new thing in this country. It has been applied in two or three other cases, but I think the further extension of the principle is not desirable. Many of us in the agricultural community are familiar with the principle of compulsory acquisition of land, and know how it ended, in many cases amounting practically to confiscation. When discussing this measure we cannot forget that we did not then get the sympathy we expected from other interests in this House. Very little sympathy of that kind was expressed by the representatives of industry until quite recently. When it comes now to the acquisition of a big concern like the Dublin United Transport Company perhaps the shoe begins to pinch. There is one satisfaction in this case, the Dublin United Transport Company shareholders are going to be better provided for than the people from whom land was acquired. If I were a Dublin Deputy, I think I would have pretty strong views in opposition to the acquisition of the Dublin United Transport Company. Do these Deputies realise that they are about to hand over an efficient, and a profit-bearing concern, which provides internal as well as external transport for areas up to 20 miles from the city at very reasonable rates? They are going to hand that concern over to people who provided to be inefficient, who failed to run the railways in the manner in which they should be run with the result that the company became bankrupt.
Can Deputies visualise what prospects there are of cheap transport in future? I happened to travel in a bus recently that goes to a place 20 miles from the city. I produced a few shillings change for my fare, but not thinking that would be sufficient, I tendered a ten shilling note, but the conductor said that the silver was sufficient. When I handed him 2/- he gave me back 6d. change. The return fare was also 1/6. In contrast to that I find when I travel by bus from the village where I reside, to the City of Limerick, the distance being three miles shorter than the Dublin one, I am charged exactly double the fare by the Great Southern Railways, so that Dublin citizens get for 3/- what I pay 6/- for. That is because the Great Southern Railways are not able to run their bus service as efficiently as the Dublin Transport Company. That is a benefit that the Minister may be the means of depriving Dublin citizens of in future, as it is obvious that if these services are handed over to the Great Southern Railways, as well as a capital of £2,000,000 and a good business in order to bolster up the Great Southern Railways Company, this Bill will not result in a wiping out of the difference in fares that I indicated. Is it not more likely that the fares may be raised?
I wish also to refer to the position of private owners. The Minister says that they are not affected by the Bill. Perhaps that is so. I should like to have a definition of "private owner". I assume that these words include commercial firms and limited companies that own lorries on which they carry their goods. I want to know definitely if "private owner" includes concerns like co-operative creameries with lorries in which they carry their products. Is the transport business of co-operative creameries to be handed over to the new railway company or do these concerns remain in the category of "private owner" ? It seems to me that there is a danger there. There is a fear in the minds of many people that that is one of the objects of this Bill, because in recent months there has been in my constituency a gradual disposition on the part of the Minister's Department to put lorries owned by co-operative creameries out of operation. I have many applications from managers of creameries asking me to intercede with the Department so that supplies of petrol would be provided for these lorries. The Minister will probably argue that that has nothing to do with this Bill; that the issue of permits for petrol was suspended because it was not available, and that there will be a re-issue when it is available. I am not at all sure that that is the reason why some of these lorries were not allowed to operate. I know of one very large co-operative creamery whose lorries had to go out of operation because the Minister's Department would not issue permits, and the transport part of the business had to be transferred to the Great Southern Railways. Experience has shown that they are not getting as efficient service from the Great Southern Railways as they could provide with their own lorries, and the business has not been running on the lines on which it was run previously. In fact in many ways that creamery is hampered. They also find that their expenses will be from £600 to £700 per year more than they were. Their computation is that the amount of petrol consumed by the Great Southern Railways services on their work, as against the quantity they required, would be greater by from 150 to 200 gallons per month. The case cannot be made there that it was necessary to save petrol and that that is the reason why the lorries of this co-operative creamery were not allowed to operate. Suspicion may arise in the minds of those concerned that that portion of the business was put out of operation so that when this Bill becomes an Act they will not be able to resume that side of the work.
Where is that in the Bill? Why does the Deputy not read the Bill?
I knew the Minister would tell me that there was nothing like that in the Bill. I say that the fear that such will happen is in the minds of these people. If there is no intention of putting these co-operative creamery lorries out of operation why are they not allowed to operate now? It is not because the petrol is not there. They can prove that the railway company is using more petrol than they were using. It must be for some ulterior motive, so that these lorries would not be operating when this Bill becomes an Act and that they would not then be allowed on the road.
Is the Deputy implying that the Minister is concerned in duplicity?
That is a fine point.
If the Deputy intended any such accusation I would have to insist on its withdrawal.
I am not making any accusation.
On a point of order. Under the Seventh Schedule to the Bill, the Minister has the power to make Orders. Therefore, I think Deputy Bennett is entitled to ask a question.
What Seventh Schedule is the Deputy talking about?
Under the Seventh Schedule the Minister has the right to make Orders governing private transport or anything of that sort.
What Seventh Schedule?
Under the Seventh Schedule you can make an Order dealing with private transport.
Not under the Seventh Schedule to this Bill. The Deputy must have a different Bill before him.
I am obliged to Deputy MacEoin, but whether the power is under this Bill, or some other Bill, it does not matter. If I have made a blunder in discussing this Bill it all goes to prove what I said at the opening of my speech, and what the mover of the amendment said in his speech, that the House should not have been asked to discuss this Bill in such haste. Deputies should have been given sufficient time to enable them to grasp the full contents of it. I am simply endeavouring to extract some idea of what is in the Bill and of what is not in it. I am afraid that most of us here have a very vague idea of what the Bill contains. Even Deputies who have read the Bill carefully and have pondered over it, have not been able to give it the consideration that they feel themselves would enable them to describe in clear language to the House what the Bill means or does not mean. I have listened to this debate for the last three days. With the exception of the Minister, I have not heard any Deputy say that he clearly understood what are the implications of this measure and what its general effect will be. In such circumstances, is it any wonder that I should look to the Minister for an explanation as to what he intends to do with private lorries owned by co-operative creameries: whether there is any danger of their being put out of operation in the future? The Minister would relieve our minds if he were to tell us that these lorries will be put back into operation again in cases where it can be proved to him that their going back on the roads would mean no loss of petrol.
This Bill will also have very grave effects on the unfortunate employees of the railway company. The question of redundancy has been argued pretty generally. We would like to know what men will be put out of work because of redundancy. Deputy Larkin described some of the things which he would not consider redundancy. At any rate, whatever be the meaning of redundancy, every Deputy must have sympathy for the possible conditions which will obtain in the case of those railway workers when the Bill is put into operation. I do not profess to be able to define clearly what redundancy means. My reading of the Bill is that, if a worker is lucky enough, for some reason or another, to be put out of work before a certain number of months elapse, he will be considered to be redundant and will get some compensation. If, however, he is not lucky in that respect and is discharged under some other head, then he is going to be unprovided for. Surely that is a state of affairs that no Deputy should subscribe to. The debate on this measure has been unreal. The Taoiseach nods his head. I agree that a number of us who have spoken on it have done so without sufficient knowledge. The fault for that lies with the Minister. The Bill was in the hands of Deputies for only two days when it was taken in the House.
Nonsense. Deputies had the Bill in their hands for a fortnight.
It is more than a fortnight now, I agree.
For 11 days, including two week-ends.
Country Deputies had not the Bill for more than five days.
They certainly had.
One day was occupied travelling up to attend the Dáil.
That was one full day you had to read it.
We spent two days attending the sittings of the House. Deputies have other duties to discharge besides reading Bills. The fourth day was spent in going home.
That was another day you had nothing to do but read the Bill.
The Minister supposes that we had nothing to do for two days except read the papers. That is a nice compliment. I hope that is not the view of other Ministers. We are working four days a week for the State. If the Minister thinks that the representatives of the farmers and of agriculture have so little stake in the country that they are not to have any day to work for themselves, and that facilities are not to be provided for them to do their own work, then the future of agriculture in this country is in a very bad condition and agriculture is very badly represented in this House. I do not believe, however, that it is so badly represented. I believe that we have farmers and farmer-representatives on the Government Benches, on the Clann na Talmhan Benches and on the Fine Gael Benches with sufficient work of their own to do, and with a sufficient interest in that work to occupy them for at least two days in the week. If they give four days a week to the service of the country, then I think they are doing their bit and should not be asked to do what is happening in the case of this Bill, to discuss a measure for which sufficient time has not been given. Sufficient time was not given to Deputies to prepare for a discussion on this Bill.
The Deputy has referred to this question of insufficient time at least four times in a short period.
If I have done so I am sorry, but the matter is one that concerns everybody in this House, and what I have said will, I think, bear repetition. Other things that were not quite as important have been repeated. There is no necessity whatever for hurry in connection with this Bill. Not a tittle of evidence has been given to show why there should be all this haste. The discussion on the Bill could have been held over for another two or three weeks so that Deputies would have had an opportunity of preparing for a discussion on it. I believe that, in common decency, the discussion on this Bill should have been postponed until the tribunal, which is investigating the doings of certain people in this country, has presented its report.
The last speaker said that there was an air of unreality about this debate. I think that anybody really interested in this matter will say there is a good deal of truth in what he said. The debate has been very unreal, very far away from the real subject before the House. It would be helpful, I think, if we could get back to the position as it is, and not to what people imagine it to be. This Bill is a fairly bulky document, but I think we have had very much longer Bills before us. Everybody with experience of the House knows perfectly well that it is in Committee the details of a measure such as this are fully discussed, and that the object of a Second Reading debate is to get at the general principles underlying a particular measure. On any occasion when I have been in the House during the discussion on this Bill, except when the Minister was explaining the measure, the speeches seemed to me to be very far away from the general principles of the Bill. It is suggested that we are rushing this legislation. We are doing nothing of the sort. Everybody must admit that, for very many years, our transport services have been in an altogether unsatisfactory position and that the sooner we improve that position the better. We have been told we are not looking sufficiently far ahead and planning for the post-war period. There are some things which we cannot plan ahead satisfactorily, as the details are not sufficiently well know to us. Surely anything we can do now in the way of work which would have to be done after the war, will help to prepare us for the difficult situation which may arise then. If we postponed action in this matter, the Government might be justly accused of not taking time by the forelock, of not doing now the things we could do. Everybody will admit that our transport services will have an important part to play in the future development of our country. If we can improve them now, why should we postpone doing so?
It has been suggested that sufficient time has not been given to Deputies to understand the principle of the Bill, which is the question on the Second Reading. Is that right? Is that true? In March, 1943, the Minister indicated that he had been in touch with the management of the company and that proposals were being considered for reorganisation. Some months later, he told the Dáil that we had to go further and indicated that legislation would ultimately be necessary. Then, during the general election, the Minisster pointed out that legislation would be necessary to deal with the transport situation. The definite proposals which form the basis of this Bill and the main point of principle in it were published in October last, as far as the Great Southern Railways was concerned, and were indicated in December, as far as the Dublin United Transport Company was concerned. I think that there was a discussion on the matter in the Seanad in January last. Therefore, over that whole period since October and December, everybody knew the main basis of the proposals.
The Bill was circulated eleven days before the Second Reading began. That is a reasonable time to give to people, particularly when there was circulated with the Bill a White Paper, summarising in four pages the principal points in the Bill. In my opinion, the suggestion that Deputies did not get reasonable time to prepare for a Second Reading speech on this Bill has not a leg to stand on.
Deputy Bennett seemed to think that Deputies were here for the convenience of the Government. Deputies are here to do the business for which they were elected and not to convenience the Government. If they come here, they come to do public business and it is part of that public business that they should give time to these matters, to prepare so that they may be able to deal with them properly in this House. When they become Deputies they engage to do that. Surely, if a period of 11 days is given in which to read four pages containing the main principles of the Bill and if for several months those proposals have been discussed in public, that should be sufficient to enable anybody to take part in the discussion. There is no desire on the part of the Government to rush anybody and, in asking that the Second Reading now take place, there is no indication of any desire to try to rush its discussion in this House.
It is unfortunate that certain accidental things have taken place which have enabled Deputies to confuse the issue if they want to do so. It is possible that Deputies whose minds are easily confused may find themselves confused by these accidental circumstances. It is true that there is a shortage of coal now and that our transport services have to be curtailed. That brings about a serious situation for the whole country, and especially for those whose livelihood depends on their employment in that service; but it has nothing to do, directly and immediately, with this Bill, which was prepared before the shortage occurred. This Bill is for the control of transport services in a general period and not for a time of emergency. As it is a permanent measure, why should we bring in the present situation, which has nothing to do with the principles underlying the Bill?
Another unfortunate circumstance is that there is a tribunal investigating certain transactions which took place in a certain period, mentioned in the terms of reference. That tribunal was set up—
"To investigate and report on the dealings in Great Southern Railways stocks between the 1st day of January, 1943, and the 18th day of November, 1943; and the extent, if any, to which any of such dealings were attributable to the improper use or disclosure of information concerning proposals for the capital reorganisation of the Great Southern Railways."
That is what the tribunal is examining and that is apart and aside altogether from this Bill. If it should be found that there were dealings which were attributable to improper disclosures of information, or if there were other improper things done, I take it that these things can be dealt with by this House when the report comes to hand. I have no idea as to when the report may be ready. Why should we postpone consideration of this Bill until we have that report? This Bill would not prevent us from dealing with any individuals, no matter who they may be, who may have acted improperly, nor will it prevent the House from taking any steps that may be necessary to deal with the tribunal's report.
I was here when Deputy Dillon suggested that, to spite speculators, we should do something quite different. That was an extraordinary sort of purpose to put in front of members of this House. This Bill is for the better arrangement of our transport services. That is the fundamental thing that we have to consider —what is the best manner in which we can rearrange the organisation of our transport services, the control, management and so on so as to give the best service to the community. If speculators have to be dealt with we ought to deal with them in some other way. Certainly we ought not to use this Bill to try to attain an object of that sort. I do not know what speculation there has been. I remember being on the opposite benches when Deputy McGilligan was talking about the Drumm battery and the prospect he held out was so bright that I heard one Deputy say: "We will all rush out and get shares in the railway company."
Are you going to finish that? How much was bought? Less than £1,000.
I do not know. Perhaps it was because wise people thought that there was not much in the Deputy's statement.
Very good.
We can take that all right.
Those who spend all their time dealing in stocks and shares and whose business is planning to see how they can improve their financial position by buying and selling are always on the look out for a good price.
There is a difference between speculation after the Dáil has been told and 12 months before.
That is a matter the tribunal will investigate. I am only saying that it would be quite wrong procedure for Dáil Eireann to try to use a measure like this to deal with speculation. If speculation has to be dealt with let it be dealt with as a separate thing.
This measure has no relation to speculation in railway shares but if you want to deal with speculation it seems to me that you will have a very wide subject indeed to deal with. I am not going to try to defend speculators who try to deceive the public. I have never speculated and I know nothing about the business but I do say that it seems to me that most private business is carried on one way or another by speculating on the chances of making a profit. I am sure Deputy Dillon in his business tries to buy the things he thinks will increase in value.
The Taoiseach is unaware of his own Emergency Powers Orders which require the sale price to be based on the basis of cost and not of enhanced value. Speak up, Minister for Supplies, and instruct him.
I am not talking about the emergency. I am speaking of ordinary times. I think myself that where business is carried on for profit and where there is buying and selling you buy at the lowest price you can get and buy those things you think will appreciate in price. That is speculation if you like. It runs through a lot of our economic activities. Perhaps I should not say the whole of our economic activities. I think if you try to deal with that you will have your work cut out for you. If there are people improperly buying and selling and if people such as the widows and orphans mentioned by Deputy Dillon were induced to sell shares to people who were buying to make a profit by all means let us inquire into it, but it seems absurd that we should make use of a measure like this to deal with it. The purpose of this Bill is to improve the transport service and nothing else. The arguments ought to be addressed to it from that point of view. With regard to the point that the measure is being rushed, I can only say there is no basis whatever for that. You have made long speeches on it and you have plenty of time to deal with it. There has been no attempt to rush you and you have got ample notice of the measure; I think four days is the period in Standing Orders and you have got eleven days. You had a White Paper presented to you to make things easy so that you could grasp the principles of the Bill. You knew the principles of the measure some months ago so you can have no basis for the complaint that the Bill is being rushed.
With regard to the fact that the tribunal is sitting, I think it would be absurd to put aside doing something that ought to be done until we receive the report of the tribunal. If the tribunal reports, action can be taken on that basis if the Dáil wants to take action and this measure will in no way tie the hands of the Dáil. I have heard the complaint that we are offering to throw away £20,000,000 in this Bill. It is quite clear that people who talk like that have not attempted to understand the Bill. The £20,000,000 that have been mentioned is the authorised capital of the new company. In other words, they can have capital up to that amount. That is the only way you can have the figure of the £20,000,000. How is that figure arrived at, supposing they reach the figure of £20,000,000? There is £13,500,000 which comes from the purchasing of the stock of the existing companies, of the railway company and the Dublin United Transport Company, on the basis indicated in the White Paper. The shares of each of these companies are going to be transferred over to the new company on the basis that was announced here a few months ago. That means £13,500,000 roughly of the authorised capital will already be accounted for and the remainder of that is to enable the company to borrow such sums, from £13,500,000 up to £20,000,000, as may be necessary to improve the earning power of the company on the one hand and the facilities it can afford the public on the other. It is to enable the company to borrow money which will enable it to get improved equipment. We all know that the position of the company was such that it could not borrow up to the present. The Great Southern Railways was not in a position to raise new capital in order to do anything. It was to put the railways in a position in which they could get equipment necessary to enable them to do their work in the best interests of the community that you had to enable them to borrow money.
That is the reason why the authorised capital has been raised to £20,000,000. There is in this matter no question of the State subsidising them or handing over any money whatever to them. What the State has done, or rather what the State will do after the Bill becomes law, is this—it is going to put a State guarantee behind the debentures and other guaranteed stock. That is being done on the basis of the reduction of these stocks as is set out here in the White Paper on the Bill. The 4 per cent. debentures of the Great Southern Railways are reduced to 3 per cent., pound for pound. The 4 per cent. guaranteed preference stock is divided into two parts. If you hold £100 of that stock, you get £50 of the 3 per cent. debenture stock and you get £50 of the common stock. On the £50 at 3 per cent. you will get £1 10s od. Afterwards, if the company thrives, they can get on the £50 ordinary stock half of what would go on £100. It depends on the dividend that they may earn. It is purely a matter of estimation in the future whether they will earn or not. We hope they will. At any rate, the terms given to the 4 per cent. guaranteed preference shareholders is that they get £50, on which they are guaranteed £1 10s od, and they will get £50 stock on which they will have to take their chance, as it is ordinary stock. On the 4 per cent. preference stock they are simply given £100 common stock, and the ordinary stock also will be pound for pound common stock. Is it suggested that these terms are unnecessarily generous to the stockholders? I have not heard anybody making a detailed case that they are.
The Minister did. The Minister said that they represent assets that are wasted.
I said nothing of the sort.
He said that the railway system is obsolete.
If the State were to take them over, as has been suggested —if they were to be acquired and nationalised——
The boys who bought them at 40 and sold them at 80 were generously treated.
If we were to take them over I doubt if the majority of the people would feel they were being dealt with fairly by a proposal of that sort. I only know that there was twice a reduction of stock. On the amalgamation in 1924 it went from £27,500,000 to £26,000,000, and by the 1933 Act it was brought down to £12,500,000.
No, £11,500,000.
Well, about £11,500,000. I remember that there was very strong dissent from a number of people here when that Bill was going through; they were saying that the debenture holders were very improperly treated when, for £100, they got £85; that it was altogether unfair to take the 4 per cent. guaranteed preference stock and write it down to £50; that it was still more unfair to write down the 4 per cent. preference stock to £35 and, taking off 90 per cent. of the ordinary stock and writing it down to one-tenth of its value, they said, was robbery. What is being done in this case is that the dividends and interest are being considerably reduced. The burdens which the company will have to carry are being considerably reduced by this Bill and, in view of the reduction, there has been a State guarantee given instead. I can understand people going into details and arguing on this basis but, looking at it, it seems to me not an unfair proposition. It is very hard to get anything that could be said to be definitely fair; there are different points of view. One thing, at any rate, is that there have been negotiations and the companies have agreed on this. You may say that if the companies have agreed it must be good for them. Our position is that it is also good for the State if we get agreement without arbitration. Very often the State does not do so very well in arbitration. The State does not always do well in arbitration.
What significance does the Taoiseach attach to the fact that the shares went up by 100 per cent. at least when these proposals became known?
I do not know——
Everybody else in this country does.
What is the Deputy suggesting?
The terms are extravagantly generous.
All I know is that if somebody holds on now to a share of £100 of common stock, originally he must have bought that at £1,000. If you go on with the buying and selling, that is one of the troubles. People talk about extravagant bank profits. They forget that shares may have changed hands time after time and there are very few of the original stockholders left. If you own at the present time a £100 share of common stock, originally you would have to have ten shares or, in other words, £1,000.
If my shop goes bankrupt, will you buy it out on those terms? Why should you pay the railway company any more than you would be prepared to pay for a person's shop or any other enterprise? People put their money into the railway company to earn dividends and they have lost it. Why should we pull the chestnuts out of the fire?
On what basis would the Deputy arrive at the value?
Set up a board and take over the railway company at the average Stock Exchange quotations for the shares in 1938, the year before the war.
Or take the average of the ten years before the 1933 Act.
Take what the shares were worth in 1938.
Why on that basis?
That is what they were worth in the last normal working year before the war.
The Deputy knows perfectly well, with regard to the buying of shares, that you may buy property and it may not be quoted because there may not be sales.
There were plenty of sales in connection with this stock.
The Taoiseach should be allowed to speak.
The Government are putting this forward as representing a fair deal in the existing situation. It represents fair dealing with the transport problem. There is a reorganisation on the basis of a State guarantee and reduced dividends to those who had the stock. That is what is being done.
Does the Taoiseach realise that he is guaranteeing stock to people who for years never got a dividend?
Mr. Larkin
Withdraw the guarantee and then see what the stock will be worth.
What Deputy McGilligan has stated is not true.
It is true. I am talking about ordinary stock and preference stock.
They are not being guaranteed.
Go up to the guaranteed preference—for how many years have they been paid?
They have been paid up to date.
Because of extravagant charges year by year.
This is being put forward by the Government as a fair proposition. Nobody can get any exact basis for doing this. The procedure of trying to get the company's consent and agreement was the method adopted rather than compulsory acquisition, because, apart from anything that might be unfair about it, if we came here with a compulsory acquisition Bill all those who are now talking in favour of it would probably be against it, just as on the occasion when we were proposing to write down the debentures from £100 to £85, we had objections from the benches opposite on the ground that we were robbing the people of their property.
Why not cut out the speculation period from 1st January?
With regard to this question of what will happen when the tribunal reports and so on, that is a matter we can leave over because we are not in any way tying the hands of the Dáil in dealing with that matter when it arises.
Mr. Larkin
You are pre-judging it.
We are not.
It is in the Bill.
It is not in the Bill. If this tribunal had not been in existence at all, this Bill would have been brought in. Does anyone doubt that?
I suggest that this is going to hand over——
Do you suggest that this Bill was brought in because the tribunal has been set up?
I suggest that this Bill has not been changed in the way it should be changed on account of what has been revealed.
If there is a suggestion of changes as far as details are concerned, they will be matters for consideration on the Committee Stage —each detail can be dealt with.
Will the Committee Stage be postponed?
On a point of order. Is the Taoiseach to be allowed to speak without interruption or is he not? He is making a speech and he has as much right to make it as any other Deputy. It is the duty of the Chair to see that he is allowed.
We got little or no information from the Minister. We are getting some from the Taoiseach. He said it can be amended in Committee as a result of the findings of the tribunal.
No, I did not say that.
Does that mean that the Committee Stage will be postponed?
I said nothing that the Deputy could reasonably understand as that.
What I say is this——
The Deputy was allowed to speak without interruption and he should, at least, concede the same right to others.
I wonder why the Minister is so bad-tempered at the word "speculators".
I am so bad-tempered because of the disgusting manners displayed by the Opposition.
There are disgusting matters which we want to have disclosed.
We ought to get back to a little bit of order. What I am saying is that, on the Second Stage of the Bill, what we are considering are the main principles of the Bill. These are designed to try to improve the transport services of the country and put them in a proper position. We are anxious to have that done, and to have that permanent position. reached as soon as possible. There will be uncertainty with regard to these proposals in the railways and in the tramways. That uncertainty is not good. We want to try to end that uncertainty with all possible speed. I suggest to the Labour Party that they ought to be particularly interested in ending any uncertainty in the position, because the stronger the position of railways is financially, the better will they be in a position to carry on, for instance, over a longer period, if necessary, with their employees, etc. At present they cannot do that. I suggest to the House that it is very bad national business to leave this in an uncertain position. We should get out of our heads, so far as this Bill is concerned, two things which are purely accidental. One is the emergency which is causing the curtailment of services and the hardships which that possibly would bring on the community and, possibly, would bring on others, a thing which everyone must regret. The other is the question of the sitting of the tribunal to examine whether there were disclosures and, therefore, improper dealings as a result. I suggest that by passing this Bill we are not tying our hands in any way from dealing with the other matter. The difference between the Second Stage and the other stages is that there may be amendments in the other stages. Deputies can put down their amendments and, if these amendments are ones which, in the general interest, should be accepted, I am perfectly certain that the Government will consider them from that point of view.
Indicate the clauses
I am indicating no clauses. I am talking of the general principles which ought to hold for any Bill. This Bill is based on certain general principles and the Second Stage is for dealing with them. In the case of a long Bill like this, the Committee Stage is the proper stage to deal with details and, if Deputies have suggestions to put forward for the improvement of any of these, they will be considered on their merits. I can say that with regard to any Bill.
Will the dictatorship be changed?
The position with regard to the control of the company is that there is to be a chairman who is to be appointed by the Government and there will be six other directors chosen by the ordinary shareholders.
"Yes-men."
Why should they be "yes-men"? Are they not there to look after the interests of the people who put them there?
Mr. Larkin
The Bill says so.
It does not. The Deputy ought to be very pleased to have what is in the Bill. I know that for a long time nationalisation has been the policy of the Labour Party. I understand that is their policy. But there are a number of other people supporting them at present who do not believe in nationalisation.
Mr. Larkin
Why not test them and withdraw the Bill?
We are not here to test people. That is like what the Deputy said the other day. We are here to get things done. The position is that, where there is a public utility, such as the transport services, there are various grades of opinion. There are those who think that you ought to leave it absolutely free and not interfere with it; let the whole thing go as wild as the transport service in Dublin at one particular period before it was dealt with, when we had competition amongst buses. You can have that state of affairs completely and absolutely uncontrolled. I do not think that, at any time, people were prepared to allow a public service of that sort to be absolutely uncontrolled. Then you could bring in measures of control. These measures of control range from the sort of control which existed in pre-war days up to the position in which the State owns, controls, and operates the railways. I take it that the position of the Labour Party is that they want the State to own, control and operate them. I must say that I am not a believer in that at all.
The Minister promised that in 1931.
He did not.
I quoted his speech.
I do not mind what you quoted. I know the position well enough to know that the Minister said at one period that it might be necessary to go on to that.
No.
The position of the Government—and it is my personal position, too—is that the extent to which the State enters into economic affairs and the whole guiding principles are set out in the Constitution.
Will the Taoiseach read the Minister's speech of the 9th December, 1931?
I have not the time to read the speech now.
There are only four lines.
I know well what the Minister is likely to have said.
"We are strongly in favour of public ownership of the transport service".
The Taoiseach is in possession and must get a hearing.
There is the question whether there should be public ownership, public control and public operation. I say with regard to the Labour Party—I take it they wish to go the whole hog——
No.
——that I do not believe in that. It would be interesting to find where you draw the line.
The Minister has a copy of our proposals. He admitted it.
We are putting forward our proposals now, and our proposals are not those. I do not believe in the running of the railways by the State, through a State Department, to start with. I do not believe it would be efficient, and I believe it would be a bad thing for the country from a variety of points of view. I do not want that to start with. The next thing is that you could have control in a variety of ways. The sort of control I would stand for would be that control which would make sure that the public interest, and not merely the private interests of the shareholders, would be kept to the fore. I am in favour of that, and there is provided in the Bill a method by which the public interest in the transport services can be safeguarded. We do that without becoming directly the owners. It is done by means of contact between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the railway management. It is provided by having a chairman, who is appointed by the Minister and removable, whose business on the board will be to see that the public interest, and not merely the interests of the private shareholders, will be safeguarded. That is the purpose of the chairman, who, however, does not act alone. He will be there as a public trustee, so to speak, but there will be with him six others who are interested in the efficient management of the railways from the point of view of making them pay.
Without any power.
If the Deputy thinks that six people representing a certain interest will not make themselves effective so long as they are there, he does not know human nature.
Read the Bill.
I know the Bill, and I know that the position is that these six people are there to see that the transport services are efficiently run, because it is only by having the railways efficiently run that they will have any chance of getting any dividends for their, shareholders.
Mr. Larkin
On a point of order, Sir. Is it in order for a Parliamentary Secretary to read a book while the Leader of the House is speaking?
It is the Life of de Valera he is reading.
It depends on what the book is. It might be relevant to the debate.
There is a general permit to read the Life of De Valera.
It is a good book to read.
Tá an ceart agat, a chara.
The Taoiseach is entitled to at least as good a hearing as the Deputies who have already participated in this debate, and will get it.
My purpose in speaking was to try to get this matter fully considered on its merits and to get an understanding by Deputies as to what we are doing on this Second Reading. There is the method by which the public interest is safeguarded, so that the public interest will not be lost sight of in any desire to secure efficiency and the other directors are there to see that there is efficiency, for which the spur will be the ordinary spur in the case of business men trying to make their business pay. I think it is a fair combination. Many years ago —about 1908, I think—I read a paper which had been read at a meeting of the British Association in Dublin, in which the whole question of railway control was considered. The questions of public ownership, private ownership, private management, and so on, were discussed and the conclusion reached in that paper was that it was necessary to make sure that the public interest was safeguarded and that one of the ways was the appointment of directors as a whole. That had the fault that the interests of efficiency might not be so well safeguarded. I believe that this proposal here is a sound one. It is somewhat of a variation of what has been done in relation to other matters, but it is a sound proposal. It provides a method of getting maximum efficiency, of getting it away from being the subject of public discussion every day here, which has been the case in countries where there has been direct State management and which has been a fruitful source of damage.
Would the Taoiseach consider the Electricity Supply Board technique for railway management?
We have more than once had some discussion of that, and we are not altogether satisfied that it is the best by any means. We do not think it is the ideal method.
Is this considered better than the Electricity Supply Board arrangement?
These enterprises are not quite on all fours and, for this particular purpose, this method, which is a slight variation of the method of control, is one which we believe will be successful. That is only our belief; we may find that we are mistaken in the long run; but we believe in it sufficiently to desire that it should be given a trial. I repeat that all I wanted to say was that there are two accidental matters which are confusing, or which are brought in deliberately to confuse, the issue; the existence of the emergency and the tribunal which is at present sitting. The issues can very well be raised on the method of control on our method of organisation—that is a fair matter; it is what the Dáil is here to discuss —but we put forward our proposals which we believe to be the best. The reorganisation of the capital of the company is designed to reduce expenses and there is a saving of about £70,000 per year, I think, in respect of debenture interest and so on.
The Taoiseach is not too clear about the £70,000.
The saving in respect of debenture interest of the Great Southern Railways is £70,000, but the total saving is much more.
A saving of £70,000 in respect of an immediate reduction of interest charges. What the State is doing is giving a guarantee. That guarantee, I think, is not likely ever to be required.
Not?
I do not think so.
The Minister for Finance does not agree with the Taoiseach.
The Minister for Finance is naturally anxious and properly anxious about every contingent guarantee. He very rightly and properly looks askance at any extension of State guarantees. This is a matter in regard to which, I think, Deputy McGilligan and those who apparently have his philosophy with regard to money cannot complain very much. It is a matter of opinion whether it is likely to materialise or not. I think the position is such that, under the new arrangement, the company ought to be on a fairly sound basis and able at least to make ends meet.
Another matter to which I feel I should refer in passing is the amalgamation of the Dublin United Transport Company with the railways. It has been suggested that that is an unfair proceeding so far as the transport company is concerned. Now, with regard to the citizens of Dublin, the position is that we hope that they will have just as satisfactory a service under the new arrangement as they had under the old one. If it is suggested that, where there is a special density of population, there should be special transport services separate from the rest of the State, that is something which would not be in the national interest as a whole.
We believe, in the national interest as a whole, that Dublin, which is the national capital and whose prosperity and position depend ultimately on the country, is really best served by the amalgamation. If you do not take national interests into account your position will be that each separate area will take over the cream of the services and neglect the rest. Then the State would have to step in to deal with the problem. We think these services ought to be self-supporting. There is no question of any subsidy in this Bill. The whole idea is to try to make these services self-supporting, and we believe that the proposals put forward by the Minister are such that any person who makes up his mind that he is not going to allow himself to be confused by considerations of the moment will support them. It is in that spirit that the Government is proposing the Bill.
When I saw that the Taoiseach was about to intervene, I felt that he intended to act in the same manner as that in which oil is poured on troubled waters. I did not expect his intervention would have the contrary effect. He created some disturbance in this House, and I think the uneasiness and perturbation manifested here should have convinced the Taoiseach himself, apart altogether from the context or content of what was said, that there is something definitely wrong in the whole situation about this Bill. In my very short experience here never, I think, has there been such agitation about any matter as on this occasion. It certainly has caused a greater stir than any other measure which has come here for consideration. The Taoiseach gave us such a wide variety of angles on the subject that it is very difficult to know where to begin, but it became evident, as I listened to the Taoiseach, that he was in much the same plight as ourselves. I sympathise with him sincerely that his grasp of the Bill was not much better than that of the younger Deputies of this House, in matters of detail.
I am sure, however, that in the matter of principle he is well posted. I think that when we discuss principles we may have the best intentions. We may not be doctrinaires in economics any more than in politics—but in the actual working out of a principle, we may discover that there is no good in it, that it has been negatived. We may agree that a principle is enshrined in this Bill but may hold that the manner in which it is proposed to carry it out is ineffective. The Taoiseach evidently wants us to discuss the Bill in vacuo. Apparently, he thinks there is no relation between it and speculation and, to a certain extent I agree, that it must be considered apart from the question of speculation. Speculation is a very desperate thing when it overrides itself in any State.
I am sure that everyone is familiar with the case of modern France when the Stavisky scandal rocked that State to its foundations. I submit that we have come perilously near to the same position in this country over this business. Whether we have been able to take it in hand or not remains to be seen. The Bill as such should, of course, be discussed apart from the aspect of speculation, but its impact is on it and it is strong enough to vitiate the whole issue of the Bill.
Even supporting the principle of this Bill, we would be very loath to operate it in these circumstances, and under these conditions. I quite agree that it is a long-term policy, a case of getting ready for the post-war period — perhaps I would more properly put it, the inter-war period before the next conflict—but that does not mean that we have any good reason for optimism about it. I am unconvinced by the statement of the Taoiseach about the time that has been allotted to us. I still think that the White Paper was not as ample a document as he imagined it, or that it gave us a summary or résumé of the principles of the Bill. It is merely a condensation and, even as a condensation it is more difficult to read than the Bill itself. Certainly, it is a very difficult document to grasp. If, in this paper, there had been a proper discussion of the new principles about which the Taoiseach talks, then it might have been very helpful to new Deputies and to those who have not long experience of legislation such as the Transport Bill.
I suggest that even the Taoiseach found considerable difficulty in wading through the White Paper, difficulty even on the front page. It consists of many sections and many pages, and because of the importance of the whole of it, I submit that it is a Bill to which even more than 11 days should be given. We may have ideas about transport, we may have our own principles with regard to transport, but we must discuss the problem as a legislative assembly and not as a debating society, relate the provisions of the Bill to our principles, and see how far they coincide or diverge, and what accommodation is possible between the Bill and our principles. I submit that it is not possible to do that in the short time at our disposal. We are asked to dispose of this Bill in less than a month, but no statistician could make the investigation that it is necessary to satisfy himself that justice has been done either to the workers or to the public, and in the time allowed, no statistician could dig up the facts and assess their value over a period of years.
The Taoiseach seems to suggest that matters which have been under consideration for several years should be disposed of in a survey over a period of three weeks. That is the real difficulty about the Bill—the Taoiseach and Ministers who have been intimately connected with the details have had this Bill under consideration for months past, yet they ask the House to dispose of it in a few weeks. This legislation is of particular importance as transport is the lifeblood of the country. It concerns the workers employed in the industry and it affects the whole economic future of the State. Under those circumstances, I think the Minister would be well advised not to press for the rushing through of this Bill before the 1st July like a Hurricane or a Flying Fortress. Plenty of time could be given, unless the Minister has inside knowledge about the opening of the Second Front or the collapse of the European situation. If he thinks the war is going to end in a much shorter time than I do, then there may be some justification for his desire to rush the Bill.
Everyone in this House who has been democratically elected for the purpose of discussing the nation's business is concerned to see that we will be prepared as a nation to withstand any shocks that come in the period after the war, but a good case must be made out for it. So far a case has not been made. I think that any Deputy who has considered the matter will see that there are so many different ways of approaching even a question of principle that the short time at our disposal is not sufficient for the discussion of the matter. Most of the members of the House whom I have heard speak have approached this question from the point of view of what they consider to be their own principles. They have ideas of their own in relation to transport.
Personally, I have great sympathy with the Minister presenting such a Bill when he has to traverse the diverse workings of many minds on the matter. I am sure he could reply when many of the past ideas of his own, his theoretical principles, are quoted against him that consistency is the refuge of a small mind. We have had many somersaults here. I was quite amazed to notice the change in the economic outlook of some of the members of Fine Gael and particularly of Deputy Dillon. I should say that the age of miracles is not yet past and if the Minister for Industry and Commerce has done nothing else, even if this Bill were to go into the limbo of forgotten things, he has done a very good day's work in converting a number of leading figures to the policy of nationalisation or an approach to that policy. He has brought them nearer to understanding something about the control of transport.
Is the Deputy restoring Deputy Dillon to this Party? Is that part of the function of a leader of labour?
Does the prospect of restoring Deputy Dillon appal you?
I noticed that Deputy Connolly was very nice about it, but he seems to be determined to shove him back here.
If you recall my words, I made a definite distinction. I said "leading members of the Fine Gael Party". I was more amazed to find that Deputy Dillon had come nearer to the Labour Party's conception of a proper system of transport.
That was your second version.
Order.
I do not think that the Labour Party is claiming Deputy Dillon any more than Fine Gael is claiming him. I was just saying that I think it is good to have a more realistic approach to these economic questions than we have had for some time past. I was going to add, and I might as well do it now, that whether the statements of the people in opposition when they are in opposition are of any great value is another matter. Had I the time, which I regret I have not, to search in the past, I am sure I would find that the policy of Fine Gael on the question of transport is no more consistent than the policy of Fianna Fáil.
Whether again that is any grave matter for politicians is a question that is somewhat apart from the main one. To my mind, the whole Bill is a Bill that even in its title is quite uncertain as to where it will lead us. A great deal of this uncertainty runs through it. The title itself would lead one to believe that it has a narrow basis, that it deals particularly with two big concerns and their amalgamation. But, in fact, if you examine the Bill you see that it is of much wider scope, that it proposes to operate a transport service and to take over and acquire the whole or any part of any transport undertaking. Transport service, in this Bill, means not the rail and road and canal services which we have at the present time but, in fact, it means as well, sea, air and road services. In other words, in discussing this Bill we are discussing the future transport of the country—transport as a whole in all its forms.
We are dealing not only with the railways and the Dublin Transport Company and the canals but with the company or the concern which will have prior rights, and probably exclusive rights, in regard to any development of transport, whether that development is by way of the Drumm Battery or by electrification or by jet propulsion or helicopters or other forms of transport. We do not know what they may be. It will all be under this company. This company will have everything to say in regard to anything that has to do with transport in this country, and it is for that reason that I think the Dáil should be particularly concerned with the control of the company and with what method is observed over its control by the nation: how its acts shall be regulated, how its employees shall be treated, and how it shall attain efficiency for the different sections of the country.
It appears from the Bill itself, that we have a new form of control, a control that is not the same, we have been assured, as the method of control obtaining under the Electricity Supply Board. It is not a method of nationalisation. It is not a method, I think, that is known by any precedents. It is a new venture, and what the exact working of that venture will be, it is difficult to forecast. Whether the present situation of the railways justifies this new method is a very moot point. It has been termed a method of control by dictatorship, and on this point I think the Taoiseach himself has not, as has been alleged by members on these benches, sufficiently studied the Bill. It is quite true that he may have read Section 35, which deals with the board of directors. The Taoiseach informed us, correctly, that there would be six of these directors and a chairman. In sub-section (3) of that section it says that the chairman alone shall constitute a quorum at a meeting of the board. Sub-section (4) says that no meeting of the board shall be held unless the chairman is present thereat, and, as if that were not watertight enough, we finally have sub-section (5) which says that no decision shall be arrived at by the board at any meeting without the concurrence of the chairman.
Those are certainly very drastic powers. There is something in what the Taoiseach says: that if you have six men, six businessmen with railway experience, and men of responsibility, they, despite the regulation in the Act and despite the curtailment of their powers, will, as normal human beings are apt to do, make their presence felt. Now, there is no doubt about that, but here is the point: if they are in agreement with the chairman, then their presence or their submissions or their representations will have the same effect on the transport company and will be carried into effect, but if they disagree with the chairman, if they do not walk the same path as he does, if they do not follow along the same line, then the chairman is the determining factor. It is, undoubtedly, a fact that the whole motive of existence of these directors on the board would be to spur on the railway company to improve the efficiency of the railways. As the Taoiseach has said, that will be their duty, but what is the criterion of efficiency? It is not something that is abstract or ideal or that can be found in a White Paper. Efficiency has certain connotations, particularly with regard to transport. Everyone knows, everyone can see, that here you have an amalgamation of two concerns, one with very large interest in the railways and the other with very large interest in the road services.
Now, I am not adverting in the slightest to the character of the present chairman or the presumed chairman, or the chairman who has been in the position and who may be promoted to this other position. Apart altogether from his personal qualifications and character, any chairman coming into such an amalgamation of two diverse interests such as is proposed here must be either one or the other. He must, to use the common parlance, be either road minded or rail-minded. Now, which is he to be in this case? If he comes from the Dublin Transport Company, if he comes with that background, he will be bound to have certain views with regard to the railways and will be bound to be road-minded.
Those six directors, on the other hand, who probably will be picked as representatives of the interests of various industrial concerns through the shareholders, will undoubtedly, so far as one can see, be mainly rail-minded. There you have an obvious conflict of interest. If they were all to be road-minded then one could make a case that their representations would have an effect upon the all-powerful chairman, but if they are opposed to the chairman, or if he is opposed to them, you do not get a deadlock, but you get the chairman, with his overriding authority, being able to determine the whole policy of the Government. Now, that is a principle. That is not a detail of the Bill. That is not something that you can amend on the Committee Stage. That is the question around which the whole Bill revolves—this question of control—and that point undoubtedly must be met. These men will either be "yes-men" or "no-men", but whether they are yes-men or no-men, what the chairman says goes.
He is the "go-man".
The "go-ahead" man.
He is the head man of all. It is a very important thing then to discuss, in the creation of such a board as that, what is the outlook of the chairman. I submit that in a transport concern he cannot be both. I suppose that Deputy Davin or anybody who has been brought up on the railways, who has known their working, in and out, all the time, could not conceivably, in any circumstances, take the same view of a transport matter as would be taken by another person who regards the whole question of transport as devolving on a road service. It is undoubtedly true that many of those who have been brought up with the road tradition believe that the railways are obsolete. They believe that there is no future for the railways. I think—I am not quite certain and am not giving this as a quotation—that a Minister, even the Minister for Industry and Commerce himself, was accused, at least at one time, of making some remarks of that character. Whether that is so or not, there is undoubtedly a tendency manifest in this country and every other country to believe that the railways are obsolete.
It becomes a question then of considering whether the State is wise in putting in capital, in putting in some resources, and even in giving guarantees, to bolster up what has been described as an obsolete service. There will be a conflict there on the board. There will be railway-minded directors who believe that there is a future for the railways, whether through electrification or through rationalisation of the whole concern, or by connecting it with various forms of road transport. They will believe that there is a future for the railways but the chairman, if he be road-minded, might look upon these things from an entirely different point of view. He may come from a sphere of industry where things are naturally at a higher state of efficiency because in the evolution of human society and in the evolution of industry, road transport has undoubtedly been at a higher level than rail transport. It is a later movement, it has learned the lessons of the past and undoubtedly it has been enabled to achieve a different type of organisation, in some ways a much more efficient type of organisation, judged from commercial standards. Now the man who comes with that training to control the transport company may consider that his duty on lines that are best for the State, best for his own colleagues, best for the shareholders and best for everybody concerned, is to carry through some rationalisation of the railways, according to methods to which he has been accustomed in his control of road transport. That may be calamitous in its effects.
For instance, in the past we had different crises. We had the closing down of the Broadstone at one period and I am sure as a result of that closing down or amalgamation, we had the transfer of many workers hither to employed there to other services and other workshops. Their transfer would naturally increase very much the overhead charges in such workshops. Railway people who are accustomed to such things would try to ease that situation or improve it within narrow limits but a person coming from outside, with his idea of hustling and the organisation that obtains in the road service, might reasonably consider that these workers constituted a very heavy overcharge for which no value had been obtained for the company. He would undoubtedly make out from the economic point of view a very good case for the redundancy of many of these workers. But there are bigger issues in this question than the mere, narrow, commercial idea of efficiency. We have to consider transport, as the Taoiseach said himself, on the basis of a national service. We have to consider it as giving value to the community in every shape and form and we must consider such mere commercial views of efficiency as would be held by this hypothetical chairman to be dangerous to the country as a whole, dangerous to the community in its repercussions on the people employed in the concern itself and on people outside.
I think this Bill has created such a feeling among many of those who are at present working on the railways. We know that by the idea of Mondism, the idea of rationalisation which was so common in Great Britain and America in days gone by, different sections of different industries were put out of commission in order to conserve profits for the profit-makers and provide better guarantees for the speculators. We in this country escaped a great deal, if not all, of that policy of Mondism and rationalisation but many of those now working on the railways are wondering whether, under this transport concern, we are to have a very much delayed spate of rationalisation. There are provisions in this Bill in regard to redundancy which would indicate to their minds that that long-delayed rationalisation of the railways is about to take place, that quite large sections of these men will find themselves without an occupation when the Bill becomes an Act and is implemented. That is a very serious question of principle, a question that concerns us particularly on these benches. That is why we should like the question of compensation for railway servants to be dealt with in a much more generous spirit than is indicated in the Bill.
Does the Deputy think that there will be fewer people employed in the new transport service than in the past?
There may be economies.
I am not referring to economies. Does the Deputy think that our transport services are going to be of such a kind that fewer people will be employed?
That is what the Minister indicated.
I do not know what the Minister said, but I should like to know the Deputy's views.
If the Taoiseach wants me to speak frankly about that matter I should say that what I have stated indicates the current that is running through the minds of very many workers at present employed on the railways. They fear that when you are bringing, as I have termed him, a road-minded man into control of the whole concern, inevitably there will be rationalisation. They fear that there will be a cutting down of various forms of employment, that, from the point of view of road-transport efficiency, he may consider many of the smaller stations, for instance, as unnecessary. He may consider that the workshops repairing these vehicles could be brought up to a higher level of efficiency. As I have indicated, and as the Taoiseach knows very well, in Great Britain and in America there was a spate of what was known as rationalisation, under which firms used to get out a stop watch and time every different action of the worker. They developed the endless chain system, so well known in connection with Fordism. They ran everything so efficiently that they were able to close down sometimes one-third or one-fourth of the plant and yet were able to get the same output from the remaining workers. They were able to increase the economic efficiency, the efficiency which would pay dividends to shareholders, efficiency from the point of view of commercial standards, but an efficiency that, from human standards, I am sure the Taoiseach will admit, was entirely wrong and would not suit this country.
I wonder did that diminish the number of people employed?
Yes.
I believe that the industry developed and that as a result very many more people were engaged. I only want to know if that is not so.
No, particularly in the steel industries. They had an amalgamation. I remember going over some of the factories in Sheffield. They had an amalgamation under one of the big steel concerns there. They transferred wholesale the machinery in what they called uneconomic shops to better situated shops and closed down the uneconomic works completely. To such an extent did this go that in many places in England and Wales the steel industry was wiped out and the workers were left without occupation in that line. As a result of this short-sighted rationalisation. When this war came upon them, they were in a very sad state and there was a long delay in getting these mills restarted.
The question of the short time allowed in which a decision is to be come to regarding redundancy—from July to December—has been dealt with by other speakers. I am sure that the Taoiseach, with his humanitarian outlook, will see that that period of six months will be extended. There is no reason why this question should not be left open to decision over a period of years. There is, in fact, no reason why any definite period should be inserted in the Bill at all. If a man is proved to be redundant as a result of the rationalisation, following upon this amalgamation, he should, in justice, be entitled to compensation. The question of the period should not affect the matter at all.
The question of nationalisation has, naturally, been debated upon this Bill. The Taoiseach said that the Labour Party went out whole-hog for nationalisation. Our alternative proposals are not—as an individual, I am sorry to say it—whole-hog nationalisation proposals. They are proposals which were enshrined in a document presented to the Minister and with which he is familiar. We indicated in that document that our idea of the organisation of the transport industry was of the nature of a public utility company, with certain control by the Oireachtas, not in regard to every-day policy but rather as a check. An annual report would be submitted to this House, as is done in other cases, and if there were a desire for discussion upon the policy of the principle of the transport concern, then such report could be availed of. We do not at all regard as desirable nationalisation in a form in which every little movement and action by the transport company would come under fire in this House. Our proposals did not proceed upon that line.
The question of nationalisation is one that cannot, unfortunately, be considered without relation to the particular subject under discussion. If it could, a very good case could be made for nationalisation, particularly in the present economic situation of the country and of the world. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has assured us that he has read the funeral service over capitalism and that we are entering another period of economic life. What exactly it will be called it is hard to say but so far as indications by the Minister, Fine Gael, Deputy Dillon and, more particularly, Deputy McGilligan are concerned, they suggest some form or other of nationalisation.
The exact working-out of what constitutes nationalisation is a problem which would have to be left to each industry. Whether it would be practicable or desirable to have nationalisation per se in one major industry, while the remainder of the industries of the State were privately owned and conducted on the principles of the system which the Minister assured us is dead, is a very difficult point to decide. Nationalisation, if it is to be really effective, should extend over all the major and heavy industries of the country, all the industries that are susceptible to amalgamation and that are capable of being brought up to a moderate state of efficiency. It would not, of course, include one-man industries or craft industries. These could not, under any conceivable scheme, come under a scheme of nationalisation or socialisation. But transport is the lifeblood of the whole economic system and it is susceptible to some form of nationalisation. It is a great pity that the Minister lost his chance of trying out some form of nationalisation in this case instead of adopting the method of a chairman-controlled concern to implement the ideas of the State and control the general tendency of the undertaking.
The financial provisions of this Bill would require three months' discussion by statisticians. I suppose it would be possible to discuss them apart from the situation in which the new company is to be born. The Minister, however, has indicated his desire to launch the new company so soon after this period of speculation that it would be astonishing if there were no relation between the speculation that has taken place and the launching of this concern, despite the wishes of the Minister or the Government. When the Taoiseach was asked could he state the cause of the phenomenal rise in the Great Southern Railways Company shares, he had to answer that he did not know. He did not know why the ordinary stock had risen from £9, on March 26th, 1943, to £52 on March 24th, 1944. He had no answer. Surely there must be some reason for this phenomenal rise. It is not confined to ordinary stock. Preference stock jumped from £14 on March 26th, 1943, to £52 on March 24th, 1944. Guaranteed stock jumped from £28 to £72 on January 28th, 1944. Debenture stock jumped from £56 on March 26th, 1943, to £90 on March 24th, 1944. Surely these are phenomenal rises. They must have some explanation. If it is stated that the provisions of this Bill bear no relation whatsoever to this movement on the Dublin Stock Exchange of a character never previously experienced in dealings in these shares, then the age of miracles has returned.
Speculation may have unduly boosted these shares; there may have been leakage of information proper or improper, which may have further boosted the shares but the commonsense view is that apart altogether from this unusual, abnormal state of affairs, if a Transport Bill were to be brought forward in a normal state of affairs the provisions of the Bill or what were understood to be the provisions of the Bill would affect railway shares, either favourably or adversely. The shares would go up or down according to what the experts considered to be the implications of the Bill. Therefore, if we subtract from these phenomenal rises in railway stock what might be due to abnormal causes, and then try to relate them to the normal operation of the Stock Exchange, we must admit that there is every indication that persons interested in these shares considered that the provisions of this Bill would be unduly favourable or extravagantly favourable as far as they were concerned. That, in my submission, is the real reason for this speculation and that is the answer to the question which the Taoiseach was unable to answer.
Finally, I wish to refer to cross-Border traffic by road vehicles and the method that should be adopted for the control of this traffic. It may not be a question of principle, but it has had important reactions on the country and should be considered. Many people concerned in this business know that for a number of years there has been an invasion of the south by vehicular traffic from the north. There has been a muscling-in of services and traffic which would normally have gone to the Port of Dublin and probably the Port of Drogheda and perhaps Dundalk. It is being diverted to the north by road haulage. There has been a consequential diminution in the volume of employment among dockers in the south along the southeast coast while no great economic advantage has accrued to the country to offset that loss. We have advocated in that connection that there should be a licensing system limiting the field of operation of these cross-Border road vehicles, having due regard for the national interest. We do not suggest that they should be completely prohibited, because some case may be made for a certain volume of this traffic, but to allow them absolute freedom to operate without some proper form of control would be to abandon all that traffic to these higher powered and, in some ways, more highly efficient services. We are particularly concerned with this diversion of traffic. I am sure that is a minor point that can be settled.
Is the Deputy referring to private cars?
Yes, for public hire.
Nobody can ply for public hire for the carriage of goods here except they are licensed under our Act.
We understand that there is some form of licensing in operation, but we consider that, if there is to be a transport system, particularly in the cases I referred to, where a national transport concern will not operate directly on the rail service, there should be some restrictions, in the interests of the State and of employment, on the activities of those cross-Border vehicles which operate into territory which should naturally be drawn off by rail services from the south. Navan is such a case. We consider that there should be greater control of licensed road hauliers from the north, but not a complete drying up, because that would not suit people generally, their convenience or economic interest. A case could be made for restrictions in order to help a return of traffic to what I hope will be a more efficient railway service under the new concern.
I rise in protest against the introduction of this Bill, particularly in view of the fact that an inquiry is taking place at present, and that we are prevented from making any reference to the outcome. Deputies in this Party will oppose this Bill, because we are of opinion that it is to a great extent dictatorial by placing the control of transport in the hands of one individual. Accordingly we believe it to be the duty of this House to prevent such a measure becoming law. In introducing the Bill the Minister laid strong emphasis on the necessity for a reorganisation of transport. It is generally accepted that he failed to outline the extent of the Bill's operations, if it becomes law. He gave no indication of future plans for dealing with transport. Motor-tax revenue goes into the General Exchequer. I am of opinion that a large increase of heavy traffic over the roads by lorries and buses is inevitable under the new proposals, and consequently the Minister for Finance will welcome such additional revenue.
Motor taxation does not go into the Exchequer. It goes into the Road Fund, which is under the supervision of the Minister for Local Government.
Not the whole of it.
Some of it is taken out again.
Some of it is taken out to finance relief works on roads.
I understood that the whole of the licence duty does not go into the Road Fund.
The whole of it does.
This Bill will result in a large increase in the number of vehicles on the roads. At the present time the roads are not in a condition to deal with any substantial increase of heavy traffic, and any extra burden placed on them will mean rapid deterioration. That will undoubtedly entail the expenditure of a large amount of public money. The Minister is aware that the maintenance and repair of roads is the concern of local authorities and that they have to defray the charges from local rates. Accordingly, we may visualise much higher local rates for the upkeep of roads, particularly in the rural communities. It may be assumed that the railways will remain the major traffic arteries between towns, but the roads will be used for the transfer of merchandise from the railways. The revenue collected from increased road traffic will be distributed, I suppose, according to the Government's wishes, but there is no guarantee that local ratepayers will not have to bear the burden of increased construction and maintenance for the accommodation of fleets of heavy buses as well as for haulage work.
The money is distributed on a mileage basis.
That may be so now. The Minister will realise that the trend is towards road transport. Deputies have pointed out that the manager of the new concern may be road-minded. Is the Government prepared to remove the burden of road maintenance from local rates? Will local authorities have to maintain roads for the increased burden which will be imposed upon them if the manager is road-minded?
The concentration of all transport under one body may be detrimental to national economy, inasmuch as the opportunity of providing cheaper methods of conveyance is considerably reduced if there are vested interests affected. Should some new motive power prove cheaper and more efficient than the existing system there is every reason to assume that the chance of trying it in competition with the other methods is eliminated. Does the Minister see that point? The monopolists will not be ready to scrap plants in which considerable funds have been invested and to substitute services which would cost the community less. The obvious outcome would be that the community would be penalised by a monopoly which would not scrap its plant for one that would provide cheaper, more efficient services. The effect on cost of production is of particular importance in an agricultural country where transport represents a large part of total costs. That might mean that the world price of our goods would stand higher than those of countries in which newer and more efficient transport methods were operating, thus reducing cost of production as well as cost to consumers.
Should this occur, it would mean penalising our export trade and adversely affecting our home standards of living. The Bill makes no provision for the replacement of obsolescent transport with newer developments. In fact, by setting up a body which is not State-owned, and yet not open to private competition, practically ensures this adverse result. The Minister will admit that the company which he intends to set up is not a State-owned company, and yet that it will not be open to private competition. The Minister will also understand that this company is to be sheltered like an infant industry. No provision is made as to when it is to come of age. It is to be continually sheltered. One could understand if it were to be sheltered for two, three or four years, but according to the Bill and to the Minister's statement it is to be continually protected from any competition, private or otherwise. Cheapness and efficiency are the results of human and private initiative, the pitting of one man's skill against that of another, the incorporation of new ideas and technique such as may be attained within the framework of a totalitarian economy where, of course, specialists are trained for that purpose. The Minister is aware that he has not got specialists here for that particular type of totalitarianism.
This Bill relieves Córas Iompair Éireann of all the distinguishing marks of an ordinary company. In fact, it sets up a department where the members, directors and stockholders are to receive a definite remuneration stipulated by the State. That remuneration will not depend on the initiative of the persons concerned. They are relegated to the position of the wage-earner whose wage is guaranteed by the Government, and will have, in their newfound positions, all the irresponsibility of such wage-earners. They will have nothing to worry about. Their wage is there, and they are going to be paid irrespective of what they do or how they do it. The normal incentive towards a reduction of costs—the profit motive—is completely wiped out because, in no instance, can the stockholders receive more than 3 per cent. on the debentures, and 6 per cent. on the common stock. There is, therefore, no inducement towards providing cheaper services. The company, on the one hand, will have to face no competition, and hence need not look for trade. In other words, it can just look on the public as it likes. It will not need to facilitate the public or give the public the service that it would have to give if it were a private company open to competition. It will not need to give the public the service that it would have to give if it were a State company nationalised, and had to give an account of itself in a yearly report to this House. This new company is to be protected in every possible way, with a guarantee from the Government that it can earn a certain dividend or certain wage. The normal functions of a company are being taken away. The company is a collection of fixed income earners. There is no inducement to the company to provide cheaper transport. It is not even being burdened with the effect of making a loss, should earnings be insufficient to cover commitments.
What about the ordinary shareholders?
The ordinary shareholders have a guarantee from the Government.
The ordinary shareholders? On a point of order, may I ask, has the Deputy been reading his speech?
No, not necessarily. As I was saying, the company is not even burdened with the effect of making a loss should earnings be insufficient to cover the commitments to pay 3 per cent. on the debentures. That will still hold good because the necessary moneys to meet that are to be provided by the Oireachtas. Subsections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 17 give the company that guarantee. The company is not even required to pay back these moneys. Again, in Section 7, it allows the Minister to make any regulations that he thinks fit. If in anything I have said, I have hurt the feelings of, I think, the Deputy from Cork—I do not know his name—by exposing something that he does not agree with he will get sufficient time to read his speech if he wants to read it.
The Deputy admits then that he is reading his speech?
No. I said that you will get sufficient time to read your speech if you want to. The company, therefore, when it is set up will be deprived of all incentive to provide cheap transport. To relieve the company of the consequences of earning a loss is to deprive it of the incentive to give cheap transport. The initiative to do so will not be there due to the fact that guarantees are being given by the Government that its losses will be made up by the State coming to its aid.
How?
Is not the 3 per cent. on the debentures being guaranteed?
The debentures are guaranteed.
Is not that a guarantee that if the commitments they engage in——
The debenture holders are not the company. The company consists of the ordinary stockholders.
Yes, but does not the Government also guarantee them?
No.
The Government does not guarantee this £16,000,000 after the end of 1960?
The Government guarantees the principal and interest on the debentures. There is no guarantee whatever to the common stockholders.
Cheaper transport is promised, but the volume of transportable merchandise carried by the railway company in normal times resulted in a loss of money. The road services managed to pay. I would like to have an explanation from the Minister, if he can give it to me, as to how he is going to get the railway company to function, to pay dividends and fulfil its commitments when, at the present moment, it is not in a position to do so. If it is not able to do that now, will the Minister say how he expects this new company that he is setting up is going to be able to do it?
What action will the Government take to force the company to do that? Cheaper transport is promised, but the total volume of normal transportable merchandise is fixed and in normal times the railway company is losing money and trade. The road transport system was beating it by giving more efficient and cheaper services. If individual competition outwits the new combine, will the Minister intervene to prevent that and give a complete monopoly to the railway company?
We are not proposing to do that.
Then what is to happen to the money that is guaranteed? If individuals find it easier and cheaper to run their own lorries to bring their own merchandise wherever they want it, instead of using the railway, has not the Minister got power under this Bill to prevent those individuals using their own lorries?
No, there is no power of that kind.
How can more economical transport be promised, in conditions in which there are major reductions in services and a new company is formed which must pay a 3 per cent. dividend on the debenture stocks? I want that answered. If there must be a 3 per cent. dividend and if the new company continues to lose money, what guarantee is there that the Minister will not have to come to the company's aid?
The old company had to pay 4 per cent. and that is changed to 3 per cent., which represents a saving and a reduction in the cost of operating transport.
Will there be a reduction in cost?
There will be at least the reduction from 4 per cent. to 3 per cent. on the debentures.
The total volume of transport business is unchanged, so economies resulting from a unit operating on a larger scale are automatically excluded. To operating costs running expenses, maintenance and replacement, is now added a charge approaching £500,000 interest on debenture stock. That is the commitment of the Government. If the railway company fails to pay the interest, the Government is charged with £500,000 interest annually.
Only if the whole of the debentures are issued.
In the same breath, the Minister promises cheaper services all round. How can that materialise? Has the Minister any guarantee beforehand, in setting up this new company, that it will give better services than the one functioning at the moment? There is no guarantee.
The Deputy must not cross-examine the Minister. He should make his speech and address the Chair.
The Minister is making a very vague promise, in the hope that this new company will be able to cover its commitments and pay the £500,000 interest. The economies of large-scale operation are promised; there is no inducement to economic management, and the consequences of loss are dismissed. An initial millstone of £500,000 is placed around the neck of the company. If charges are reduced, it can only mean that the Oireachtas is paying part of the cost, and that means that the consumer must really pay a higher price for the services rendered, though in a disguised form. The Government will have to pay to the company this 3 per cent. on the debentures, and £500,000 must come from the taxpayers in taxation disguised in one form or another.
The private hauliers ran their lorries on a mileage basis. Have we any guarantee from the Minister that the new company will take the farmers' merchandise from the farmyard to the fair or market and remain there for the day; and, if so, will the company charge for that on a time basis or on a mileage basis?
I told the Deputy he must not cross-examine the Minister. The Minister cannot guarantee anything but what is provided in the Bill and the Deputy has the Bill before him.
That is a detail of management, which is not provided for in the Bill at all.
In introducing the Bill, the Minister did not define the details, so we have to ask him now. We wish to know exactly the conditions under which he expects us to support or oppose this Bill. We must know how the farming community is to be treated.
The Deputy will appreciate that, when a Bill leaves this House and becomes law, it is for the courts to interpret it and the Minister disappears then entirely.
The Minister does not disappear in this case.
As Deputy Cosgrave says, the Minister does not disappear. He is the hidden dictator and has the power to remove the chairman at any moment. The interpretation that will be given to this Bill will be the interpretation the Minister desires. The Minister, in introducing the Bill, failed to give the meanings which he wished to apply to the Bill and that is why I put these questions to him, through the Chair. I hold that, if the future trend of transport is towards the road, it will mean a heavier draw on the ratepayers. Those of us who represent the farming community will have to oppose that. It would also mean that the lorries which are used to take pigs and cattle to the local railway terminus or bacon factory may have to be retained for five, six or seven hours, which would mean heavy costs to the farmer and a reduction of his profits. It would mean the reduction of whatever profits he would have.
Judging the Bill as a whole, although there is necessity for reorganisation of transport and for a new system, I do not think this Bill will bring that about. I do not deny that the Minister may be under the impression that it will bring about the object which he has in mind and lead to the more efficient development of transport. But we here are honestly of the opinion that it will fall short of that. It will not have the desired effect in making the transport of this country, both rail and road, as efficient as the people would like and in particular it will not give a cheaper system of transport. The transport system, especially the railway system, is costly and I do not think the Bill will alter that. For that reason, I and others on these benches, will oppose it and I appeal to members of the other Parties, even those of the Fianna Fáil Party who are not afraid of the Whip, to oppose it also.
That means Deputy Ó Cleirigh.
It is not addressed to Deputy Ó Cleirigh any more than to any other Deputy. I am not trying to forecast what Deputy Ó Cleirigh is going to do. That, of course, is his business. My appeal is to every Deputy to oppose the Bill. We are not doing this for spite or from any reactionary motive but rather from a progressive motive because we wish to see a more progressive and acceptable Bill before the House.
The Taoiseach in speaking here to-day expressed the great truth that the details of a Bill can be amended upon the Committee Stage but that the Second Stage is concerned with the principles of the Bill. I submit to you, Sir, that the principles enshrined in this particular Bill are concerned mainly with the directorship. There is the directorship with a chairman who has full overriding powers over everything. There is the question of the £16,000,000 guaranteed and £20,000,000 ordinary capital. Thirdly, there is the management and general working of the Bill or of the transport of the country or the amalgamation of the Great Southern Railways and the Dublin United Transport Company. If the Second Reading were taken, you could not change any one of these three things in Committee because then you would alter the whole principles of the Bill. I submit that every attack and every opposition made to the Bill has been made on these three points. There may have been minor points raised like lack of time to examine the Bill and so forth, but these are the three outstanding principles and they cannot be changed.
If the amendments are accepted, cannot these things be changed in Committee?
I would not agree that either the powers of the chairman or the composition of the board is a matter of principle.
You would accept that the capital is a matter of principle?
That could also be changed.
I would regard as a matter of principle the decision to guarantee the interest on the debenture stock, and to guarantee the debentures. The manner in which the new capital might be dealt with is a matter of detail.
And the amalgamation?
The amalgamation is a central part of the Bill. The Bill was introduced primarily to set up a new company consisting of these two companies amalgamated.
Then you take it the way control is exercised is not a matter of principle.
The method of exercising control is a matter of detail.
I will accept that, but from the manner in which the Bill was introduced one would take it that the control of the company was enshrined in it as a matter of principle. The Minister says that that is not so but he was quite clear that that control was necessary to make the proposal a success and he went further and said that it was only just short of nationalisation. I submit that the difference between what he is doing and nationalisation is the difference between two figures one on the same sheet and that is nothing. In the Bill the proposal is to abolish two existing companies and to establish a new company, transferring the powers of the two companies to one company, the management of which will be held by a managing director who is to carry out the instructions of the Minister and the policy of the Government of the day. The difference between that and nationalisation is nothing. I want to be quite clear as to where we stand on this question of railway transport of the country on these benches. We believe in the establishment of a public utility company run on the same lines as the Electricity Supply Board. We think that that is an excellent manner in which to deal with such a great public service as transport. It is alleged that that is nationalisation of a type, but it is not. It does mean that it is the property of the State and that it is managed in the interests of the people as a whole.
It is very hard for Deputies who have no experience of the Stock Exchange to value the £16,000,000 or £20,000,000 that it is proposed to guarantee to this new company. The £16,000,000, it is argued, is not a subsidy. It is the nearest thing again to a subsidy that you can possibly have because once you give security to a person for a certain amount of money it is nearly the same thing as if you wrote him a cheque and he did not cash it until he wanted it. If the House passes this Bill—I sincerely hope it will not—it will be giving £16,000,000 to the director without saying to what purpose it is to be devoted and in that way nobody, except the Minister and that director, will have control of that money.
The Taoiseach to-day very properly gave expression to some great truths. There was one thing to which he gave expression that I do not exactly accept. He said he was not a speculator. I take it that that is correct, that he is not a speculator on the Stock Exchange. But as a political speculator there is no one in the world to equal him. He also said he did not know how people judged the rising and falling of stocks. Nobody knows better than he how his political stock went up and down. Let us hope that it is again on the descent. He knows that very well; there is no person better able than he to appreciate that.
If he is as good a speculator as the Deputy says, he might be right.
He speculated well from 1922 to 1932, but, then, the greatest speculator, the greatest operator on the exchange, can meet his Waterloo, and this Bill could just be the Waterloo for the Taoiseach. In this particular speculation he should be very careful. We are guaranteeing £16,000,000. The people who are going to benefit by that guarantee are those who have, no matter for what reason, purchased shares in the Great Southern Railways during the past 12 months or two years. While I am quite agreeable to the guarantee being given, I insist that it should be a guarantee for the valuation of the stock at a certain time. I believe that what Deputy Dillon suggested would be quite reasonable, and that is that we should select the year 1938. When you are taking over the company you should take over the shares as valued in a year such as 1938, when everything was normal. But you are taking them over now at a figure which has established itself more or less on the market and you will enrich people to whom we are under no obligation.
So far as the citizen of this State is concerned I do not begrudge him anything he gets, but what annoys me more than anything else is that we are guaranteeing the interest and capital of people who have money in the railway company, but who are living outside the State and who purchased their shares within the past 12 months. I think that is a very unfair position for a Minister to take up. He has no mandate from the people to guarantee those things. I would like to know how many persons in Stormont will have their capital and their dividends guaranteed under this Bill if it passes —people who have purchased stocks within the past two years. I suggest it is almost impossible to discuss this Bill in the manner in which it should be discussed when we have not the report of the tribunal now sitting. I suggest that because of the circumstances of the time we are tongue-tied upon very essential matters, and we are not at liberty to deal as adequately as we should, and as we could, with certain proposals.
The amalgamation of the Great Southern Railways Company and the Dublin United Transport Company may be all to the good, and may be essential for the useful employment of transport in this company. But it is a strange thing that the Transport Tribunal did not make any such recommendation. It is also strange that the Government would adopt a plan almost contrary to the recommendations of the Transport Tribunal. That tribunal recommended, as Deputy Lynch pointed out, that there would be a period of five years in which the whole transport question would be examined while being worked under fairly favourable conditions. Nothing like that has been done. The tribunal reported in 1939, but the Government did nothing since then and they do not show any anxiety to operate the proposed five years plan. They have multiplied the capital, and have asked us to guarantee £16,000,000 without giving us the information which we consider essential before we arrive at any decision.
The Government knew very well in 1939 that the Great Southern Railways had not an adequate coal supply. This bringing in of £16,000,000 to bolster up the railway company now is like locking a stable door after the horse has been stolen. If in 1939 the railway company had sufficient capital they could have left in ample coal stocks to carry them for a considerable time. The Government, for some reason or other, did not advise the railway company to lay in sufficient coal or did not express any desire to guarantee the purchase of such fuel. I submit that in that sense the Government are too late with their present proposals. Before we agree to this heavy expenditure we should have more information placed at our disposal.
I am one of those who believe that we cannot do without the railways, although in the United States and elsewhere road transport has taken away to a very great extent the activities of the railway companies. Road transport has advantages inasmuch as it can go to the producer's premises, load up the stuff and thus have only two handlings instead of four or five. In that way it is true to say that road transport has a great advantage over railway transport. But in this Bill the Minister has not given us any indication how the £16,000,000 will be utilised, whether for complete road transport, complete rail transport, or both. He tells us blandly that this is an enabling Bill to allow this board, with a dictator on top, to do what they please.
Debate adjourned.