Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 May 1946

Vol. 100 No. 18

Committee on Finance. - Vote 61—Posts and Telegraphs (Resumed).

Dr. O'Higgins

I want to discuss this Estimate as far as possible in a non-controversial way and, where I am critical, I am critical with a view to making suggestions to the Minister, because I agree with what some other Deputies have said, that, in recent years, we have experienced from the Minister in charge of this Department a desire, if not to grant every request made by Deputies on behalf of their constituents, at least to examine and investigate them very fully and with an open and sympathetic mind. That type of approach to Parliament by a Minister always produces a healthy response and reaction inside Parliament.

This Vote, like every other Vote, keeps in step with the fashions in so far as the fashions appear to be higher and higher and it is in step in so far as it goes up from year to year. From the point of view of a resident in the City of Dublin, I must say that the people of Dublin are compensated for the increasing expenditure and increasing cost, because postal services all round in the City of Dublin have reached such a high degree of excellence that they could compare more than favourably with similar services rendered to the people of any other European capital. To that extent, I feel bound to congratulate the Minister and his Department. Their service in Dublin is excellent. Faults reported and complaints passed on are very expeditiously attended to.

I would say that the telephone service has gone ahead very much in the City of Dublin. That does not apply to the country. I think that it could be argued that the telephone service is being advanced and developed and made more excellent and more efficient in the City of Dublin at the expense of the country subscribers and of country taxpayers. The telephone service in Dublin, as I have said, is excellent. In the provinces, the telephone service is primitive, antediluvian, which, I think, does not show either sound administration or sound salesmanship. People have to get accustomed to the telephone, like a great number of other articles. The first article cannot be just placed on the market according to the strict sense of profit and loss. The first second or third article must be placed on the market by way of advertisement and in order to make the person who has not got that article feel that it is good business to have it. Consequently, if the telephone service is to be extended and generally used throughout the country, then there must be a loss faced on the earlier telephones. This system of cutting off a town or area or district or village at 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening is entirely unreasonable and, in comparison with the service given in the City of Dublin, I have no hesitation in saying that it is definitely unjust. People in the country who get in a telephone get it in very frequently with a view to an emergency situation. They are cut off the telephone at the time when it is impossible to send a telegram. I have, like other Deputies representing country constituencies, repeatedly made representations with regard to towns, not always small towns. The reply is always courteous, but it is the reply of the person who wants to balance two sides of a ledger: that it does not pay to extend the telephone in that particular area; that they have not sufficient users; that there is not sufficient revenue coming from that particular area. If that was the mentality of the pioneers of the telephone service, it would never have become an instrument of international use.

I have one particular town in mind, the town of Mountrath. A very influential and representative committee from every angle made representations with regard to the telephone service for that town and the reply was that what they asked for could not be done. In recent years an all-night telephone line was run to Ballyfin College, passing by that town. In that case, it is not a question of having a special staff, it is not a case of keeping any exchange open all night. The Port-laoighise exchange is an all-night exchange and Ballyfin is linked up with that exchange. It is merely a case of linking the town of Mountrath by night with the Ballyfin line. I think consideration should be given to a situation of that kind that does not carry with it the cost that it would entail in any other town where you had not an all-through line running right beside the town.

Then there is another suggestion I would make to the Minister. There are facilities within the Post Office when anybody changes his address temporarily to have his letters forwarded to the new address. In 99 out of 100 cases a telegram is a more urgent thing than a letter. Even if it means an extra charge, I think a telegram should be sent on to the new address where the Post Office have already been notified that the person is residing pro tem. I think it is scarcely reasonable merely to send on letters when a person has filled up a form and given notice of his new address and that a telegram should be forwarded to the new address.

I should like to make a further point with regard to the Post Office service generally. Here we have a service making a big profit. I think it is the biggest employing Department outside the Army in emergency times. In regard to the conditions of service and pay, I think it sets a very bad example to other employers. When you take the standard of education, of reliability, of sobriety, of character, and of honesty that is required before a man is appointed as an ordinary rural postman, I think that the rates of pay are entirely unsuitable and inequitable and that some little fraction of the profits being made should at least be turned back so as to make the conditions of service and the conditions of living of the workers, particularly the rural postmen, a little bit more attractive. It is not sufficient to say that they have an emergency bonus. The emergency bonus is a matter of general application. It is not a case of trying to keep step with the cost of living, but of trying to keep in sight of the cost of living. Whatever may be said about private employers, a Government Department should aim at making the income of the individual servant keep reasonably and steadily with the cost of living. Particularly in a State where prices are controlled by the Government, it would be reasonable to say that, if the cost of living has gone up, it has gone up, if not with Government assistance, then with Government connivance or approval.

That being the situation, there is a very definite and clear responsibility on the Government to see that their own paid servants get a remuneration in line, in agreement, or in harmony with the cost of living arranged or devised or approved by the Government. I can never understand why subordinate workers are kept in temporary acting positions for an indefinite length of time—in some cases, years. It would be entirely unworthy to suggest that such a state of affairs could be condoned by the tiny saving effected in pension. I think it arises merely from a lack of alertness. I do not suppose it happens in the City of Dublin; but it is not unusual to find a person filling the position of a temporary acting rural postman from one year to another. Now the effect of that can only be bad. The individual in question is a good type of man; otherwise he would not hold the position he is in. He is there under conditions of "live horse and you will get grass." He is there merely from day to day with no security of tenure and no confidence or certainly that he is going to be kept in permanent employment. The result is that that particularly outstanding type of man looks for employment elsewhere and the service must thereby in the long run lose by that type of policy. When a service, such as Posts and Telegraphs, loses a good man through that policy it means that the people served by it lose in turn. I think it is reasonable enough for big employing Departments to have a man as a probationer, and even to have a fairly long probationary period. That is quite a different matter, because that man has actually been appointed and he has got a position subject to a satisfactory probationary period. I am referring to the situation where positions are filled by temporary acting men existing, as far as I know, on a week to week or month to month tenure of office and for a very considerable length of time. Those are the only remarks I have to make in connection with this particular Vote, and I hope the Minister will not think, because I have spent the greater portion of the time on criticism rather than on praise, that as a Deputy speaking in a representative capacity, I am not appreciative of the fact that this is a Department which in the main has given satisfaction to the people and a Minister who in the main has given, if not always a sympathetic ear, certainly an open ear to matters to which his attention is drawn.

Mr. Blowick

I have just a few suggestions to put before the Minister. The first is that, now the emergency period is over and there is a possibility of getting increased supplies of material for this particular Department, I would ask the Minister to pay particular attention to the rural areas and to rural post offices to which no telephone line has yet been extended. In many parts of Mayo I know that people in some areas suffer a good deal because of the lack of telephone services, particularly at night time where they may be seven or eight miles from the nearest telephone. Losses of stock have arisen because of this lack; very often there are urgent calls for doctors—I will not say it actually means loss of life, but it sails very close to it, and I would appeal very strongly to the Minister, the moment material becomes available to extend branch lines to those areas. The last speaker spoke about the cutting off of the rural areas from the towns at night. I remember not so very long ago there was an urgent call from a country post office. The post mistress on the particular occasion was good enough to open the post office and endeavour to make contact with the town. She actually did so but it then appeared that there was some regulation which prevented the official in the town from putting the call through. The next best thing he could do was to ask the person who wanted to make the call to come into the town and approach a private subscriber there to put the call through. I cannot see why a regulation of that nature should stand. Evidently there was an official in the post office to take night calls. If he could take calls from a private subscriber in the town I do not see why he could not have taken the call from the country post office. There is one further suggestion I want to make to the Minister and that is that, if at all convenient, telephone kiosks should be available to the public outside the post office so that the public could go in at any hour of the day or night and get in touch with the local town during the off hours in the rural post office.

There is definite uneasiness and instability amongst rural postmen who are working merely on a day to day employment basis. They are not established. They have no security of tenure and there is no pension for them at the end of their term. It might be argued that they are only part-time. Some of them because of the size of their particular beat are whole-time. Some of them have to leave their homes as early as 7 o'clock in the morning to take up duty and do not return home until 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It is my experience that they are pretty well tired out after their day's work and if they have any little bit of land or any other side line, the working of it generally devolves on the wives and children.

I think that that insecurity is responsible in some cases for little failures on the part of the postmen. Now and again we come across cases where rural postmen do not deliver the mails in the proper way. Now, lest there should be any misapprehension, what I am referring to is cases where I know myself circular letters and other little articles, such as periodicals going through the post, which are adjudged by the postman to be of not very much importance, are left aside for a few days until he meets the people at Mass on Sunday, or something like that. If there was more security of office I do not think this sort of thing would happen. I want to make it plain that nothing really serious has ever occurred or been brought to my notice. Nevertheless these little things are happening. I would ask the Minister not to take any serious notice of them beyond, perhaps, a reprimand. I would not like that a rural postman should be discharged for some minor fault. But I would ask the Minister to take these things into consideration. We have heard complaints from time to time of where rent receipts have not been delivered in the more remote areas bcause the postman has to travel long distances to deliver them. That has caused a lot of trouble with the Land Commission. People were waiting for their rent receipts and did not get them. The next thing that happened was the Land Commission served them with a six days' notice. Neither the Land Commission nor the party was actually responsible. I think if postmen were given more security these little things, which must be most exasperating to all concerned, would not occur.

There is one further suggestion which I would like to put before the Minister with regard to the present colour of postmen's uniforms. Postmen as a rule like to keep themselves fairly trim and neat, but on dusty roads in the summer time they often come home from their beat as white as a miller. I would suggest—and this has been adopted in some countries—that the colour should be changed to either a grey or a greenish-grey, or some colour that would not show the dust so much. It should not mean any additional cost. It is only a minor matter if you like.

I would ask the Minister to consider seriously the giving of a pension to postmen at the age of 65 until such time as they become eligible for an old age pension. At the present time postmen are ineligible because they may have some other little means, and they have to wait until they are 70.

There should be some pension and some little recognition for their services. This is one of the Government Departments about which there were few complaints. It is a service which gives every satisfaction. I think the whole Department is fairly well managed from the Minister down. One never hears of any serious charge or discourtesy against them. Postmasters and postmistresses also have their duties increased very considerably and I suggest they are seriously underpaid. I think there should be a complete overhaul of the whole system. Their duties hold them down to the job from eight in the morning until six or seven at night and sometimes eight, and then there is always some odd caller. There is somebody always dropping in, particularly in the rural districts, for something or another. These are the major things. One reference was made on the adjournment debate on the subject of the appointment of rural postmen. The Minister accused me on that occasion of bullying postmasters. In his reply, I would like him to state who they were and where they were. I will admit I asked information from postmasters on different occasions and I always found them very courteous and kind. I never bullied a postmaster and I cannot see why a responsible Minister of State should stand up and say I bullied any postmaster. When he is replying, I would like him to say who were the postmasters I bullied and when, as it is a very serious charge against a Deputy. I challenge him to show one tittle of proof.

Mr. Kennedy

Ba mhaith liom cupla rud a chur os comhair an Aire. There are a few matters I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister. The delivery of letters to County Westmeath from Dublin takes two days. Letters posted to-day in Dublin will not be delivered in any place outside Mullingar until Friday. My statement is a statement of fact. Town improvements committees in Delvin, Killucan and Castle-pollard have made representations to the local postal authorities to do something about it. The explanation was that a letter posted to-day got to Mullingar but that they had not got time to sort them until to-morrow and consequently they were not delivered until Friday.

I think it would be better to put into operation the pre-war system where the post car left with the evening post. What use is there in waiting for the train to come in and one or two letters picked out and the train waiting there for an hour or so? I would like the Minister and the Department to examine that matter. The early morning train could be delayed for an hour or so so that the letters could be sorted and sent out.

Deputies have referred to the overloading of the telephone service and to the long delay getting a call through. We can all understand the shortage of material, but I do put it to the Department that the telephone exchange in Mullingar is overworked and overloaded and the staff are not able to cope with the work passing through. I do not know of any trunk call going through in less than two hours during the emergency. Before one o'clock and after two o'clock are the most difficult periods and in fact people tell me that other people put through a call and often forget about it until the call comes through about four hours after, the distance being only 50 miles. People from outside districts admit that the work is too big for Mullingar.

The other matter I want to refer to is the delivery of letters on the train. Meath letters go by train, but Westmeath letters go by bus. I live approximately four miles from the Meath border, but in the parish of County Meath. If I post a letter in my parish it takes three days for that letter to be delivered. I challenge anyone to contradict that. I post the letter and it goes into Mullingar and then it has to go on to the line It takes three days, two to go out. We might as well be sending letters to Northumberland as sending them to County Meath. I had an experience yesterday. I sent a telegram to a businessman in Oldcastle at 9.50 a.m. and it was some time after 12 when I got the reply. He got my telegram half an hour after I sent it and he sent the reply to me immediately and it took two hours to come. If anyone went on a bicycle to Oldcastle, eight miles away, he would have the reply back in that time.

The Department did link up Athboy with Mullingar and now one can get a call in a reasonable time. At a place like Oldcastle, some 10 miles from Castlepollard, one cannot get a call for hours. I am talking about the delay in trunk calls to Dublin. Very often one may be kept six hours in the case of Oldcastle, and that is no exaggeration. The call may get lost and you ring up again and they say they are trying to get them. Then they contact Kells or somewhere else. They tell you the call has to go through Navan and there is a hold-up in Navan and in Kells. Anyone living there and having that experience can tell the Minister that I am not exaggerating.

Some years ago the village of Delvin, which is in the County Westmeath, had its circuit through the County Meath. There was one case where there was an urgent call. The official putting the call through to the county hospital was waiting a considerable time in Delvin. He went by motor car to a neighbouring town and, after putting the call through there, he was told by the post office that his first call was ready. They have now linked up Delvin, Athboy and Mullingar and, notwithstanding the congestion in Mullingar, the result is that the local calls on that circuit go through quickly. I suggest to the Minister that as it has been proved effective to make that link up with Athboy, it would be equally effective to have a link up with Oldcastle, Navan and Kells.

These two counties adjoin and they have their businessmen, farmers and others who deserve to be facilitated. At the moment, so far as Meath and Westmeath are concerned, you might as well talk about Cork and Antrim, because the telephone service there would be just as quick, if not quicker. Why do we not have a carrier system the same as in other telephone services? We are told it would not pay to have it in Mullingar. I believe it would pay and that Mullingar would justify the carrier system.

Deputies have spoken about the work of rural postmasters and postmistresses. Some years ago there was an innovation in the form of a half-holiday. I noticed it at Milltown Pass and I could not understand why it was not extended to other places. I see now it has been extended to Castle-pollard. That is a very good thing. The work of the Post Office has increased in every village year after year. The officials need a rest. They are brought in as apprentices and they are paid very little. I am not talking now about officials of the Department. I am talking about the unfortunates who are brought in and who think there is a post office career before them. They serve their time with no pay and then they get a little pay. The half-holiday is a blessing to these individuals. It should be compulsory in every sub-office in the country. Even in small villages where there are one or two shops the assistants have a half-holiday. I suggest to the Minister that the half-holiday should be extended to other places in County Westmeath. It is very desirable that there should be a half-holiday for the post office workers in the smaller villages.

Mr. Heskin

I wish to emphasise the importance of having a daily postal delivery in every area. It is very difficult for many people, particularly in rural areas, to deal with correspondence that may be a couple of days late. There are many people who may not be at home when the postman arrives and a couple of days elapse before one can reply to a letter. The farmers in the rural areas are complaining that the alternate day delivery is very unfair. I suggest, now that the emergency is over and many men, ex-soldiers and others, are unemployed that the Minister should make some move to utilise them and so have a daily delivery. There has been some grumbling in my area as regards the inadequate postal deliveries. I get the post every second day and very often important letters have to be replied to and the delay in delivery causes much inconvenience. I suggest the people are entitled to a daily delivery. I hope the Minister will make an effort to see that the rural areas get a daily delivery for the future.

Another important point is the need that exists for a pillar box in the Ballysaggart area. The Minister knows that it is a thickly populated area. He is also aware that during the emergency a considerable quantity of turf was produced there. A lot of inconvenience was caused to merchants and others in Dungarvan and elsewhere because of the delay in delivering letters. A very unsatisfactory position arose because they had not their letters in time. The turf production there was very extensive—there were 4,000 tons produced last year. I think the Minister should do all he possibly can to see that proper facilities are given to the people. It is a very important area and the country people are entitled to the same postal facilities as are given in the villages and towns.

Several Deputies have referred to the unsatisfactory position of the telephone service. I suppose during the emergency it was hard to meet all demands because of the scarcity of materials. I hope the Minister will do all he can to improve the position. I am aware of the difficulty of getting through to Dublin, to Government Departments. On several occasions I could not obtain a telephone call. I must say that the officials in the post office are quite courteous. In the Ballyduff area a complaint was made by a merchant who carries on a very big business there. He was very dissatisfied with the telephone service, to which he is a subscriber. I hope the Minister will see that the position in that area will be improved. This man is an asset to the agricultural community. It is time that the interests of the people were looked after.

Mrs. Redmond

I wish to pay a tribute to the Minister and to the members of his staff for the courtesy and helpfulness that I have generally received from them, even when requests that I made on the Department were not granted. At the same time I wish to call attention again to the telephone service in rural districts. I speak particularly about County Waterford where, on several occasions, the disadvantage of not having the telephone has been stressed. I refer to Grange, near Ardmore, where there is no telephone service, and where there appears to be no chance of getting it. An accident happened there some time ago, but there was no means of sending a telegram or ringing for a doctor. When the matter was brought to my notice I approached the Department, with a view to having a telephone installed but, as the emergency was on, it was not possible to do so on account of the scarcity of materials. As this is the first occasion on which the Estimate has been before the House since the passing of the emergency, perhaps the Minister could now give some hope of the installation of the telephone in that district. Another point is that in many places, not so remote, the telephone service closes down completely at 7 p.m. People do not know that accidents will happen before 7 p.m., or that someone will get sick by 7 p.m. For that reason I ask the Minister, even though the telephone service may have to be run at a loss rather than at a profit, to have the hours of the service extended after 7 p.m. every day in the week. On Sunday last I happened to ring up somebody who was ill in a country district, and I was told that I could not get in touch with a subscriber on any Sunday; that the only way to do so was through the Civic Guard.

As well as having the service extended after 7 o'clock, we should have a Sunday service for all subscribers seeing that they have to pay for the installation, as well as a yearly rent and for calls. If necessary the service should be run at a loss for one year so as to give service rather than no service and a profit. Some Deputies referred to the country postal services. In the year 1946 every citizen in the Twenty-Six Counties should have at least one service daily. I ask the Minister to try to speed up the service in that respect. In some places people are so cut off for want of the telephone, as well as a daily postage service, that they seem to be forgotten. That is what they say in the country. I do not want to be taken as saying anything vindictive, but I ask the Minister to take a note of the matters to which I refer. I trust he will appreciate that I am not mentioning them out of antagonism to the Department, because I received every courtesy and helpful suggestion there. The points that I have now mentioned are pertinent, and I am sure are known to other Deputies.

Mr. Roddy

It is significant that the revenue from telegraphs has increased despite the huge increase in the telephone service. I do not know whether that is due to the emergency or if it will remain a permanent feature of the Estimate. One would imagine that if there was an enormous increase in the use of the telephone, there would be a decrease in revenue from telegraphs. Presumably in peace time the revenue from telephones will continue to increase, and that revenue from telegraphs will decrease. It is obvious from the Minister's figures that the telephone is coming more and more into common use as an indispensable adjunct to business people as well as private individuals. That being so, it should be the Minister's aim to give those who use the telephone a more efficient service. Deputy O'Higgins spoke of the efficiency of the service in Dublin. I only wish that I could say that the same efficient service was given to country subscribers.

Anybody who is in the habit of using the telephone a great deal, especially for trunk calls, must have been exasperated on many occasions because of the abnormal delays that take place The Minister apparently anticipated such criticism as, in his statement, he referred to the difficulty of securing equipment. I have been a Deputy for 25 years, and year after year I have heard complaints made against the Department of Posts and Telegraphs about the abnormal delay, especially in trunk calls, from country towns to Dublin and from one part of the State to another.

It is true to say that due to the lack of equipment the Department has not in recent years been able to give efficient service, but the same complaints were made in normal times, when there was no difficulty about getting equipment. There should not have been such difficulty in providing circuits which would give an efficient trunk service. It is time that the Department became really alive to the supreme importance of the telephone service to commercial, professional and private citizens. We should aim at giving the people as efficient service as is given in Great Britain. Services in country towns and districts should be as efficient as those in Dublin or in the Dáil. It happens on occasions that the service improves with a change of postmasters. I came to the conclusion that inefficiency depended to a great extent on the type of personnel in charge in different areas. It should be the ambition of the Minister to provide an efficient service throughout the country.

Some months ago, I asked a question here as to the conditions in Sligo Post Office. Over a number of years, the officials there have been trying to get more accommodation. They have petitioned the Minister and the Secretary of the Post Office on a number of occasions to have certain reconstruction work carried out, so that the staff would be able to carry out their duties in a more expeditious way and so that better facilities would be provided for the public as well. In a Supplementary Question, I referred especially to the conditions in the telephone room, which I described as appalling. If there was a stronger adjective, I would be inclined to use it on this occasion.

The Minister denied that the conditions were as bad as I described them, but I repeat that the conditions are disgraceful, and, as a matter of fact, if such a set of conditions existed in any private business or institution, I am perfectly certain that the proprietor of the business house or the people in charge of the institution would be made amenable to the law. These applications have been made on numerous occasions for the purpose of having better conditions provided in the Sligo Post Office, and, in response to these applications, officials from the Post Office and from the Board of Works have been sent down. Promises have been made on many occasions that a change would be effected as speedily as possible, and only this week certain officials were down there carrying out another inspection. I do not know how many inspections have been carried out, but the people in the post office there must have lost count of them, and probably another half-dozen or dozen inspections will be carried out before anything is done.

I put it to the Minister that it is rather carrying the joke too far to be wasting the time of officials and spending public money in such a manner without effecting any improvements whatever in the abominable conditions which exist there. I sincerely hope, now that equipment is becoming available—I hope that in a few months' time ample equipment will be available—he will take steps to see that a change in the conditions in Sligo Post Office is brought about, to see that proper conditions are established there not alone for the staff in charge of the telephones but for the officials in the post office section of the building.

I am glad to see that the Minister has made some provision for an improvement in rural deliveries, and I sincerely hope it is the first step towards the establishment of daily deliveries in rural areas. I intended to say much more on this point, but, in view of the fact that the Minister has made some provision for an improvement in the number of deliveries, I merely say that I hope he will go a further step next year or the year after that and will establish a daily delivery in all the rural areas.

Finally, I want to refer to the pay of post office staffs generally. I refer not to postmen but to post office staffs generally. In comparison with other branches of the service, they are, relatively speaking, a badly paid staff, and in view of the importance of the duties they carry out, I think they deserve to be treated at any rate as fairly and as decently as the staffs of other Government Departments. It is a most exacting service, a service which requires a high sense of responsibility, a high sense of efficiency and a high sense of integrity in those engaged in it, and I think the Minister should show his appreciation of the qualities and abilities which he requires from the staff by compensating them adequately for the services they perform. I hope the opinions given expression to here to-day will influence the Minister towards giving consideration to that point.

Mr. Norton

The Minister broke some new ground this year in the course of his introductory remarks on his Estimate. He took occasion to tell the House that, during the year, he was infected with the spirit of reform and had decided to do as he had been often asked to do, namely, to abolish that detestable form of employment, part-time labour in the telephone service. Happily, that was abolished during the year, and I think everybody rejoices in the fact that that evil is now behind us, but the Minister knows that he still has a notion of part-time employment in other branches of the Department, and I hope, now that he realises that part-time employment is such a detestable thing, that he will lose no time in applying his talents and his energies to the abolition of part-time employment in other branches of the service and will endeavour to organise the service on the basis of full-time employment.

The Minister told us, too, that during the year the Department had decided to provide small motor cars instead of motor cycle combinations for post office linesmen. That, too, was a welcome development, and when I heard the Minister speaking of it, I was reminded of the Biblical quotation: "There is great joy in Heaven when the penitent sinner returns to the fold." The fact that the Minister has seen fit during the year to substitute small motor vans for motor cycle combinations is evidence that he is making progress and that, for once, a spark of enlightenment has accidentally struck the Post Office Department.

The Post Office, as the Minister might know, was not always as enlightened as it appears to have been during the year in the matter of providing these small vans. I have some interesting letters here which were written away back in 1936, in which, with considerable profundity, the Post Office says that "after examining the whole matter of providing small motor cars in lieu of motor cycle combinations, the Minister expresses very great regret that he is not able to sanction the proposal."

Mr. Little

That is not relevant to this year's Estimate.

Mr. Norton

I am giving the Minister credit for what he did this year, and I hope the same progress will continue. In case anybody thinks that the Post Office changes its mind in the matter of being enlightened quickly, there was, two years later, another profound letter saying that the Minister had given the matter very careful consideration but that he was unable to find sufficient grounds to warrant a departure from the decision previously made and that he regretted he was unable to sanction the proposal; so that what the Minister was asked to do in every year since 1933 he was only able to do in 1946. The facts are the same in 1946 as they were in 1933. Every year they were the same, but it took the Post Office 13 years to stagger towards this intelligent reform which both the British and Northern Ireland Post Office Departments carried out many years ago.

However, I am glad to see that even the Minister has learned something and I am very glad to note that the Post Office has now made up its mind that it is not going to be the headquarters of conservatism in Ireland and that it will occasionally let a ray of intelligence into its administrative methods. I hope the Minister will make up his mind to come to the House next year with a rather formidable array of reforms long overdue like those which he introduced during the year and will tackle his new administration of the Post Office with some more human and intelligent outlook than we have so far seen in relation to a lot of matters.

Deputy Roddy talked about the conditions in Sligo Post Office and other Deputies have had complaints to make about the accommodation in various other post offices. The truth of the matter is that the whole post office accommodation problem is a perfect scandal. Anybody who knows anything about it, or who takes the trouble to find out anything about it, knows that, so far as accommodation in post offices is concerned, or so far as the planning of accommodation is concerned, the whole thing is a perfect joke. The Post Office owns a wide variety of property all over the country and the section of the Minister's Department responsible for administering it could not look after a single establishment because the place is simply starved of staff. There is no body of adequate staff to supervise the day-to-day requirements of the Post Office so far as accommodation is concerned.

The picture which Deputy Roddy painted with regard to the Sligo Post Office is perfectly true. A blind man would realise it if he went down there, but Sligo is not an isolated example. It is symptomatic of what is happening all over the country. If the Minister does not know it, let me quote a few cases.

In the Ballina office for two years there were supervisors, surveyors, inspectors, engineers, contractors and tradesmen measuring up, surveying, and photographing the place. After two years' pilgrimage of these people to Ballina, the post office is in the same chaotic condition from the point of view of accommodation as it was before the first of these pioneers trekked to the town. Let us take another example—Claremorris. Here is a description of the telephone exchange there, and after hearing it you will wonder how we get a telephone service at all. The telephone exchange is about ten feet square and the staff consists of five. Within these ten feet square accommodation has to be provided for three switchboards and other engineering equipment. It is with accommodation of that kind, in a room ten feet square, with three switchboards, that the staff have to try to give a telephone service.

Here is a picture of the Ennis telephone exchange. The room is 15 ft. by 9½ ft. It houses five people during the daytime and three from 7 to 11.30 p.m. and a night attendant as well. In addition to a switchboard measuring 7 ft. 3 in. by 2 ft., there are a table 5 ft. 4 inches by 2 ft., a test case 3 ft. 3 ins. by 1 ft. 6 in., five chairs, a radiator, etc. That is the accommodation provided for the telephone exchange at Ennis, the nearest big town to Rineanna, about which the Minister indulges in speeches from time to time. How can you imagine a proper telephone service being provided there? There was a delay of four hours in trunk calls last year from Ennis, the town nearest to Rineanna, where you have the most modern equipment and the latest in the science of aeronautics.

Now we come to Waterford to see what the position is there, a place for which the Minister has some responsibility. Here is a description of the telephone exchange there. The telephone exchange was originally designed to accommodate six telephonists and a supervisor and only one set of switchboards. On the introduction of the carrier trunk system the staff was increased and a second set of switchboards installed. Representations made succeeded in having a small adjoining room added to the accommodation, which was a slight improvement at the time. The position to-day is that there are 18 telephonists, plus one supervisor, accommodated in the room together with two sets of switchboards and other equipment installed on the introduction of carrier trunk system.

That room, which was provided originally for seven people, has packed into it 19 people, plus two switchboards. Is it any wonder that it is difficult to give a proper telephone service with conditions of that kind? Is the Minister satisfied that his Department is working satisfactorily when you get conditions of that kind in telephone exchanges around the country? As I said, anybody who knows the conditions of these offices— and the Minister might usefully undertake a tour of them—can see plainly that the Post Office has fallen down completely on the job of providing adequate accommodation, and that the volume and diversity of work has increased enormously without corresponding increase in the accommodation available for the staff.

I have quoted four cases. I could quote 54 if I were disposed to delay the House. The Minister will have to watch the Post Office accommodation problem. One of the first things necessary is to create a department capable of dealing promptly with demands for increased accommodation, capable of getting these matters put on their way quickly, and capable of sufficient elasticity to adjust accommodation to the growing volume of traffic that has to be dealt with.

Last year on this Estimate the question of providing pensions for auxiliary postmen was raised by a number of Deputies and I also raised the matter myself. It was pointed out then that auxiliary postmen, that is part-time postmen, who may work 34 hours per week, who have rendered 40 years' service, may be compelled to retire and not receive one halfpenny compensation or pension or gratuity from the Post Office in return for all that service. The Minister was told then—he knew it already—that no good private employer would dare to treat an employee who rendered upwards of 40 years' service in the mean kind of way the Post Office treats auxiliary postmen. If they have been thrifty—and they can hardly be thrifty on the miserable pittance that masquerades as wages—they cannot get a grant even from the Minister's special fund, which is reserved exclusively for dealing with persons in necessitous circumstances. The Minister has been pleaded with to recognise the merits of the claim to grant pensions for auxiliary postmen in return for long and faithful service. The merits of the case have been portrayed for him time and time again. He ought to know that no good class employer in private industry would throw an employee out after 40 years' service and give him no compensation whatever. Last year the Minister said that he would examine the matter and see what could be done. I do not know whether he has given any consideration to it during the year. In view of his promise to look into the matter, I hope he will tell us what he has found it possible to do or contemplates doing in the matter. It is a very serious thing and a very bad reflection on the State, particularly on the Department concerned, that persons who served for upwards of 40 years should be turned out at 65 or 70 years of age without as much as a penny gratuity or compensation from the Department which they have served so long.

I do not think the Minister can justify that by reference to any standard of decent conduct. Of course, it could be justified perhaps on the basis: "You are just a cog in the machine. You are of no further use to us; out you go. We will get another cog." People who stand for the recognition of human rights could not justify a code of conduct such as the Post Office adopts in its dealings with auxiliary postmen who served it for 40 years. I should like to know what the Minister proposes to do in that matter.

Deputy O'Higgins and others mentioned the case of temporary postmen and the insecure position in which they find themselves. There are two aspects of that problem which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. The first is the case of a group of temporary postmen in Dublin. Many of these people are employed as full-time temporary postmen and have been so employed for the past 20 years. Because of their age and because of the fact that they have been a long time away from school it is quite unlikely that they would be eligible to compete in a limited examination to secure established appointments, or, if eligible on the ground of age, would have any chance of getting through a keenly contested examination because of the fact that younger officers would be competing with them. A number of these officers have given 20 years' continuous service and they are still graded as temporary postmen in the same way as a temporary postman who came into the service yesterday or last week. The Minister should recognise that he has a responsibility towards persons whom he has employed for 20 years in what is described as the position of temporary postmen. There should be some recognition of the long and faithful service which these people have given to the State. The Minister can quite easily recognise his responsibility and in fact discharge his responsibility, if he only approaches this problem with some humanitarianism towards those who have served him, and with some determination to get over whatever trifling difficulties may be encountered. There are a considerable number of unestablished postmen in Dublin.

There should be no difficulty in the world—it has been done before with 48 such persons—in appointing a number of these long-service temporary postmen to established appointments, thereby giving them permanent employment in the Post Office, removing them from the category of temporary employees and giving them a stability which, I think, every right minded person will recognise they have surely earned after more than 20 years' service in the capacity of temporary postmen. There should not be the slightest difficulty in doing that. As I say, it has been done before. All it wants is the heart to do it, and the will to do it; and I appeal to the Minister to recognise that this is a problem which can quite easily be solved and it is one in which he will encounter no difficulties whatever. There is the other aspect of the problem of the insecurity of temporary employees and I would like to ask the Minister what he intends to do in this respect. Since the emergency developed in 1939, every person employed as an auxiliary postman has been employed in an acting capacity only—in other words, he was appointed as a temporary auxiliary postman, the idea apparently being that the question of the filling of the post permanently would not be considered until the emergency terminated. Now from the point of view of making definite appointments to these posts the emergency is over, as much as it ever will be over, and I would like to know from the Minister what he intends to do in connection with making these posts permanent. Many of the officers have been employed in them for the past six years. In fact some of them have filled these positions for nearly seven years. Surely something should be done now in the way of appointing these officers permanently to the positions in which they have been employed for over six years in a great many cases. In any case there is no reason whatever for delaying the appointments further and I hope that the Minister, when he is replying, will make a statement on the matter.

Questions have been raised in the course of this debate as to the staffing of various post offices. Here, again, I do not purport to know on what basis the Post Office calculates its staffing requirements, nor have I ever been able to understand the scheme by which they endeavour to budget for the volume of work with which they have to deal. But I would like the Minister to make some inquiries and find out the extent to which practically every office in the country is being staffed at the moment, particularly in relation to post office clerks. I know—and I challenge contradiction—that the position of the staffs of various offices throughout the country is positively chaotic.

In many of these offices overtime has been worked from the month of January to the month of December simply because the Post Office has not got sufficient staff. That is due to the fact that the Department did not recruit and train staff in order to have them available. A very considerable volume of overtime has to be worked in these post offices, and it has to be worked because that is the only way in which to deal with the volume of work. That is not intelligent staff planning. That is merely expediency. That is a rule-of-thumb method of dealing with the matter. Surely any proper organisation should budget for staff on the basis of known demands. As far as the Post Office is concerned the staffing of the entire offices throughout the country is simply on the principle of "robbing Peter to pay Paul". One person in an office puts in an application for transfer to another office—a thing which he is perfectly entitled to do. The Post Office tell him that he cannot be released because they have nobody to replace him. If you ask the Post Office to appoint staff to make good vacancies in post offices they tell you they have no staff available. The position is so bad that they have actually asked married women to come back to the service because of the shortage of trained personnel.

As far as Post Office clerks are concerned the Post Office will simply grab anybody who can operate a telegraph key. That should not happen; and that is all due to the fact that plans were not made in time to recruit staffs. If these plans had been made in time staff would be available now. As I said, it is a kind of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" policy, and it should have no place in the proper organisation of a public Department. It should be abandoned; and it can only be abandoned when the Post Office recognises its function to recruit staff sufficient to cope with the volume of work with which it has to deal. The position at the moment is that there is overtime being worked in a whole variety of offices because without such overtime there would be a complete breakdown. Even overtime has not prevented things happening which ought not to have happened, if there was an enlightened policy so far as adequate staff is concerned.

Now I would like to ascertain from the Minister whether it is likely that work on the St. Andrew's Street Exchange will be commenced this year. I think the Minister must recognise that it is impossible to have any effective and really efficient telephone service in Dublin—and Dublin is the core in this matter—until such time as there is proper accommodation sufficient to contain the telephone equipment necessary to provide an efficient service from the capital of the country. The Minister has already indicated that he believes the equipment will be available when the office reaches completion, and I think he also indicated that, so far as priority was concerned, the erection of this new building was high up in the priority list. Could the Minister say now with any degree of definiteness what he intends to do in respect of commencing work on the St. Andrew's Street Exchange? Is work likely to be undertaken this year; and, if so, could the Minister hazard any guess as to when the new building will be available for occupation as a telephone exchange? A short time ago I asked the Minister when he proposed to demolish the disused distillery which acts as a central sorting and delivery office in Pearse Street and erect a proper building there. At that time— though his predecessor promised a new building would be erected in 1941 —the present Minister told us that he thought that, at best, work on the erection of the building would not be commenced for about three years. I do not know whether that was an offhand, wide-of-the-mark guess by the Minister, but if he has any more reliable information or any more up-to-date information in connection with the provision of a proper sorting and delivery office in Dublin I would be glad if the Minister would furnish us now with whatever information he has. The present building, notwithstanding what the Minister—who does not work in it—says, is a thoroughly insanitary building from the point of view of the staff working in it. Week after week and month after month they complain about the condition of the building. In the summer time the roof leaks tar; in the winter time it leaks rain. That is the kind of building that served as an essential sorting and delivering office in the capital of this country. I think the Minister ought to try, with his colleague the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to get away from that situation—a disused distillery serving as a central sorting office and a central letter office for the past 22 years.

At the present rate of progress we shall be dead—long dead—before we ever see anything other than the present shack as a central sorting and central delivery office in Dublin. In any case, the Minister might well make history if he would give this wheel a turn and do something to induce somebody to perspire a little in the erection of a new sorting office in Pearse Street. The present building there has been occupied for the last 22 years. It is a joke and a satire as sorting office and letter office. Apparently the Minister thinks it is a lovely one. If he does then every other post office administration in the world that has built decent sorting offices is crazy and the Minister is the one sane Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The fact that other administrations have found it desirable to erect decent and artistic buildings leads me to the belief that they are sensible and that the Post Office here is at fault in hanging on to the present buildings.

Appeals have been made to the Minister by Deputies who have spoken in this debate in regard to the necessity for raising the wage levels of the Post Office staff and I think the Minister must recognise that he has a very heavy moral responsibility towards those whom he employs. In this House and outside the House there is widespread approval of the claims made by the Post Office staff for increases in their present low standards of remuneration. There has been public sympathy for the demand that the Post Office staffs should be decently paid and they are not being decently paid to-day. There has been public sympathy for the demand that Post Office staffs have a right to be taken out of the disgraceful position of being the Cinderella of all the services. Every newspaper free to express an opinion on the matter has wholeheartedly endorsed the demand for improved wages and better conditions of employment for these State employees. Nobody has opposed this demand publicly except the Post Office Department itself, but the Minister knows perfectly well that newspapers have gone on record supporting the demand of the Post Office staffs that they should be decently paid. The Minister has a moral responsibility in this matter and a Cabinet responsibility as well. In the last resort the Minister is the employer of those employed in the Post Office services and there is on him a grave responsibility of ensuring that those whom he employs are adequately paid and not compelled to exist on the low rates paid to them at present.

The Minister for Finance confessed to-day at Question Time that, as a result of the stabilising of the cost-of-living bonus in 1940, he succeeded in keeping in the Exchequer £5,900,000 which he otherwise would have paid out if he had been decent enough to honour his moral obligations. He said to-day, by inference, that because he repudiated his obligation he had been able to keep in the Exchequer close on £6,000,000 which, in fact, belongs to the Civil Service, and a very large portion of that sum belongs to the Post Office staff. By withholding it he has exaggerated an already serious position. The Minister told us, in the course of his opening speech in this debate, that he expected to have a surplus of £182,000 on the 31st March, 1946. It seems to me to be nothing short of a scandal to have a surplus of £182,000 on the Post Office service. It was secured by employment at low rates of wages. That surplus is possible only because you sweat people, only because you deny them a reasonable wage, only because you fail to make provision to pay them a wage commensurate with their domestic and moral responsibilities. The Minister should examine his conscience and realise that this surplus should be utilised for the purpose of raising wages and improving conditions of the thousands of people employed in this service. He has a moral responsibility to do that.

Mr. McCarthy

We all admit that the Post Office service is one of the most important and responsible and, in some respects, one of the most confidential of our national services. Many very desirable and progressive reforms have been made in this service and undoubtedly it is becoming more efficient year by year. I do not think it is right to criticise as some Deputies have criticised here to-day, the officials of the Department for having no ideas at all as to how the services should be developed. From my personal knowledge I know they have ideas and that some of the matters for which they have been criticised here to-day have been given effect to. If there is room for criticism it is because these reforms have not been sufficiently pushed forward and more generally adopted. As regards the telephone service it has been pretty severely critised here to-day by a great number of Deputies. We all agree it is an expanding service because of the increased demands for it from private, professional and business interests. No doubt it is very efficient within certain circuits but for long-distance calls it does not seem to be sufficiently organised or progressive enough to deal with the demands being made upon it.

It is a matter for criticism, of course, that in a city like Cork one has to wait four hours on any kind of a busy day for a call to Dublin. That is far beyond the limit. The time has come for an extension of the service. Not only rural areas and towns are making claims for an efficient telephone service but the new built-up areas in the cities are making claims too, and unfortunately these demands from private and public interests have been referred for consideration with some system of priorities. The closing down of the service at 7 o'clock at night is another very serious matter for the people affected. The obvious answer to this is that these post offices are mainly situated in shops and that in many places these shops have to close down in accordance with the terms of the Shops Acts. It has been said that in such cases kiosks should be put outside. These kiosks have been put outside the post office in Cork which shows that the Post Office has got this idea itself but you cannot expect kiosks to be put up outside every post office in the country. Some provision should be made for the provision of reasonable facilities for the public who desire these services. Some of the demands made by Deputies will not require any additional staff at all. All that is necessary is a link-up with the existing system where staffs are available after the usual hours. The payment of the Post Office staff is a matter for consideration undoubtedly and also the question of pensions for auxiliary postmen. It is very hard on men who have given a national service for a lifetime to go out without a pension or without anything to provide for their families.

I must congratulate the Minister on the progress he has made. I know that in Cork he has made a very desirable connection between the letters department and the parcels department and that is a great help to the public. Even if the counter space is still limited, we are glad to see that progress is being made. I know that under the guidance of the present Minister some of the matters referred to by Deputy Norton and others have been made effective during the past year, even with the drawbacks of the emergency, and I am sure that further progress will be made, now that the emergency period has passed.

Mr. O'Leary

I appealed to the Minister 12 months ago to do something with regard to the post office in Enniscorthy. Tuesdays and Fridays are particularly busy days. On Fridays you have the old people standing at the post office counter. I have been there on a few occasions waiting to get stamps and I could see the poor old people waiting there for half an hour. On Tuesdays the officials have to deal with family allowances. There is no increase in the staff, not even an extra clerk. There are two good officials there who are doing their best. People have complained to me in the post office. They want to know why I have not done something, why I did not bring this matter before the Minister. I did so 12 months ago, but nothing has been done to relieve the congestion.

As regards rural postmen, I know a lot of them. Is it not a shame to see these employees having to work a few hours with a farmer or trapping rabbits to try to get a little extra money, although they are carrying the State bag? With regard to appointments of rural postmen, I have a letter which was sent to me and which I will read for the Minister. He can deny it if he likes. It shows how these appointments are made:

"I am writing to inform you about a vacancy for an auxiliary postman at .... sub-post office."

I will give the letter to the Minister afterwards, if he wishes.

"In 1945 the vacancy was declared. I was a member of the Defence Forces from September, 1939, to December, 1945, and held the rank of sergeant. I am a married man with two children, one aged four years and the other one year. My age is 30 years. I obtained a good knowledge of Irish. I submitted an application for the vacancy in the usual manner and also sent the highest testimonials from the Army and civilians. Even the Minister for Defence wrote on my behalf to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The acting postmaster at Enniscorthy informed me at an interview that he had recommended me for the vacancy and I told the postmaster that the sub-postmistress had sent me to him with her recommendation also.

"I was employed as temporary postman from the 3/2/46 up to the present, but now the appointment has been made and the man appointed was a member of the Defence Forces all right and is also married, but he has no children. He is, no doubt, a member of the local Fianna Fáil club. He has very little, if any, Irish and he is over 50 years of age. This is another case of the Fianna Fáil jobbery plan, and I fail to see why the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs should not give his views when making or about to make this appointment. If he considered a married man with no family better entitled to the vacancy than a married man with a family, he then made his decision only on the advice of the three or four members who met on a Monday night in an old preaching house belonging to the Fianna Fáil Party. There is another ex-member of the Defence Forces married, with one child. He was also an applicant for the vacancy. He is a single man who can read, write and speak Irish, and he was a member of the L.D.F. I would be very grateful if you would bring this case before the Dáil so that the public would know just another small bit about this so-called Republican Party and its departments. If you want any further information on this subject I shall be too pleased to furnish same. Hoping you will bring this case before the Dáil and that they will allow the Press a good hearing."

Will the Minister, in his reply, deny that?

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not want to interfere in the quotation of the letter, but it would be much better if that were in the form of a question before this Estimate was raised. The Deputy must appreciate the Minister's difficulty in replying to a matter of which he has had no notice.

Mr. O'Leary

According to this letter, he must know something about it.

An Ceann Comhairle

There probably is more than one case in the Post Office.

Mr. Norton

Thousands of them.

Mr. O'Leary

This thing is happening all over the country. We had a case a few months ago in Mayo. I know where an appointment was made in another post office and the candidate was brought by two officials to the examination and was brought home again by the very people who were sent down. What is the use of parents getting young men and young girls educated and sending them up for tests when the jobs are given out beforehand? They are only wasting their time, and it would be better to save the expense of sending them to these examinations. There is nothing but criticism all over the country about appointments in the Post Office and in the Civil Service. There is nothing but jobbery and corruption. It is not the best educated person who gets the job; it is the man with the biggest pull, and that will have to be stopped. If you are not well in with someone in the Department, or if you have not some fellow who is a great Fianna Fáil man pushing you in, you will not get any job. What is the use of these examinations? These are the things the public know all about.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Deputy referring to Civil Service examinations in general?

Mr. O'Leary

I am referring to the Post Office.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister has no responsibility for the others.

Mr. O'Leary

He has responsibility for the Post Office and I am sent here to voice the grievances of these people. There are Deputies sitting on the far side of the House but they cannot get up because they are bound down by the Party. I am sure the Fianna Fáil members in my constituency know about these cases the same as I do. Perhaps they got something like the letter I read, but they funked it and hesitated to bring it forward because they made the job all right. Where is the preference for the Army men? Here was a man with the rank of sergeant. He is put on the dole and another man is brought in.

Mr. Little

Who was also in the Army.

Mr. O'Leary

Yes, but the other man was a sergeant with a great knowledge of Irish. He was ousted and another man was brought in through political influence. I do not like to have to get up here and say these things, but the people insist that I should do it. The people sent me here to voice their grievances and to expose any corruption. All that is wanted is fair play for any candidate, and to have nothing about Fianna Fáil clubs, about men meeting in a house, or any sort of backsliding going on. Let matters be decided on their merits. Meetings are being held all over the country to raise funds and to provide work for ex-Army men. The man I referred to is out of his job from February 3rd. The Minister should not be led away in such matters. I heard a Deputy from Mayo a few months ago stating that the same thing happened in reference to a postmaster in that county. The same thing is going on in my constituency in Wexford. Rural postmen are carrying State bags, but some of them are without uniforms or capes in the winter months. If we are to have good service, in view of the millions of money that have been mentioned, we should be able to pay the State servants. The Budget to-day told of the great things that have been done, but we are leaving the rural postmen to try to carry on on a few miserable shillings a week. If the Minister wants the information that is in my possession he can have it. I hope that he will reply to the points that I have raised.

Mr. McMenamin

After five or six years during which considerable difficulty prevailed in getting material one does not desire to be critical, but the present position cannot continue. In country districts it is not uncommon to have to wait close on two hours to get a call through to a place 17 miles away. I do not know if that is due to technical reasons or because there are so many other calls to go through. What will happen ultimately if that continues is that people will cease to use the telephone. I was in Ballybofey last week and I wanted to ring up a person in Letterkenny, a distance of 17 miles, and when I asked what delay there would be I was told that it might be half an hour or three-quarters of an hour. I cancelled the call. Delays may be due to the fact that the Department has not sufficient lines to clear calls, but whatever the cause, it is essential in the interests of the Department that the position should be remedied at the earliest possible moment. The telegraph will die out no matter what we do, but let us have one efficient service.

It took a long time to make our people telephone-minded. It would be very bad if the development of the service was retarded. When Deputy McCarthy spoke I suppose he was speaking to the electorate about the closing down of sub-post offices and telephone exchanges at 7 o'clock. The Deputy made a glib reference to the pay of those engaged at those offices. I wonder if Deputy McCarthy suggests that in addition to the ordinary work of people employed in rural post offices, some shanty should be put up in which a girl or somebody in the house would stay until 10 o'clock each night to deal with telephone business. Did the conditions and the hours which these people work occur to Deputy McCarthy? One feels ashamed to be a member of this House, where jointly to some extent, we are responsible for their employment and for the conditions under which they work. I have referred to this matter year after year. I shall continue to do so. I wonder if it occurred to Deputy McCarthy that these lady clerks during their first year at work get no pay at all. They go into these post offices, having taken their breakfast at home, and while at work they get dinner and also tea. That is all they get for the first year. We have seen cases where during the second year they get the munificent sum of 2/6 per week. Yet the Minister stands up in this House and tells us that he hopes to have a surplus of £182,000 arising out of the work of these people. In introducing the Estimate, when dealing with the Savings Bank business, he stated that growth was well maintained during the past year. He added: "For the second year in succession the number of deposits accepted exceeded the million mark, and for the first time the value of deposits exceeded £10,000,000. Compared with the previous year, deposits at £10,630,000 showed an increase of £2,280,000 and withdrawals at £4,959,000 an increase of £1,520,000. The balance to credit of depositors on 31st December, 1945, was £32,754,000." Post Office employees have taken in and have taken charge of £32,754,000 and handled 599,000 accounts. On some of these accounts girls are employed who get their dinner daily and 10/- a month at the end of their second year at business.

Then we read of some of these girls, who come from very respectable parents, having been placed in a position and working for the Department whether directly or indirectly, who fall out of the sheer necessity of having some pocket money for their urgent needs, and being brought before the criminal courts and convicted. It is all very well if the judge has compassion on the individual in view of the circumstances and applies the Probation of Offenders Act, but that person is found guilty before that course is adopted, so that he or she is then a convicted person. Will this House put an end to this condition of affairs in which the sons and daughters of respectable people, at whom the finger of scorn could not be pointed by anybody, people who reared their children well and gave them a decent education, are made criminals by the conditions under which this Department employs them? A person employed in any employment should receive wages or salary commensurate with the responsibility placed upon him. If that is not so, then the person employed is a menace.

The conditions under which these people are employed is nothing short of an outrage in view of the present cost of living. A girl, 30 or 50 years ago, could work in a rural post office near her home. There were then no pictures, no cigarettes, no permanent waves and no Mae West frocks, but a girl who goes into such a post office now must be respectably dressed, and how is she to do it on the money she receives? For years, I have protested against the payment made to sub-postmasters out of which arise the conditions which make these girls criminals. There are some 2,000 sub-postmasters in this State with salaries of £1 per week and under, and assuming they are in a shop and the shop closes at 6 o'clock in the evening, the telephone exchange must be kept open until 7 o'clock. The telephone and telegraph office must be opened on Sundays between 9 and 10 o'clock and for two hours on Sunday evening. If there are any religious devotions in progress in the parish, there is some adult person who cannot attend them. They, nevertheless, have to do all this work for the munificent sum of £1 per week, and, in many cases, 10/- per week would probably be nearer the mark.

The House must make up its mind on what it proposes to do about this. We have been told that the Minister will have a surplus of £182,000. Is all that money to go into the Exchequer, or will the people who earned it get at least a minimum wage out of it? I think that Deputies of every Party should take their courage in their hands and insist on justice being done to these people who, by their joint efforts in all the branches of the Post Office, have been responsible for this surplus of £182,000 in one year. The first people with a claim on that money are the people who earn it. Secondly, we must make up our minds that, on the lines of the new philosophy as to the distribution of wealth, we will never go back to the conditions which obtained in the Post Office and elsewhere 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago.

It is not sufficient for the Minister to tell us that these sub-post offices are run by shopkeepers. If a man has a shop, he has enough to do in running his own business. If he does not run his own business, nobody else will do it for him. The practice is to bring some respectable country girl from the neighbourhood into that shop and get her to work in the sub-post office under these conditions. There are so few opportunities that the father and mother of that young girl are delighted with the chance of getting her placed there, but the conditions under which she works constitute a temptation, because when that girl goes out and meets other girls who have money to buy decent frocks, coats, shoes, cigarettes and to pay for admission to pictures, and realises that she has not got a brass farthing, although she, with others, is responsible for a surplus of £182,000, she is inevitably led into criminal ways.

It was said of the Bourbons that they never learned anything and never forgot anything, and this runs through the whole of this Department. The little boy or girl gets a shilling for delivering a telegram, and the "bob" which the militiaman got 50 years ago still obtains in the Post Office. Does the Minister not think that it is time that system of getting a young boy or girl to travel a mile, on a bicycle or otherwise, for a shilling was reviewed?

Another practice which I notice in post offices is the practice adopted by other Departments of sending along posters and getting the postmaster to hang them around his place. Sub-postmasters should not be asked to be bill-posters. The country is wide enough for the diffusion of knowledge and if other Departments have posters which they require to be posted up, let them pay for doing so, or get officers of their own Departments to do it. The Minister should not ask the officers of his Department to be bill-posters for other Departments.

Some time in February of last year the Minister received a deputation of sub-postmasters on the matter of their remuneration under various heads. Am I correctly informed that, even up to this day, the Minister has not had the courtesy to send the reply which he promised to send to that deputation? Surely, even if they were not to get any increase, it would have been courtesy to send a reply stating that he could not do anything for them, that he had made representations to the Minister for Finance and that the Minister for Finance would not move? If the Minister for Finance has £1,000,000 to throw around, it will be thrown around in some way that will catch votes and not in paying people to enable them to be honest and worthy of the trust reposed in them, such as sub-postmasters and clerks in rural post offices.

I loathe having to say these things but I feel bound to say them. I feel a moral duty on me to raise these matters and I do not wish to avoid it. There was a case of a girl in the last couple of months who was brought before the court in Kells or Trim, and the story unfolded there should be sufficient to arouse the public and to arouse Deputies to a sense of their duty and the Minister to a sense of his responsibility. Surely the facts related there are sufficient to induce the Minister to insist on justice being done to these people or, if the Minister for Finance refuses to meet his demands in the matter, to resign.

If I were a Minister and these conditions obtained, I would either get justice done or I would not be responsible for the Department. There are things which are far more important than office or emoluments. I understand there is a distinction made between Savings Bank business and other money matters with which the Post Office deals, such as licences of all kinds, and that the system of payment is different. What justification is there for the distinction made between taking money for licences and taking money for the Savings Bank? Why is there a distinction as to the rates of payment?

Before the Minister brings in his Estimate next year I hope that some decision will be arrived at whereby justice will be done and reasonable payment made to Post Office employees so as not to incite them to crime. It is tragic to see these young people placed in such circumstances. I would not keep a messenger boy in my employment for one week without giving him wages commensurate with the task which he has to discharge. It is elementary that people who are handling money should be paid wages or salaries that would put them beyond the temptation to misappropriate funds. So long as the present system obtains you will have misappropriation of public money. It is time to make up our minds to put an end to that. Then, if there are misappropriations of public money, it can be justly said that we have paid these people well and that there was no reason why they should take public money or any other money. I ask the Minister to tell us what advance he has made with the Minister for Finance with regard to the representations he has made on behalf of these people. Is there any hope for them? With the present cost of living and the cost of labour, sub-postmasters, like the school teachers, will be driven to go on strike. Some morning we will find that there is no postal service in rural Ireland. It would not surprise me in the least and I certainly would say it was justified.

Mr. Pattison

Last year on this Estimate I called the Minister's attention to the inadequate accommodation in the central post office in Kilkenny City and I was pleased to hear from him that he proposed to carry out the much-wanted and long-awaited alterations in that building. A whole year has passed and, beyond flying visits from surveyors or engineers or people of that kind, nothing whatever appears to have been done. Surely the Minister will appreciate that when this office was first opened a great many years ago the amount of business to be transacted in a post office at that time was only a fraction of the volume of work which has to be dealt with to-day. In those days licences and pensions and so on had not to be dealt with. Since the first Great War a big number of British army pensions are paid in the central post office. In the old days dog licences were dealt with in the petty sessions clerk's office. Children's allowances are the latest addition to the Post Office work.

Apart from these extra services, which have been imposed on the post office, the staff is not large enough and the building itself is most unsuitable. When there is any rush on, there is great difficulty in getting into it and, when you get in, you have twice as much trouble in getting out. Surely the City of Kilkenny, with a population of not less than 12,000, is entitled to a better central office than the general post office in High Street.

In furtherance of the policy of providing better accommodation, I would expect when there is a vacancy for a sub-office that the Minister, when filling the vacancy, would look for the best possible officer for the purpose. I do not think the Minister ought to take the petty view that appears to be taken, namely, finding a job for somebody. My outlook would be to give better service to the community. Recently there was a vacancy for a sub-post office at Irishtown in Kilkenny City and I am sorry that I have to complain about the Minister's decision in the matter. I was terribly disappointed to find the lines on which he reached his decision in that case, which was based absolutely on political considerations.

I have been told by a very responsible person in Kilkenny that the recommendation in that instance came, not from any Deputy for the constituency, not from any public representative, but from a few people who constitute what is called the local Fianna Fáil cumann. What was the result? The person appointed hardly held the office for 24 hours and a vacancy still exists there. I invite the Minister to send down any inspector or anybody with any sense of justice to examine the position as outlined in the written representations put up by me. I based my representations on service to the community. I did mention a certain applicant, but the principle running through my representations was better service to the community. I pointed out on two occasions that the corporation had built over 230 houses in that particular sub-office district.

In addition the Irish Union of Distributive Workers and Clerks built a very nice terrace of houses in the same district. Other private individuals built houses there also. The result is that the population and the entire layout of that sub-post office district bears now no relation of any kind to the situation as it existed when the Irishtown post office was first opened. I am sorry that I have to make these complaints to this House but in view of the very reliable information I had as to how that decision was arrived at recently in Kilkenny I came to the conclusion that this was the only place in which to raise the matter. I defy the Minister to send down an impartial person to examine the situation and prove otherwise. When the new appointment is made it should be made with due regard to the provision of a better service to the community as a whole; and it should be completely free of any attempt to provide a job for some friend.

Last year also I joined with other Deputies in this House in appealing to the Minister to have regard to the position of auxiliary postmen. The present position is a disgrace to the country. Certainly I have never heard of any other country which treats its servants in the way in which the Minister treats his auxiliary postmen. I instanced one case where there was an auxiliary postman occupying that position from the time the delivery system was first established; and that old man to-day has no place to turn to except the county home. When the time comes at which his employment will automatically cease, no provision of any kind has been made for a pension for him; no provision has been made for a gratuity. Last year I felt a bit hopeful about the situation because I thought that the Minister was definitely sympathetic and would like to do something. As a member of the Government, I think he ought to be able to make more progress in the matter in this stage of our civilisation. It is a disgrace that this should happen in a country about which we hear so many pious things said. It is a disgrace that there should be no reward for honest service.

Another matter which I certainly think ought to be examined into is the position of people who are employed by post office contractors for the delivery of mails. The Minister has no control over the wages paid to these. The possibility is that they are actually paid worse than the Minister pays his auxiliary postmen. They cannot afford to buy clothes for themselves. The only piece of decent clothing they possess is the official post-office cap. Surely the money those contractors receive under their contract ought to enable them to pay these employees properly. If it is not sufficient then the system should be changed. My information is that the conditions of employment are appalling.

I had occasion recently to complain to the postmistress in Kilkenny about the mishandling of boxes of eggs. I know people who take every precaution to comply with the official advice given to them by radio, and otherwise, as to the proper packing of eggs and who use only the approved boxes for that purpose. Now I am going to give you one instance which affected me personally. A relative of mine who lives in County Kilkenny posted a box of eggs home to me from Durrow. Durrow post office is not in County Kilkenny. It is just across the border. On inquiry I was given to understand that the box of eggs had to be transported first to Portlaoighise, from there to Dublin and then back down to County Kilkenny.

Is not that a shocking state of affairs? I left the box of eggs and the packing with the supervisor in Kilkenny for examination and he told me that he was satisfied the eggs were more than adequately packed. Out of two dozen eggs exactly one dozen were completely smashed. Surely there could be some type of special bag provided for the transportation of eggs. The Minister should take every precaution, above all at the present time when eggs are so expensive and so difficult to get, to ensure their safe delivery.

That concludes what I would like to say on this subject. But I would like again to emphasise the importance of providing an adequate service to an area like Kilkenny which has several villages on its outskirts that could be described as suburbs, such as Talbots Inch and other places. You have a large number of people residing there and the majority of them have to do their postal business either at the suboffices or at the central office in Kilkenny. I think I am safe in saying that there is no place in Ireland comparable with Kilkenny which has not got adequate postal facilities, and I sincerely hope that this will be the last occasion on which I shall have to complain in this House.

I hope when the Minister is dealing with the filling of the vacancy in the present sub-office that he will do so, not because of the representations I make to him but as a matter of principle, to provide a good service to the community; and if he can get better premises than those I have recommended I shall be delighted. But, again, I want to impress that it is the public who must be considered and not just a friend who is in need of a job.

Mr. Moran

There are just a few matters I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister in connection with telephone services. I find that there are complaints throughout my part of the country that the accounts furnished have often proved to be wrong. Time and again calls which should appear in one individual's account are charged up in another. The result is that everybody in my area who has a 'phone and who has to use it very frequently, particularly in connection with business, has now got to have one of his staff for the purpose of keeping an accurate telephone account of every call that is made, otherwise he will find himself paying for somebody else's 'phone calls. That has happened time and time again and it is undermining the confidence of telephone users in the Post Office. I think that is a matter which the Minister should look into. The complaint is very general throughout my part of the country. The only remedy we have is that we ourselves must keep a check of every call we make. As I have said, that undermines the confidence of the public in the Department.

In connection with telephone services as a whole, I think the Minister's approach to the matter is the wong one. I think the Minister should not consider the question of what the return is going to be from installing public telephones in the country areas. I think the approach of the Minister should be from the point of view of service to the people, particularly in isolated country districts where they are vitally essential for keeping in contact with doctors and clergymen. To every request for the provision of telephones the answer received from the Minister is that the place is too isolated and the telephone would not pay. Now the people are inclined to look on the telephone as a social service; it certainly is a social service in an isolated country area. I would strongly urge on the Minister that the future policy of his Department should be to supply a telephone service irrespective of the cost and the local demand, particularly in isolated areas.

There have been many complaints about the cost of the telephone service. There have been many complaints about the cost of telephones, but notwithstanding the cost the demand is increasing because the telephone has become a necessity in modern business. I, in conjunction with many Deputies, have been writing to the Minister and his Department pressing the claims of particular individuals for a telephone, I understand the delay is due to supplies, and I hope that the Minister will soon be in a position to meet these demands. Numbers of people are waiting throughout the country to get telephones installed. They are waiting for a considerable period and now it is an urgent necessity. The cheaper the Minister can make the telephone service available the more people will use it. It would pay in the long run even if the rentals were reduced to a much lower figure.

I have to endorse some of the things stated in this House by other Deputies, particularly in regard to the staffs of sub-post offices. I know that this is not a matter for which the Minister is primarily responsible, but I do think that there should be some type of fair wage clause or some such provision in force in connection with some of these sub-post offices. I understand the system is that the sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress gets a lump sum and is allowed to provide staff any way he or she can. I and a good many other people who have experience of the courts find these unfortunate people coming up week after week, and we find they are being paid miserable wages, as the result of which I believe they start on the wrong road, start embezzling funds entrusted to them. I think the Minister should see that in these sub-post offices a minimum wage is fixed for the people who would be employed there. I would like to point out also that in some of the isolated country post offices there should be better inspection. The steam kettle is not so much out of use as many people think. In some of these isolated areas the local postmistress is the main source of information in the district. I have received complaints, and I have reason to believe that in some isolated instances this is being done. I do not know the remedy, but I suggest where there is even a suspicion of this kind there should be surprise visits made by the Post Office inspectors.

I hope that the complaint made by Deputy Pattison about appointments is better founded than some of the complaints we have been listening to in this House recently. Some of the outpourings of Deputy Cafferky in this House on the same subject recently resulted in a great many crocodile tears being shed over the non-appointment of a lady to the post office in Charlestown in County Mayo. When the matter was examined, it has now become public property, it was not non-appointment of a particular lady that was the real cause of the trouble. The real cause was that a relation of his own whom he recommended was not appointed. I hope the complaints made in the House to-night on this same subject have more foundation in fact. Deputies have appealed to the Minister to be non-political in these appointments. I appeal to the Minister too, to be non-political in these appointments. By this I mean that the Minister is not to discriminate against an applicant for one of those posts because he happens to belong to a Fianna Fail cumann in the area. It would appear to some Deputies that membership of the Fianna Fáil organisation should debar a person from a public appointment even though he is well equipped otherwise for the position. I appeal to the Minister to be non-political because there seems to be a new philosophy growing in certain quarters that because a person belongs to the organisation enjoying the support and confidence of the vast majority of the people he should be discriminated against when it comes to an appointment. Deputy Cafferky's outburst recently was an example of that. On that occasion the House was treated to a deliberate misstatement of the facts with regard to the Charlestown appointment. That is well known. It is past history now in County Mayo. In future appointments I appeal to the Minister to see that membership of a particular organisation will not debar a person from appointment who is qualified otherwise. Certain Deputies have suggested that it should.

Finally, there is one other matter I would like to bring to the Minister's notice. I have recently received complaints that in some country post offices there is a lack of courtesy to the public. Some of the staffs dealing with the public in some of the busy country post offices seem to forget that they are public servants. I appreciate that on some days in some of these offices they are very busy but a few words from the Minister ton his matter would be appreciated by the general public. Some of these staffs seem to forget that they are public servants and they make no effort to be helpful to the country people. There are many forms to be filled in under modern legislation and various entries of different natures to be made in a post office, and country people, in particular, may not understand what is required of them to do. They expect co-operation and assistance from the Minister's officers and I suggest to the Minister that if he addressed a circular to postmasters and postmistresses on this subject it would remedy matters.

Captain Giles

Of all the Departments of State this is the one I can least criticise. I am satisfied that the service is reasonably good, but I do agree that we could have a vast extension of the services over every area if we spend the money. On the other hand, if the Minister over-spends we would be critical of him also. I think we should creep before we walk. This is one of the few Departments that have something left in the Exchequer at the end of the year and we should be thankful for that. It is time, however, that we extended the services to some of the country areas and I join with Deputy Kennedy in drawing the Minister's attention to the position in North Meath, to Oldeastle, in particular. They have only a couple of deliveries a week there. I ask the Minister to give that serious consideration and send a post office motor van there. Both Deputy Kennedy and myself have been after this for four or five years. We appreciated the difficulty of doing anything during the emergency but now that the emergency is practically over something should be done forthwith. North Meath was a particularly backward out-of-the-way area. As regards Navan Post Office, which is a very good office, run by very good officials, I would like to ask the Minister to see that it is properly staffed. I have been in queues there with many others waiting to get served while men were working there with their coats off, so to speak. I think the Minister should look into the question of staff there. I do not think there is sufficient staff.

We heard a good deal about the pay of sub-postmasters and the way their staffs are paid. There was mention of a case in the Kells court. I remember the case well. I will not blame the postmaster in that case and neither am I going to blame the unfortunate girl who got into trouble. We shall have to pay more decent remuneration to our sub-postmasters. I do not think they get enough. They get anything from £20 to £40 or £50, and that is not enough. Those sub-post offices are very small affairs in country districts. They are not able to stand on their own legs and they must have a little shop in addition to the post office. Most of these places are very small country shops where the turnover is very little. The postmaster is not able to pay a decent salary to a girl to run that post office. We shall have to consider the position and, if we can give more money to the sub-postmasters, they are deserving of it.

The day has arrived when we should have a telephone service in every post office. That is the only way to satisfy the people. The telephone service is advancing in every country and, to meet the requirements of the people in our towns and villages, we should have a telephone in every post office. That, with a little extra remuneration for the staffs, will help to relieve a lot of difficulties. The people in the post offices throughout the country are splendid. They give excellent service. They do not turn a deaf ear to the demands of the poor. They do everything to help people to fill up forms. That is the experience in my county, and I have no doubt it applies all over the country.

I am satisfied that the Department has done well and, if we want to do better, we shall have to give it more money. If we are not satisfied with the progress it has made, we shall have to spend more money for an extension of the services. The Post Office has done very well during the past five years. It gave a pretty good service. I think it is advisable to have a daily postal delivery in every area. The people are entitled to that.

Mr. Everett

I would like, with Deputy O'Higgins, to convey to the Minister my appreciation of the manner in which the officials in the executive section of the Department give information to Deputies. I had some correspondence with the Minister's Department in connection with grievances about sub-post offices and the necessity for an extension of the telephone service in the rural areas. I certainly can say, from years of experience, that while we always got the "if", we also got great courtesy and consideration. We recognise the difficulty in relation to supplies, but on all occasions we received the greatest courtesy and very satisfactory explanations from the officials. In view of the criticisms from some Deputies, I think it is necessary that we should give a little credit where the credit is due.

I have already brought to the Minister's attention the question of mail deliveries in Wicklow town. It is not the fault of the post office there, but it is the fault of the railway service. There is a train arriving at 9.30 or 10 o'clock. The post office is three-quarters of a mile from the railway station. For the purpose of conveying the mails from the railway station to the post office a hand-cart is used. Surely there should be something better than a primitive service of that type. By the time the mails are delivered at the post office and sorted and made ready for delivery, some hours have passed and it might be one o'clock or 2 o'clock before the delivery is completed in and around the town. Then it must be remembered that in Brittas Bay and other areas convenient to Wicklow there are large numbers of visitors in the summer time and it would be late in the day when deliveries are made in these areas.

If there was a motor van to take the deliveries to and from Wicklow town there would not be such a long delay as 48 hours in the delivery of letters and parcels. Such a long delay is unreasonable.

I appeal to the Minister to have the postal deliveries made in the same way as the newspapers make their deliveries. The agents for the Sunday papers, in particular, can supply customers in local towns by using motor vans. The English and Irish papers are delivered in motor vans each day, and what is to prevent the Post Office following that example, especially when we find the railway services are responsible for such delays? In areas where you have factories and businesses of various sorts depending upon the postal services, there should be a more prompt delivery. If the railway is not able to give a better service we should concentrate upon deliveries by motor vans from Dublin to Wicklow and the surrounding districts. There should be a more up-to-date service, and it is unreasonable to have business people receiving their letters and parcels as late as 1 o'clock in the day.

With regard to the demand from Arklow for an improved telephone service, I should like to point out that during the summer months there is a population of 10,000 or over in that district. There is no exchange operating after 7 o'clock in the evening other than through the Gárda barracks, and if there is an urgent case for the hospital there is grave inconvenience caused. I am glad the Minister has agreed to make certain arrangements to give facilities to these people in the Arklow area, so that there will be some communication with a central office which will enable them to get in touch with Dublin or with the county hospital in urgent cases.

As to the grievances of auxiliary postmen, I hope the Minister will see that justice will be done to these men. As regards the need for a telephone service in the rural areas, I think it was Deputy O'Higgins who pointed out that while the cities and larger towns had all the facilities, the country areas were being overlooked. We all recognise the great need for this service in out-of-the-way places, especially in Wicklow County.

There are some districts seven or eight miles from the nearest post office or Gárda station. Very often a doctor or a clergyman may be required by the people late at night and there is no way of communicating with them other than through the Gárda barracks. When supplies have been obtained, the Minister should concentrate on extending the telephone to the rural areas, especially where there is a demand by the county authorities and the people, such as the County Wicklow.

I join with Deputy Pattison in his references to damaged parcels going through the post. The Minister received a letter from a constituent of mine living at Bray. He complained about presents he received from a foreign country being damaged in the post. He sent a letter on the 12th February, stating that half of the things in the parcel were taken and what was left was destroyed. He drew the Minister's attention to the facts on 15th March and indicated that the articles were there for examination by the Minister's inspector. The inspector called and admitted it. The Minister admitted afterwards that at the Customs the parcel did not contain all the articles mentioned in the original letter. The Minister's attention was drawn to this, that if these things were not in the parcel when it was opened, why did the Customs authorities not state that on the parcel—that the parcel was found opened and had been interfered with?

The Minister told me, on the 31st March, that he would bear the matter in mind and would make certain recommendations to the Customs authorities in the future. I will draw attention to this fact, that there is no evidence there, other than the Minister's statement, that the parcel was opened. It was only when my constituent complained about the parcel not containing all the articles his friend had told him he sent, that the Minister admitted that the parcel had been found open on the first occasion in the Customs office. If the Minister will refer to the letter of the 31st March he will see that it says:

"With reference to your letter of the 15th instant, I have to express much regret for the delay in replying to your original complaint and for the failure to endorse the cover of the parcel to indicate that certain items were missing when the parcel was opened for Customs examination. I have to add that suitable notice is being taken of these irregularities."

I have been asked to draw the Minister's attention to this matter. The gentleman concerned does not want anything further, only to protect other people in the future. If a parcel comes through the post it should be stated there and then that it was found open and certain articles which it originally contained were missing.

I would like the Minister to bear the points I have referred to in mind. If anything can be done to have an earlier delivery in Wicklow and other towns, I hope it will be done soon. You cannot have an earlier delivery in Wicklow if you continue to send the mails by goods train and transfer them to the passenger train in the morning. If you do not make arrangements to send the mails by road, the inconvenience we have suffered from during the past few years will continue. Now that we have arrived at the post-war period, I hope there will be some improvement. I do not think there would be much difference in cost over the present method of delivering letters and parcels if they were sent by road. The road transport would mean an earlier delivery and industrialists, factory owners and businessmen in Wicklow would have an opportunity of replying to letters on the day they receive them instead of having their letters delivered at 1 o'clock or later and having to post their replies by 5 o'clock in order to have them conveyed to Dublin. I think there is too much delay in an area only 32 miles from Dublin.

Mr. Flanagan

I join with Deputy Giles in paying a tribute to the executive staff of the Department. I have had occasion to make representations to the Department on behalf of my constituents, and while I was not always successful, I am satisfied that this Department is one of the most efficient in the State, in having matters to which its attention is called, investigated. The Department is also very prompt in replying to correspondence, and giving the full results of such investigations. I stated here last year that I found the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs most obliging in the way of furnishing full information about complaints made by citizens and Deputies. I think a great deal of good work has been done by the Department during the past five years. It is certainly advancing.

I want now to draw attention to the fact that it is necessary that messengers should be appointed in towns for the delivery of telegrams. In many sub-post offices local postmasters employ youths of 16 or 17, but let them go when they reach 20 years, when they have experience of post office work. They are then too old to take up a trade or some type of work that would be useful to them in later years. I suggest that the Minister should appoint messengers who would be recognised by the Department, where telegraphic traffic would warrant such appointments. A messenger was appointed in Mountmellick some years ago and, as a result, the volume of telegraphic business considerably increased. The Department had been considering the abolition of the position on the ground that the business did not warrant it. I strongly recommend the Minister to look into the question of appointing messengers in offices in provincial towns. Messengers would be more interested in their work if they could be established as civil servants, as they would have some future before them. I am opposed to the present system by which local postmasters employ youths for the delivery of telegrams, and would be glad if some arrangement could be made whereby the Department would make such appointments.

I also wish to draw attention to the fact that the majority of post offices close for a half holiday in the middle of the week. I am not opposed to a half holiday for sub-postmasters. If they are entitled to a half holiday they should take it, but arrangements should be made so that the offices would remain open for the transaction of public business. Imagine the inconvenience that is caused when people arrive at a sub-post office when they want to use the telephone. They find that the office is closed and are told that the sub-postmaster has taken a half holiday. Let the sub-postmasters have a holiday, but somebody else should remain in charge and keep the office open. The Minister should see that these officials should have decent wages and that they should leave somebody in charge to transact business on half holidays. I am aware of people who wanted to use the telephone being inconvenienced because they found the post office closed on a half holiday.

I am also opposed to having a post office on the same floor of a shop in which groceries and provisions are sold. If there is not a partition in the shop other customers are listening to the conversation that takes place over the telephone. I think that is a disgrace. The post office should be separated from the other portion of the shop so that people could transact their business confidentially. If a person wishes to use the telephone he does not want to have every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes in for a packet of Woodbines listening to the conversation. The post office compartment should be away from the hardware section or the public-house section of premises. In fact, there should be a separate entrance to the postal part of the premises so that confidential business could be transacted without being overheard by others.

I want to refer also to a statement made by Deputy Moran from Mayo regarding a statement that was made some time ago by Deputy Cafferky. Was Deputy Cafferky's statement right or wrong? The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is an intelligent man. I never had any conflict with him either inside or outside this House. I always found the Minister very sympathetic. He uses his common sense, but I say definitely that the Minister was wrong in publishing in the daily newspapers any communication addressed to him by a member of this House. In his reply I should like to hear if the Minister is going to make a practice of publishing in the daily papers copies of correspondence addressed to him by Deputies. I do not wish to defend Deputy Cafferky's statement, or his attitude in this House, nor do I want to contradict it, but I think in all fairness, whether Deputy Cafferky is right or wrong, if he addresses a communication to a responsible Minister, and if that communication is for the information and guidance of the Minister and the Department, it should not be published in the daily newspapers. I think, on second thoughts, the Minister would not do so. In my experience as a Deputy I have never known of a case where a communication to a Department was published in the newspapers. I think that is a wrong practice. There was no excuse for the publication of a recommendation made by any Deputy or by any public representative. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.