Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 16 Apr 1947

Vol. 105 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Vote 61—Posts and Telegraphs.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Little)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £3,233,500 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1948, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (45 and 46 Vict., c. 74; 8 Edw. 7, c. 48; 1 and 2 Geo. 5, c. 26; the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1928; No. 14 of 1940 (secs. 30 and 31); No.14 of 1942 (sec. 23); etc.), and of certain other Services administered by that Office.

The gross Post Office Estimate for 1947-48 amounts to £4,580,501 but allowing for receipts totalling £225,001 which are expected to be appropriated in aid, the net estimate amounts to £4,355,500. This represents a net increase of £428,365 over the provision for 1946-47. The causes of the variations under the respective sub-heads are chiefly:—

Sub-heads A (1) to A (4)—Salaries, Wages and Allowances.—The increase of £256,320 on these sub-heads is due mainly to an additional provision of £159,120 to meet increases resulting from the consolidation of the remuneration of civil servants as from 1st November, 1946. The improvements already announced in the remuneration of subpostmasters account for another £52,795 and the balance of £44,405 is in respect of normal incremental increases; additional staff to meet growth of work; more frequent deliveries on rural posts, etc. There are offsetting decreases due to savings on retirements, increased relief from telephone capital funds, etc.

B.B.—International and other Conferences and Conventions.—Increase £1,340: to provide for travelling and subsistence expenses of delegates to conferences of the International Postal Union at Paris and the International Telecommunications Union at Washington, which are due to open next month; also to increased subscriptions to the Postal, Telegraph and Radio Telegraph Unions.

C—Rent, Office Fittings, etc.—Increase £3,760: to cover increased rents, rent and rates on newly acquired premises, and increased charges for and higher consumption of electricity.

D—Purchase of Sites, etc.—Increase £3,950: to provide for the acquisition of additional sites for Post Office requirements, other than sites required for telephone development the cost of which is borne on telephone capital funds.

E (1)—Conveyance of Mails by Rail. —The decrease of £4,845 represents an anticipated reduction in payments for mail conveyance.

E (2)—Conveyance of Mails by Road. —Increase £6,300: due to increased payments to mail car contractors in respect of additional services and increased operating costs.

E (4)—Packet Service British and Foreign.—The increase of £1,300 is due to the resumption of overseas services which had been discontinued during the emergency.

E (5)—Conveyance of Mails by Air.— Decrease £20,000: due mainly to the clearance of arrears in respect of United States Air Mail accounts for which provision was made in the Estimate for 1946-47.

G (1)—Stores (Non-Engineering).— The extra £30,630 is to cover the provision of new mail bags, additional hand-carts and letter boxes required for growing postal services; cycles contracted for in 1946-47 but not delivered; increased cost of replacement motor vehicles; the building up of domestic stores unobtainable during the emergency, etc.

G (2)—Uniform clothing.—The increase of £3,850 provides for increased issues and higher cost of tailoring.

G (3)—Manufacture of Stamps, etc.— An additional £2,570 is required because of increased purchases and prices of watermarked paper.

I (1)—Engineering Establishment Salaries, etc.—Increase £70,045: representing provision for additional staff; increases in pay resulting from consolidation; increments, etc., offset by greater relief from telephone capital funds and savings on retirements.

I (2)—Engineering Branch, Travelling Expenses.—Increase £5,785: due to increased travelling and subsistence allowances necessitated by an expanding construction, renewal, and maintenance programme—exclusive of travelling connected with telephone development the cost of which is chargeable to telephone capital.

K—Engineering materials.—Decrease £91,855: reduced purchases of stores are contemplated, stores already in stock being used instead. In addition there will be increased relief from telephone capital funds in respect of stores employed for telephone capital works.

L (3)—Engineering Contract Work.— Increase £10,490: required for additional telegraph, etc., construction.

L (4)—Rent, Rates on Wires, Water, Light, etc.—Increase of £2,220 due to the acquisition of additional premises and to increased consumption of electric power.

M—Telephone Capital Repayments. —Increase £19,727: The provision to be made each year under this sub-head is determined by the Minister for Finance.

Superannuation Allowances, etc.— The increase of £24,580 under N (1) represents an increase in the number of pensioners; increased pensions resulting from improvements in Civil Service pay; and also increased retiring allowances, etc. The decreases of £2,940 under N (2) and of £2,500 under N (3) are due to the deaths of Treaty pensioners.

Civil Aviation and Meteorological Wireless Services.—These services are controlled by the Department of Industry and Commerce, the engineering staff being provided by the Post Office.

Salaries, etc.—Increase £6,100, due to additional labour provision, to increases in pay resulting from consolidation and to normal increments; Q (2) shows an increase of £110,910 due to provision for additional radio construction works; and Q (3) an increase of £795 to meet additional travelling necessitated by an expanding programme.

Appropriations-in-Aid.—Increase of £10,662, due mainly to increased receipts from the Broadcasting Service in respect of work performed for broadcasting by the engineering branch.

The financial position of the three main services—postal, telegraph and telephone—on a commercial basis at the end of 1945-46, the latest year for which complete figures are available, was more favourable than I had hoped for last year. It was as follows:—

Postal Service.—Surplus £32,512 as against a deficit of £20,101 in 1944-45.

Telegraph Service.—Deficit £116,001 as against a deficit of £122,663, and

Telephone Service.—Surplus of £298,004 as against £267,289, leaving a net surplus of £214,515 on the three services, for 1945-46, as compared with £124,525 for the previous year. Because, however, of growing costs, this surplus is now substantially reduced and is likely to fall still further.

In regard to mails, so far as the internal services are concerned, my report must, for reasons of which Deputies are generally aware, unfortunately be unfavourable. Last year I found myself in this connection with a very optimistic outlook. I was hopeful that the substantial improvements in transport services which Córas Iompair Éireann found it possible to introduce during the summer and autumn and which were very beneficial to the mail arrangements would be gradually extended and that this year we might perhaps look forward to a mail organisation that would compare fairly reasonably with the preemergency position. These hopes have, unfortunately, been knocked on the head, for the time being at any rate. So far from being able to make any further improvement in their services, the company, by reason of the fuel emergency, a factor entirely outside their control, have found themselves compelled, since January last, to make drastic and indeed unprecedented curtailments in train running, both goods and passenger, with corresponding detriment to mail conveyance.

I am glad to acknowledge that the company, within the limits of their depleted fuel resources, have done their best to provide for Post Office requirements, but, even so, the services generally are now of a very deteriorated order. Even where trains continue to exist, time-keeping is very unsatisfactory, so much so that in a few instances, e.g. the Dublin-Wexford and the West Clare night mail services, the Department has found it necessary to discontinue the use of the railway and to introduce Departmental motor transport. In other cases road conveyance has been arranged by the company in substitution of discontinued rail services. Bus services are also being utilised for letter mails where available and suitable.

It is not, of course, possible for the Post Office to express any useful opinion as to the probable duration of the existing situation, but I wish to assure the Dáil and the public that the position is being closely and constantly watched and that no opportunity that may offer of effecting improvements will be left unavailed of.

The policy of employing motor transport on rural mail car services, where any material advantage would be gained, continues. Generally speaking, horse transport is now confined to services with limited mileage, mainly station services.

The decision to afford increased frequency of delivery in rural districts which I announced last year has been given effect to in the majority of the areas concerned. The scheme is a troublesome one, the revisions of delivery duties involved proving very difficult in many cases. It is expected that the scheme as a whole will be completed before long.

In September last, the two services on week-days of the Dún Laoghaire and Holyhead Packet were resumed and the second morning delivery in Dublin which had been suspended during the emergency was restored. The packet service has, however, again been curtailed by reason of coal shortages. The question of the conveyance of cross-Channel mails by air has been further discussed with the British administration, but it is not possible to say at this stage when a change in the present transport arrangements is likely to be made. Meantime the surcharge air service continues to operate. The surcharge fee has recently been reduced from 3d. to 2d. for items not exceeding two ounces in weight.

Letter mail services have now been resumed to all countries abroad, although in the case of certain of the Central European countries and Japan they are considerably restricted. Parcel post facilities, restricted in some cases, are again available to all European countries and to most places overseas. The number of foreign parcels despatched from this country last year exceeded 17,000, an increase of 5,000, approximately, on the previous year.

Last year, telegraph traffic showed an increase on the figures for the previous year, with a consequent improvement in the revenue position. The loss on the service of £116,000, approximately, in 1945-46, is estimated at £87,000 for the financial year just concluded. To meet the growth in traffic and to provide for the growing needs of the air service it has been necessary during the past year to install voice-frequency telegraph systems, giving 18 additional channels between Dublin and Limerick and between Dublin and Liverpool, respectively. Extensions from Limerick to the Shannon Airport will be afforded in an underground cable, the laying of which is now nearing completion. With a view to improving the service generally, plans are in hand for the introduction of teleprinter working between Dublin and certain of the larger provincial centres instead of Morse circuits, at present in use.

Telephone traffic, despite all difficulties, continues to grow and in 1946 trunk calls numbered 7,578,000 and local calls 52,000,000, representing increases of 460,000 trunk calls and 4,000,000 local calls over 1945. These increases would be more gratifying if means were available to cater more satisfactorily for the extra traffic which has been added year by year since pre-war days. As I have explained on previous occasions, additional traffic without additional equipment to handle it, necessarily causes deterioration of service.

As we are constantly reminded in regard to other supplies, the war-time scarcities did not end with the end of the war and although we have been able to place contracts for many telephone requirements, deliveries are slow in coming to hand. Owing to a world shortage of non-ferrous metals, some items, particularly those for which lead is required, such as underground cable, are virtually unobtainable. However, we have not by any means given up our efforts to obtain these items, and at present we are making world-wide inquiries as to possible sources of supply.

Notwithstanding many difficulties, it has been found possible in the last year to provide some 3,000 additional circuit miles of trunks, partly on physical wires and partly by use of carrier systems. The number of trunk circuits on the main southern route between Dublin and Cork has recently been increased from 16 to 26. The benefits of this increase have been lost temporarily by the effects of the snowstorms, to which I will refer again, but when fully available, as they will shortly be, delay to calls on this main route will be virtually eliminated.

To cater for further growth of traffic an underground trunk cable will be laid between Dublin and Cork, but this is a big project which will take a few years to complete. We had hoped to double the number of circuits on the main north-western route to Sligo, but the storms of recent months delayed the work, which will not now be completed until late in the year.

On the heavily overloaded cross-Channel route, ten extra circuits have been brought into use, bringing the number to 26, and delays to calls are greatly reduced. In order to eliminate delay completely, a new submarine cable will be laid in co-operation with the British Post Office and, if all goes well, this should be in service early next year.

Improvement in the supply of certain types of switchboard enabled equipment at many smaller exchanges to be extended. Equipment required for big exchanges is of a more complex type, taking longer to manufacture and install. We hope to make headway in the next year in enlarging the equipment of the bigger exchanges, but in many places new buildings or extensive alterations of existing buildings will be needed before sufficient switchboards to meet requirements can be installed.

As Deputies are aware, the long-term plans of telephone development provide for conversion to the automatic system generally. Contracts have already been placed for new automatic exchanges in Cork, Waterford, Bray, Dundalk and 20 smaller towns, but owing to the time needed for manufacture and installation, they are not expected to be in service until next year. Plans are being pushed ahead as rapidly as possible with a view to placing contracts for other exchanges. In most cases, however, new buildings are needed.

Work on the installation of a major extension of Crown Alley automatic exchange in Dublin, for which the contract was placed in July, 1945, was heavily delayed as a result of the Dublin dock strike last year, but we hope to have it completed this summer. In the meantime, the automatic equipment in Dublin is seriously overloaded by the constantly growing traffic, and the standard of service has, therefore, deteriorated. The only way in which the standard can be raised pending installation of additional equipment is by reducing the load and I would appeal to subscribers in Dublin to shorten their telephone conversations and to make only essential calls in the busy forenoon and afternoon hours. A reduction of one-quarter in the duration of conversations would permit of subscribers being given that first-class service to which they were accustomed.

Contracts were placed in November, 1945, for extensions of the suburban automatic exchanges (Terenure, Rathmines, Clontarf and Dún Laoghaire) to cater for additional subscribers and these extensions will also be installed this year.

Some additional equipment was provided in the Dublin Trunk Exchange at Exchequer Street and more will be installed this year. But the equipment available is quite inadequate for the volume of traffic to be handled at the exchange and during busy periods subscribers experience delay in getting an answer when they dial "O" or "31". A modern suite of switchboards is on order, but manufacture and installation of this very complex equipment takes a long time and it is not expected to be in service before 1948. Everything possible will continue to be done to give the best service in the meantime within the limits imposed by lack of equipment.

The position as regards taking on new subscribers has not, I regret to say, improved as much as I would wish. Although we gave service last year to 1,250 new subscribers, applications poured in even faster than telephones could be installed and there are now about 5,000 applications on hands. The principal obstacles to progress in connecting new subscribers have been lack of exchange equipment and shortage of spare circuits in the underground cables in cities and towns. The position as regards such equipment is improving but, owing to the scarcity of lead, to which I have already referred, we are finding the greatest difficulty in obtaining supplies of the lead cable used for subscribers' circuits in towns.

During the year a start was made on the systematic clearance of arrears of waiting applications and at 102 small exchanges where equipment was available all applicants were given service. In Dublin the position was sufficiently good in the Dún Laoghaire, Rathmines and Terenure areas to enable applications for business lines to be met and most of these have now been disposed of. The extension of the Dublin automatic exchanges this year will remove the equipment difficulty so far as Dublin is concerned but, unless supplies of underground cable can be obtained more quickly than appears likely at the moment, it will, I am afraid, be impossible to serve the majority of waiting applicants within the next year.

Telephone service to the Continent and other places abroad as well as radio-telephonic communication with liners on the north-Atlantic route has been restored.

In my statement on the Supplementary Estimate for 1946-47 recently I referred to the severe damage caused by the four successive blizzards this year. It is now estimated that the cost of repairing the damage will be between £100,000 and £120,000. More serious even than this heavy cost in money is the cost in delay to the whole programme work which had been got under way to overtake arrears accumulated during the emergency and to provide for extensive telephone development. While temporary repairs of trunk lines and subscribers' circuits affected by the storms were carried out relatively quickly, I should like to stress that these repairs were only temporary and will have to be made good on a permanent basis later. As a measure of the amount of damage done I may say that if the Department's whole construction staff were employed solely on restoration of storm damage the work would take approximately another four months. In other words the Department's entire construction programme, including connection of new subscribers, provision of call offices, erection of trunk circuits, etc., has been set back by several months. All new construction work was suspended following the first blizzard on 2nd February and it will be some time yet before this suspension can be lifted. As soon as the more urgent trunk repairs have been made permanent, new work will be resumed but it can be carried out only on a very restricted scale until the staff employed on restoring the storm damage complete their work and become available again for new work.

Everything possible will be done by recruiting still further staff to hasten the repair work so that the construction programme may proceed without avoidable delay.

The building industry generally is still severely handicapped by postemergency difficulties. State Departments, local authorities, building societies and other public and private concerns all have formulated extensive post-war constructional schemes. These, subject to the controls imposed by the Department of Industry and Commerce for the regulation of building activity, they contemplate implementing now. While we have secured the necessary permits for urgent Post Office projects, it is unfortunate that the very heavy building programme in connection with the large-scale scheme for development of the telephone service and the improvement of Post Office accommodation generally—the latter held in check for economy reasons during the emergency—should coincide with a period when output must be governed not by our efforts alone but by the overriding capacity of the building industry. Good progress has, however, been made during the past year, and the coming 12 months should see a number of schemes well under way, notably the new post office and telephone exchange in St. Andrew Street, Dublin, the new telephone exchange and post office extension at Cork and the new telephone exchange at Waterford.

In view of the criticism which sometimes arises, I think it well to refer briefly to other important accommodation schemes completed during the past year or in hands at present.

In Dublin: The completion and occupation of the new postmen's district office at Whitehall; the acquisition of extensive premises—32,500 square feet —at Distillery Road for use as an engineering garage and workmen's headquarters; the acquisition of portion of premises in Lower O'Connell Street for the accommodation of certain sections of the headquarters staff previously located in the General Post Office building.

Alterations to Crown Alley exchange in connection with the extended use of the building as an auto exchange.

Adaptation works at Exchequer Street to accommodate temporary trunk positions required to relieve pressure in the main trunk switchroom.

Structural alterations at Amiens Street parcel office to improve the accommodation.

In the Provinces: Erection of new short wave broadcasting station at Moydrum (Athlone). It is expected that building operations will be completed early in May. This does not, of course, mean that the station will be then ready for operation, as the broadcasting equipment will still have to be installed.

Bray: A site for a new automatic exchange has been obtained and the new building is expected to be ready in April, 1948.

Midleton: Public office extended and telephone exchange transferred from private premises to post office.

Dundalk: New automatic exchange building, garage, etc., due for completion within two years.

Killarney: Extension of telephone room completed.

Listowel: Public office extended and telephone accommodation improved.

Mallow: Sorting office accommodation substantially improved.

Cases in which negotiations for the acquisition of sites, premises, etc., are still in progress include: Ballina, Carlow, Cavan, Claremorris, Drogheda, Galway, Kilrush, Kilkenny, Sligo, etc., etc.

Mr. Roddy

Have you not got beyond that stage yet?

Mr. Norton

"In progress"—"in progress"!

Mr. Little

In the case of Ennis the suitability of available building sites for the erection of a new auto-manual exchange is being examined.

Stores.—The value of contracts placed by the stores branch last year was £1,024,296, an increase of £56,486 on the figures for the previous year. Unfortunately, however, the improvement which had manifested itself in the supply position generally towards the end of the previous year was not maintained during 1946. Matters deteriorated steadily during the second half of the year, by reason mainly of the general shortage of basic materials, e.g. copper, bronze, lead, etc., and in view of current difficulties in Great Britain there is little likelihood of any easing of the situation during 1947. Prices of practically all commodities have for some time past taken a sharp upward trend and it seems clear that any reduction cannot be expected in the near future.

Savings Bank—There was a slight decrease in Savings Bank business during 1946 but the number of deposits almost reached the million mark and, for the second year in succession, the value of the deposits exceeded £10,000,000. The amount deposited was slightly less than in 1945 and withdrawals exceeded those in the previous year by £2,363,000. Taking into account an estimated amount of £850,000 for interest accruing to depositors, the balance due to them at the end of 1946 was £36,357,000, an increase of £3,704,000. The number of accounts remaining open at the end of the year increased by 43,000 to 643,000. The scheme for deposit in Savings Bank accounts of Army gratuities to demobilised defence personnel was continued during 1946, and the scope of the scheme was extended to include serving personnel.

In addition to ordinary deposits a sum of £776,900 was deposited by way of investment of moneys received by the Minister for Finance for the credit of trustee savings banks and £158,100 was withdrawn. Interest amounted to £133,000. The balance to credit of the trustee banks with the Minister for Finance increased by £752,000 to £4,967,000.

Savings Certificates: The total amount invested by the public in Savings Certificates during 1946 was £980,000, as compared with £1,549,000 for the previous 12 months. Total withdrawals (principal and interest) amounted to £883,000. The net saving for the year through the medium of Savings Certificates was thus £97,000, as compared with £824,000 for the preceding 12 months. The decrease in the amount invested is mainly due to the withdrawal of the third issue and the issue of a fourth series at lower interest rates during the year. The increase in the withdrawals is probably due to traders having more scope for obtaining supplies and a general tendency by the public to spend more as commodities become available.

Last year I referred to the introduction of a scheme for review and overhaul of organisation and methods of work in the accounts branch, also a scheme for the training of new entrants. Both schemes have been fully justified by results and they will be continued and extended.

In conclusion, I wish to express my appreciation of the excellent service rendered by the staff of all grades during the past year, particularly the staff of the engineering branch, who, by reason of the abnormally severe weather, have, in recent months, been working long hours under very trying conditions.

Mr. Roddy

Every Estimate introduced by the Minister contains the same doleful story about the difficulty of securing supplies. Even when world conditions were normal, it was the Minister's invariable excuse for his inactivity and the inactivity of his Department that certain essential materials could not be obtained, with the result that the telephone service especially has suffered considerably. From the point of view of development, we are years behind other countries. We are certainly very many years behind America, and very far behind Great Britain. It should have been possible for the Minister to envisage many years ago that the telephone service in this country was capable of wonderful expansion. The figures which he has given in the course of his statement of the number of local and trunk calls show the tremendous advance that has been made in the use of the telephone, during the war years particularly. Yet the Minister and his officials failed to anticipate that development and they failed to make provision for it. The Minister cannot evade responsibility in that direction and while admittedly, due to the present circumstances all over the world, there is difficulty in obtaining certain essential materials, when these materials were available, the Minister made no effort to procure them. Despite what he told us when he was introducing the Telephone Capital Bill in October last that it was his ambition to give this country a "no-delay service", the service has never been as bad as in recent months. The delays are enough to give a headache to the most patient individual in the community, and the Minister in the course of his statement to-day holds out very little hope that there will be any marked improvement in the coming months. It should be possible at this stage of our existence to devise or to have a type of organisation in his Department which would be able to cope with the abnormal conditions brought about by the four blizzards which the Minister mentioned. One, at all events, was undoubtedly of serious proportions and it caused a complete dislocation of not only public transport but telephone services throughout the length and breadth of the country.

It seems to me, and it has always seemed to me, that there is no right type of organisation in the Minister's Department to deal with the telephone service and telephonic development, and I suggest, as a result, that it is time for the Minister to consider the segregation of the work of his Department. There should be a separate organisation to deal exclusively with the telephone service. For that branch of his organisation the Minister should have the most alert, the most competent, the most capable and the most energetic officials in his Department. It is only in the nature of things to expect that the telephone service will expand more rapidly than it has expanded during the war years and the Minister should anticipate that expansion by making administrative provision for it. I am afraid the Minister's story, unless he does as I suggest, will be even worse next year. I doubt if the Minister himself is giving sufficient attention to that development which has taken place in recent years in this country. The time has arrived when special provision must be made for the telephone service and the development which will inevitably take place in the future. As long as the organisation and the Post Office is as it is at present, I suggest that it will be impossible to cater for that development. It is time for the Minister to consider the setting up of a separate section in his Department to deal exclusively with the telephone service and telephonic developments and he should place the most capable officials in his Department—provided they are trained in telephonic work—in charge of that particular section. It is not possible to deal with the matter in any other way and this change should have taken place years ago. I have said it before and I repeat it now. The Minister and his officials failed to envisage the extent of the telephone development which has taken place in this country and have failed to provide for it.

The Minister also, in the course of his statement, referred to the difficulty of conveying mails at the present time. We appreciate the Minister's difficulty. He said that he is using motor transport for the purpose of conveying mails to areas which are near to the City of Dublin. I wonder if the Minister has gone into the question of the cost of a motor system for the conveyance of mails throughout the country. I imagine it would be more costly than the rail system.

It may be possible to devise a system which will work out more economically than a rail service by the utilisation of motor transport for mails as well as for other purposes throughout the country.

I do not know whether the Minister has thought of that possibility or whether he is still wedded to the idea of distributing mails exclusively and solely by rail transport. I do not know whether he has ever taken the trouble of investigating the cost of a motor transport system, allied with another service, which would reduce the running cost and ultimately make the proposition economic. It may be that with the development taking place all over the world to-day the Minister will have to consider in the near future the possibility of devising some other system of mail transport besides trains. That possibility may be far away at the moment but the tendency is in that particular direction. I make the suggestion to the Minister that it is worthy of consideration and I trust that he will consider it.

It is pleasant to know that the Post Office surplus is increasing. Whether that increase is due to good management on the part of the Minister and his officials I do not know. In any event we must all give credit to the staff of the Post Office for their hard work and industry. Because of my association with newspapers, I come into frequent contact with Post Office officials and I take this opportunity of paying tribute to their courtesy, their efficiency, and their desire to oblige and facilitate customers on every possible occasion. I feel I would be lacking in my duty as a public representative if I did not pay that tribute now. It is pleasant to know that Post Office profits are growing. Some Deputies may be of the opinion that a public institution should not be a profit-making concern and that any profit accruing should be utilised for the purpose of reducing the cost of certain other essential services. That is a moot point. In view of the development contemplated in the telephone service especially it is a healthy sign that the Minister can report such a surplus because I take it that the surplus will be utilised for future development. It is sometimes held that a profit made by a Department can be taken as a sign of efficiency and the higher the profit the greater the efficiency. I think it is a healthy sign that there is such a surplus in the Post Office.

The Minister spoke about the building programme in his Department. On the Telephone Capital Bill there was a lengthy discussion in this House on that building programme. Deputy Dillon read extracts from the Report of the Public Accounts Committee and other bodies with regard to the negotiations taking place for the acquisition of building sites in Dublin over a long period of years and they did not reflect much credit on the Minister. Now, I am not concerned with Dublin. I am concerned only with my own constituency and with the town of Sligo. In Sligo negotiations had been going on for over ten years. Officials of the Minister's Department have visited Sligo on numerous occasions. All that the Minister can tell us to-day is that Sligo is one of the areas where inquiries are being made for the purchase of a suitable site. Three buildings have been sold in Sligo recently, any of which would have been suitable. The Minister negotiated for one of them some years ago but the negotiations dropped. I do not know for what reason. That building adjoined the present post office. Other sites in the neighbourhood of the post office have since been sold. Where the Minister is now going to procure a site in proximity to the present building I do not know. The fact is that these sites were purchased by other people because of the dilatoriness and procrastination of the Minister and the officials of his Department in the matter.

Conditions in Sligo at the present time are scandalous. In the telephone exchange there is a staff of 15 in a room less than 15 feet square. It is inhuman to ask people to work under such conditions. The incidence of sickness amongst the telephone staff is abnormally high. The same is true of the postal section. Since 1939 efforts have been made to recruit four additional members to the staff. All those efforts have failed. At the present moment in Sligo Post Office the staff are working 45 hours a week overtime. Some of the female staff work from 7.45 in the morning until 9 o'clock at night throughout the entire week. I think that is entirely wrong and absolutely inhuman. The incidence of sickness is also abnormally high in the postal section. With the advent of summer there will be an increase in the overtime hours. If some official of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs would sit down and work out the cost of the overtime it would be found, I think, to be cheaper to bring in four extra officials rather than continue the present overtime. On many occasions we have spoken at some length about the numbers of our young people who are obliged to leave the country every day to seek employment elsewhere. It seems rather odd that those young people should be compelled to flee the country at a time when our Post Office service throughout the country is grossly understaffed. The Minister has a grave responsibility in this matter. He is responsible for the health of the officials employed by him. That is a moral responsibility which he can neither avoid nor escape and it is his duty to see that the officials work under proper conditions.

The work in Sligo is increasing at an abnormal rate because Sligo is the clearing house for Donegal, Roscommon, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo. The work is increasing week by week, month by month, and year by year. Since 1939 three successive postmasters in Sligo have endeavoured to secure an increase in the staff there. All their efforts have failed and they have got no satisfaction either from the Minister or from the officials of his Department. If any outside employer employed staff under conditions similar to those which exist in Sligo we can rest assured that the factory inspector would immediately see that any such employer was prosecuted and he would be compelled by law, if he failed to do it voluntarily, to rectify the conditions. We are told now that there are negotiations to acquire a new site. Negotiations have been going on for the last ten years. They will probably continue for another ten years.

Mr. Donnellan

But not with the same Minister.

Mr. Roddy

We hope not. They will continue probably for an indefinite period. I assure the Minister that I will continue to ask questions and expose this disgraceful state of affairs on every opportunity I can get until there is some improvement, not only in regard to the buildings in Sligo, but the working conditions of the staff there as well.

I did not catch quite clearly what the Minister said in connection with the provision of a number of extra circuits along the north-west route between Dublin and Sligo. I understood him to say that there was a staff engaged in the provision of these extra circuits and it was hoped by the end of this year that some of the circuits would be in operation. Is that the position?

Mr. Little

Yes.

Mr. Roddy

I am glad to know that. I am disappointed, in a way, that some of these circuits are not operating already. The Minister referred in a general way to the work he has undertaken in connection with the recent Telephone Capital Act. He got an extra £6,000,000 for the purpose of carrying out telephone development work. He said it would take about 18 months to provide additional underground circuits to Cork. He said also it would take about a year to provide the additional automatic exchanges. It would be interesting to know what progress has been made since the Act was passed at the end of last October. Has any progress been made, or is the Minister still held up by difficulty in obtaining suitable materials? He was to recruit an extra staff of engineers and he was to train them specially in telephone work. Have these engineers been recruited? I should like to have an assurance that the Minister is taking suitable steps to provide for the anticipated telephone development. I hope the Minister will give a résumé of the work that has been done since we passed the Telephone Capital Act and the steps he proposes to take in order to give full effect to the provisions enshrined in that measure.

Mr. Healy

I agree with the last speaker when he says that the telephone service in this country is far behind that of any other country. It must be admitted that the Department showed very little foresight in the years prior to the war, notwithstanding the fact that the demand for telephone services was increasing rapidly. I am sure if they had shown some foresight we would not find such a poor service as we have to-day.

I should like to draw attention particularly to the very unsatisfactory telephone service in South Kerry. There is such a delay in trunk calls there that the telephones are of little use to the business community and are suitable only for local calls. Merchants have complained to me that they have put calls through to Dublin early in the morning and, after waiting for four or five hours, they were compelled to cancel the calls and send telegrams instead. That is happening day after day. On one occasion last year I put a call through to Limerick at 10 o'clock in the morning and I had to cancel it at lunch hour. The same thing happened the second day and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon I had to send a telegram instead. That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Cahirciveen is a very important fishing centre and the delay in trunk calls there has caused great inconvenience to the merchants. During the fishing season the merchants must order ice from Cork but, owing to the delay in trunk calls at times, the merchants are unable to get through to the ice company, the ice cannot be sent to them in time, and they lose considerable sums in consequence. The staff are not in any way responsible for the delays; indeed, they are always courteous and helpful. The fact is that there is too much business for the existing lines. There are two lines from Cahirciveen to Killarney but they are not sufficient for the traffic. If the Minister wants a suitable service there, a direct line must be laid from Cahirciveen to Tralee and there must be an additional line from Killarney. If these lines were laid we would have a satisfactory service.

Waterville is a very important tourist centre, and during the summer there is great delay in trunk calls there. I believe we are to have telephones installed in every rural post office. In addition to the rural post offices, there are areas in the mountainy districts of Kerry, Galway and Mayo in which telephones should be installed. I am not suggesting that telephones should be installed at every cross-roads, but there are thickly-populated areas and they should have adequate telephone facilities. In South Kerry, for instance, there is a place 20 miles from the nearest town, and there are 150 families residing there. If these people want a priest or doctor, or if they have urgent business to do, they have to take out the horse and cart, day or night, and travel that 20 miles to the town. That is a great hardship, and I am sure everyone will agree that it would be a great benefit to those people if a telephone were installed in their midst.

I have taken up the matter with the Department and I have pointed out that there are a few localities in Kerry which are thickly populated and are isolated in the manner I have described. I found the Department very sympathetic and they agreed to install the telephone, but they demand a rental of £20 a year. Were it not that the Kerry County Council realised that a telephone would be of great benefit to the people and undertook to be responsible for the high rental, no action could have been taken, because it is obvious that no small farmer could install a telephone at that rate. If the Minister is anxious to see telephones installed in these localities, he must be prepared to accept a small rental.

Some time ago I drew the Department's attention to the importance of installing a telephone at Renard Point at Valentia Harbour. This is one of the most important fishing centres in South Kerry, and a telephone would be of great assistance to the people engaged in the fishing industry and also to those who reside on Valentia Island. Frequently I have seen people arrive at Valentia Harbour and unable to get a ferry to the island. Owing to the lack of boat shelters on the mainland, all the ferry boats must be kept at Valentia Island. If there is not a ferry boat on the mainland side, it would mean that these people would have to walk to Cahirciveen, a distance of three miles, and ask the Guards to 'phone to have a ferry boat sent across. Although the Department have already sanctioned the installation of a telephone there, I would ask the Minister to have the matter expedited. I have arranged with a local merchant, who will provide a place for the 'phone and collect the necessary rent. I assure the Minister that it would be a great boon to the people of the district.

I should like also to draw the Minister's attention to the inadequacy of the road service provided by Córas Iompair Éireann for the carriage of mails. At the present time the mails are conveyed mainly by van. The van is often several hours behind schedule, and reaches Cahirciveen at a very late hour. I would impress upon the Minister the desirability of having the mails conveyed by rail as soon as it is possible to do so. I believe that that would provide a more satisfactory service and at the same time would be less expensive. The people of South Kerry have frequently asked me to make representations concerning this matter. They are all anxious to have a rail service, rather than the road service provided by Córas Iompair Éireann.

Another matter to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention is the necessity of providing daily postal deliveries in rural areas. It must be admitted that there are now very few areas in which there is not a daily service, but at the same time the people who have not a daily service feel that they have been treated unfairly. I must concede that whenever I directed the Minister's attention to districts in Glencar and Cahirciveen areas which have not a daily service, the Department has been very sympathetic and has promised to provide a daily service at the earliest opportunity. These are just a few matters to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention on behalf of my constituents.

Mr. Norton

When I heard the Minister reviewing the programme of building works which he stated his Department has taken in hands, it merely went to confirm a view of the Minister which I have long since formed. That is, that I think the Minister is the most mischievous optimist in the country. I do not say that in any way offensive to the Minister but it seems to me that every time we confront the Minister with a difficulty he tries to solve the problem in a manner peculiar to himself. The process of solution is that he tells us that he will take the matter in hands and that he hopes to have it done one of these fine days. If you ever approach him afterwards and ask him how it is going, you are always assured by the Minister that it is "in hands". It always seems to be "in hands". There is always somebody looking after it. Progress is always being recorded but when you come to measure the progress by any definite yard-stick, you find that the position is just the same as the first day you discussed the matter with the Minister. I cannot help thinking that the Minister's mischievous optimism was in evidence when he was telling us what the building programme of his Department was. The Minister read from a memorandum which set out what the Department intends to do but when you look at the Book of Estimates and find out what the Board of Works are proposing to do this year for the Post Office, you find none of the Minister's optimism reflected in the work which the Board of Works will carry out this year. The Minister gave us a lengthy programme of works but may I suggest that he should look at what the Board of Works propose to do this year as set out in the Book of Estimates? If Deputies peruse that volume, they will find a very attenuated list of works. There again we come back to the old cry "the matter is in hands" but in fact nothing tangible is being done compared with the vast volume of work which requires to be done so far as Post Office buildings are concerned.

Practically every large office throughout the country is clamouring for an extension of buildings in order to provide accommodation for its staff and to facilitate the transaction of public business. There are offices throughout the country in which the telephone exchanges are hopeless because there is no room for the staff to operate, no room for the existing equipment and no room for improved equipment. I would suggest to the Minister that he should go down to Ennis and look at the post office buildings there, that he should then go on to Claremorris and after that visit Ballina, or that he should go to Sligo which I presume Deputy Roddy has mentioned. He will see that the conditions in these offices are such that efficient service cannot be provided because of inadequate room and inadequate equipment. The staff are overcrowded owing to the limited accommodation available and they cannot give to the public the service they would like to give, if they were housed under proper conditions and had proper equipment at their disposal.

This is not a problem of yesterday or the day before. It is not a problem of short supplies. It is a problem that was there before the war when there was no shortage of supplies. The fact of the matter is that the Department did not face up to its responsibilities to provide the additional accommodation that was necessary and which is now more necessary than ever. I remember one of the Minister's predecessors, the present Minister for Justice, who is also impregnated with the virus of optimism in the construction line, telling us on one occasion in this House that he believed the new office in Pearse Street—the central sorting and delivery office of the country—would be completed in 1941. It is now 1947 and the place is in the same disreputable condition as it was then. So when you come to evaluate what the Post Office hope to do in a building sense, you have got to remember how wide of the target the Minister's predecessor was when he said that that office would be completed in 1941. All the indications are that we shall come to 1951 without anything being done. I put it to the Minister that there is no use in having all these schemes on paper unless he is going to translate the intentions revealed in the paper into actual practice and provide buildings and the reconstruction work necessary to make the buildings serve efficiently both the public and the staff. I shall give the Minister credit for reeking with good intentions in this matter but you cannot provide a satisfactory telephone service or a satisfactory postal service merely by good intentions. There has to be up-to-date equipment and adequate staff, and they have to be housed in a building which enables them to give of their best in the matter of an efficient service, but the public can never get an efficient postal telephone or telegraph service until such time as the service is given under conditions which will enable the staff to give of their best.

The Minister has told us what the Post Office intends to do in respect of buildings, but I should like the Minister to put a date after all these schemes he has mentioned and let us know what portion of the programme will be achieved next year and what portion the following year. I should like to have from him, too, some definite assurance that this matter will be tackled more energetically in future than it has been in the past. Quite clearly, nobody was ever incommoded by excessive perspiration in dealing with it up to the present, and, unless the matter is taken in hands more vigorously, we will find the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ten years hence reading out the same statement as the Minister has read out to-day, with perhaps one or two offices dropped from the list in the meantime.

If we are not to have that comic performance repeated, I suggest that the Minister ought to bestir himself and that the energies, the enthusiasm and the intelligence of the Department ought to be brought to bear on the problem of taking this constructional work in hands as soon as possible and getting from the Board of Works some positive assurance that the work will not be neglected. The Post Office, because of the character of its service, touches the lives of practically all our citizens and probably more citizens go into the Post Office as a public building than into any other public building in the country. There they expect to get an efficient service. Where they are business people, they want to get that service in the most efficient way possible, but an efficient service can be provided only by adequate staff, proper equipment and proper accommodation for that staff and equipment.

The Minister ought to see that this problem is burrowed into and should not be satisfied to have it dealt with in the embroidery way in which it is being dealt with to-day, namely, a declaration of intentions as to what will be done some fine day, if somebody will provide the buildings, if everything goes well and nothing unforeseen occurs. It all seems to me to be very much like a question mark expressed rather tersely, but if the Post Office is ever to get itself out of the mess it is in to-day from the point of view of adequate buildings, some methods different from those adopted up to the present must be tried.

I want to know from the Minister what progress has been made in connection with the Pearse Street premises since the merry days when his predecessor said the new buildings would be erected in 1941. Nothing whatever has been done with the building since then, except to throw good money after bad. The present building is a satire on architecture and is, in fact, a mockery of every principle of hygiene. I do not suppose that any country in the world, or, for that matter, any town in the world, has a building serving as a central sorting and delivery office which is such a shack as the premises at Pearse Street to-day. It probably has this distinction: it has the most useless and most expensive roof of any building in Ireland. It is useless because every winter the rain pours merrily in and the Board of Works come along to keep out the rain in winter and put tar on the roof, and in the summer, when we do get a summer, the tar comes in, so that those working there have a choice—in winter the rain, and in summer the tar. That is the building known as the Central Sorting and Delivery Office in the capital city.

That process of putting tar on every winter to keep out the rain and putting something else on in the summer to keep the tar from falling down, has gone on with the most delightful regularity for the past 24 years. The Board of Works seem perfectly satisfied with it. If they are informed that the roof of the Pearse Street premises is giving trouble, out comes the bucket of tar and the brush and the tar is swept across the roof. That cures the difficulty, they think, and in the summer they try to scrape off the tar so that it will not go through. In a country in which we are being adjured to develop prudence in matters of national expenditure, that process goes merrily on and has gone on for the past 24 years. I shall ask a question some day soon as to how much has been spent on the roof of those premises since the Post Office went in there. I am sure the figure will be colossal and will probably show that an astronomical number of man-hours has been spent on the roof. Board of Works officials have spent long periods up there and it is probably the best manned roof in Ireland, these officials have spent so many hours on it.

The Post Office is satisfied to continue to occupy a building like that; to have the little sprays of tar intermingled with little sprays of rain, while doing nothing effective that anybody can discover to provide a proper sorting office and letter office in the City of Dublin. New banks can go up all over the country; new luxury cinemas and new luxury hotels can go up all over the country; and, while all that is taking place under the Minister's eyes, he appears to be perfectly satisfied to take a back seat, and the worst back seat, when it comes to providing an essential building for the proper transaction of Post Office business in the capital of the State.

I want to know what he proposes to do about it. Is some future Minister to tell us that the matter is in hands, that it is being looked into and that certain progress is being made? Are we to have the present merry expeditions of the tar merchants on to the roof for another 24 years? When is all this comic opera to come to an end? Is somebody with intelligence going to say that the process seems to be nothing but a time-wasting and money-wasting experiment and that the proper thing to do is what intelligent people would do, namely to stop wasting money on this shack in Pearse Street and instead to provide the public with a decent office and the staff with an opportunity of dealing with mails with the expedition with which they desire to deal with them? That is not possible at Pearse Street because of the condition of the place. The Minister probably thinks the building is Olympian in its beauty, but the Minister walks in one door and out the other. If he had to do night duty, early morning duty or late evening duty there, if he saw the office under normal conditions, if he were there while the rain or the tar was coming in, he would not have such a high opinion of the place.

I sent to the Minister last year a complaint regarding the condition of the Pearse Street office, telling him the number of times the rain came in and the number of places at which it came in and describing the general condition of the office when it came in, with folk running around putting sawdust on the rain. One would expect that that would stir the Minister into getting something done, but the Pearse Street premises are just as firmly entrenched in Pearse Street as are the Pyramids in Egypt, and nothing seems to happen. The Pyramids remain and the Pearse Street office remains, but the Pyramids are not very essential public buildings and the Minister ought to try to get something done with buildings for which he is responsible. I also want to know what is the precise position with regard to St. Andrew Street telephone exchange.

Mr. Dillon

My old friend.

Mr. Norton

Everybody with any experience of telephone operating work in Dublin, and telephone equipment and accommodation in Dublin, knows that it is a physical impossibility for the telephone staff to provide a satisfactory telephone service in the present Exchequer Street exchange. First, the building is inadequate, being altogether too small; secondly, the staff is inadequate; thirdly, the equipment is inadequate; fourthly, it is not modern: and fifthly, it is not capable of taking the load which is on it. If, therefore, we are to have a satisfactory telephone service in Dublin, and incidentally in the provinces, it is necessary to have another modern exchange erected. I understood from the Minister's statement on this Estimate last year that it was hoped to have the work of building undertaken this year. So far, I have not been able to discover any activity in that connection at St. Andrew Street. Therefore, I should like to know from the Minister: (1) when is it proposed to commence work on that building, (2) when is it proposed to finish the work on the building, (3) has the equipment been ordered for the building, and (4) will the equipment be available for installation either while the work is proceeding or when it has been completed? If one could get a picture of the time-table in connection with the St. Andrew Street exchange and were assured that there would be reasonable adherence to the time-table, it would be possible to estimate when a satisfactory telephone service would be provided. Certainly, the staff are unable to provide a satisfactory service at the present exchange and if the public have reason to complain about inability to get calls answered, it is due to one cause, namely, that the staff and equipment are inadequate to deal with the load that is falling on them at that exchange.

I wish to call the attention of the Minister to conditions at the Cork Telephone Exchange, if it could be so described. It is a weird structure. As a warning against finding anything modern inside the building, there is the remains of a rubber mat at the front door bearing the name of the National Telephone Company, which company went out of existence in 1911. On the ground floor there is a room which was recently acquired by the post office and which serves as a bicycle shed and store for miscellaneous impedimenta. There is a rickety staircase. The staff are cluttered together. The exchange is overcrowded. The equipment is out-of-date. The ventilation, lighting and outlook are bad. The whole place has the appearance of a back lane factory. There are about 80 girls employed in the exchange. There is a retiring-room for them which has to serve also as a locker-room, although there are not lockers for all the girls, a dining-room—there is one table and one small fire for the 80 girls—and as a toilet. There is a sink and one hand basin. I invite Deputies, particularly those of the Cork area, to visit the exchange and to relate the science which gave us wireless telegraphy and telephony with the weird Egyptian-Babylonian-like equipment that passes as a telephone exchange in the southern capital of this country.

Again I should like to find out from the Department what they are going to do about that exchange. The building looks as if it had been there for the last 60 years. The mat at the door is eaten away with age, but the Post Office say: "It will do for the telephone service. Nobody expects too much from that. In any case, we do not expect too much from it ourselves; we do not spend too much in maintaining it". I ask the Minister what he is going to do about that exchange in Cork. The present position is appalling. In this connection also I should like to get something more definite than "the matter is in hands and we are thinking of doing this and that". First, has a contract been placed for the building of a new exchange and, if so, is there a time limit for the completion of the contract? Has equipment been ordered and is delivery of the equipment expected by the time the building is ready? If so, when is it expected to provide a modern telephone exchange for Cork and to provide for the staff facilities for the efficient operation of the service?

The Minister made reference to the development in Post Office traffic and indicated a substantial step-up in activities in various directions. While all that is very satisfactory and a matter on which all concerned are entitled to congratulate themselves, there is an aspect of that activity which I am afraid is being sadly neglected, that is, the question of providing adequate staff to cope with the increased volume of traffic. I would say this to the Minister, and I know what I am talking about, that in the history of the Post Office in the past 30 years the staff was never more inadequate than it is to-day and there never was a time when more overtime was worked than is being worked to-day. That overtime is necessary because of the fact that the existing staff is inadequate to deal with the volume of work. In many post offices staffs are required to work 12 hours a day. That has been going on for years because of the reluctance of the Post Office to recruit adequate staff for the transaction of public business. In some offices in Dublin thousands of hours' overtime are worked each week. That has been accepted as an inevitable development, as something that nobody questions. Certainly, the Post Office do not question it. They are content to see a situation of that kind going on year after year and they do not take the obvious remedy. The work that necessitates that overtime is as static to-day as it was three years ago. It will be there three years hence. Instead of adjusting its staff to the normal requirements of the Post Office, they carry on with whatever staff they have, augmenting it by a very small percentage now and again, permitting the continuous performance of overtime amounting to thousands of hours each week. That is not a happy situation. It is not a situation that an efficiently organised Department would tolerate. An efficient Department would recruit adequate staff. So far, the Post Office have shown no real appreciation of the difficulties in that respect and have not measured up to their responsibilities in that connection.

In the provincial offices the position is the same. I could show the Minister thousands of letters from staff at offices complaining of the amount of overtime they are required to do. The staff are anxious, naturally, that during the summer they should not be asked to work overtime. In the winter they have to work two, three and four hours' overtime a day. Worn out with fatigue by continuous overtime, they face the summer hoping to get some rest and relaxation, only to find that the summer traffic is worse than the winter traffic. The provincial offices have been staffed on the principle, or lack of principle, of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Every office in the country is under-staffed. Overtime is worked in practically every office. There has been overtime for many years and that situation is continuing. I want to ask one question: Is manpower so scarce in this country now that it is impossible to take the obvious course of recruiting staff who can be trained so that an adequate staff may be provided to deal with work which is static, and not merely temporary? I put it to the Minister that this is a matter which ought to be seriously examined. If he examines the question himself he will see the problem that is there. He will see how acute it has become because of years of neglect. Something ought to be done at this stage, belated though it is, to try to effect a remedy for a situation which has been extremely bad and which will get worse unless at this stage some effective steps are taken to grapple with the problem, i.e., by providing additional staff to deal with the huge increase in normal traffic due to the allocation of additional services to the Post Office.

There is one other matter that I would like to mention to the Minister and it is the matter of his surplus. I notice the Minister stated that for the end of the financial year 1946 he has a net surplus of £214,000 on the Post Office service. In this connection, I would like to call the Minister's attention to the fact that there are many claims before his Department for improved conditions for the staff. These claims have been backed by reason and argument in a manner sufficient to convince any reasonable person and it seems a very incongruous situation that at a time when the Minister has a surplus of £214,000 he should be reluctant to listen to the reasonable claims submitted by the staff for improvement in their conditions. That surplus is there because of the energies and enthusiasm and skill and experience of the staff working under extremely difficult conditions, as I have indicated already, but a wider area of irksomeness could easily be covered.

I would suggest to the Minister that when he is considering claims from the staff for improved conditions he ought to remember the contribution which they made to the building up of a surplus of £214,000 in one year. In that connection I would like to bring this matter especially to the Minister's notice. Last year representations were made to him regarding the long incremental scales of Post Office grades. Evidence was furnished to the Minister that it takes the ordinary members of the Post Office staff from 11 to 22 years in which to reach the maximum rate of wages and that even when the maximum has been reached it is a low maximum rate, with the result that for the best years of their service they are struggling to reach a maximum which, when reached, provides them with an inadequate return for their experience and skilled labours. An appeal was then made to the Minister that he ought to recognise that these scales, devised in another generation and maintained since, have no parallel to-day in the eyes of enlightened employers and that the Minister ought to apply himself to the problem of reducing these long incremental scales by reducing the period in which it takes to get from the minimum to the maximum in five years in each case. As I said, that was a reasonable claim and was backed by the arguments which I think the Minister was compelled to acknowledge in his heart were convincing arguments.

At all events, at the end of the discussion which took place with the Minister on the 25th June last he indicated that he would examine personally the claim made and he expressed the hope that he and his Department would be able to make up their minds on the matter in about two months. Now, this is where the optimism of the Minister comes in again. The two months passed and it is now more than nine months since the claim was presented to the Minister, but so far there has been no indication that the Minister has made up his mind, no indication, in fact, as to whether he has exercised his mind on the matter, and no indication as to what he proposes to do in the matter. I want to put this question to the Minister: does he really contend that it takes him nine months to examine that claim? Does he really contend that having heard the arguments in favour of the claim, having seen the written arguments and heard the oral arguments, having had an opportunity of the cut and thrust of debate on the claim, having had an opportunity of pitting his case against and hearing the case for the claim that he could not in nine months make up his mind on what he was going to do in respect of the claim then submitted? I cannot believe that it would take that period to examine a claim of that type. I want to ask the Minister in this connection if he will indicate what he proposes to do in the matter. He has had over nine months to examine the matter. He said he hoped to be able to complete the examination in two months: he has got an extra seven months in which to do it.

Will he now indicate when the staff organisation responsible will get a decision on the claim which was discussed orally with the Minister in June of last year. The Minister has a substantial surplus at his disposal; he had it last year and he has had it in other years, but whilst he had that surplus at his disposal I feel, and the staff feel, that he unreasonably withheld improvements in wages conditions for the staff. That situation in the face of the surplus that is now there and in the face of the merits of the claim presented ought not be allowed to continue, and I hope that in respect of the increments claim the Minister will, in that instance, give evidence of his good faith and evidence of his determination to share with the staff some of the surplus made possible by their skill and their experience.

Major de Valera

The matter which I want to mention to the Minister is the question of engineers in his Department and the position of engineers in his Department. Things have radically changed during the last 30 years in regard to communications such as the Minister's Department caters for. Perhaps 30 years ago it was a relatively simple thing. Thirty years ago telephone and telegraph installations were relatively simple electrical devices. There was not much complexity attaching to them. Nowadays the picture has entirely changed. You have the additional developments of broadcasting and wireless telephony and telegraphy. These in themselves are extremely complex and require for their efficient handling and control a high degree of professional knowledge and a high standard of practical technical skill on the part of the responsible staff. That, again, comes back to the engineers who are directly responsible. Not only have you that new development but it must not be forgotten that in connection with such things as telegraph services and, in particular, telephone services, comparable complexities have been introduced by modern scientific development. When the telegraph service was introduced it was a relatively simple thing of a battery and magnet and coils. Now, with the development of carrier telephone services and trunk lines, you are into the domain of practical radio and in that domain you require the same degree of professional engineering knowledge and skill as you require in broadcasting. As well as that you have the development of automatic exchanges. Admittedly, these result in a better service to the public but they are much more highly complex from the technical point of view.

These remarks are designed simply to remind Deputies of the changed circumstances which have come about in the engineering world. They are to remind Deputies of the changed circumstances of engineers responsible for the efficient operation of such devices. The time has passed when one could take a man and train him and hope that, as a result of that training, he would ultimately have enough knowledge and skill to control and direct. The control, direction and management of such installations as are now operated by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs demand the services of fully qualified engineers with the requisite theoretical and basic training plus experience on the actual plant in later life. That fact must be recognised if you are to have an efficient service. It follows, as a natural corollary from that, that in the interests of a proper service to the public engineering posts in such a department as the Department of Posts and Telegraphs should be filled by fully qualified engineers. I know that at the present time in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs large numbers of people are employed as engineers who have in fact neither the capacity nor the qualifications. That situation is perfectly understandable at the moment because it is in reality a carry-on from the past. The reason why I raised the matter with the Minister is because I want him in the future to have regard to the importance of having a properly trained staff of professional engineers. I am not directing my remarks to the immediately existing situation. Because of the gradual growth in this service there must naturally be a certain percentage of unqualified men at the moment. That is not the point. The point is that in the future only fully qualified professional engineers should be appointed with the requisite knowledge and practical experience. It may be that the Minister visualises promotion because of the growth in this service and there may be people in his Department eligible for such promotion. Now, I am not asking the Minister to disregard those people but I think that they should at least be required to acquire for themselves, whether by examination or otherwise, the qualifications which the various institutes of engineers have laid down at the present time. Such people should be compelled to show positively that they have the requisite degree of skill and knowledge for appointment to such posts. I do not think that in the future a situation should be permitted to arise in the Post Office where out of a personnel of 28 in the engineering section nine are unqualified. I do not think that is good in the public interest.

Perhaps it is going a little outside the Estimate to raise the question of engineers generally in the State service.

Mr. Dillon

Oh, no, no.

Major de Valera

It is going outside this Estimate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should confine himself to the Estimate.

Major de Valera

I shall confine myself to the Estimate but I do say that, confining myself to the Estimate, my remarks might equally be applicable on a much wider basis. We have a number of engineers in the various Government Departments. They are paid at a much lower comparative rate than administrative personnel. I understand that an assistant engineer—who, as I say, should be a competent engineer in the full and proper sense —comes in at a salary less than that of a junior administrative officer. Now, a junior administrative officer has in fact much less responsibility than an assistant engineer and will never be faced with the problem of taking a rapid and firm decision such as an engineer will have to do time and time again. The engineer, having come in on a lower salary scale, it takes him then 17 years to reach his maximum. I think the two positions should at least be comparable. In modern times the technical is just as important as the administrative post. That fact ought to be recognised. I understand this disparity exists all the way down and I suggest the Minister should consider this problem and see if something cannot be done. This State at the present time cannot afford to overlook its engineers. The ins and outs of our whole economic fabric are tied up in technical developments in these modern times. Some of our biggest problems in this modern age are tied up with technical developments and, as that is so, the importance of the scientist and the engineer increases. Recognition of that fact has lagged behind the repercussions of technical developments. Here we have a Department—and I join with any Deputies who have paid the staff a compliment—which has carried on for the past seven years under difficult conditions and acquitted itself well, but to anybody who picks up the telephone it is evident that they are in difficulties, that there is need for reorganisation of the services.

Mr. Dillon

Myosis, I think, is the correct word for that.

Major de Valera

I understand it is a question of shortage of materials and it is largely a matter of make-do. I am making every allowance for that. The fact is that, with the increased load on the Department, they will be faced with what is virtually a reconstruction. In the public interest it is obviously desirable to have the most competent people that we can get in that Department, and to have the benefit of the brains of the best of our young engineers, in order to get the job done. For the proper running of the Department, and in order to keep up with modern developments, such engineers and scientists are required. The Minister should make an effort to get them and in all appointments he should restrict himself strictly to taking the very best of the qualified applicants. Those are what I submit should be the ruling factors.

I understand that out of the 42 assistant engineers in the Department only 28 have been established. I can well understand that if the material is not there and the equipment cannot be got, it might be premature to fill such posts, but, when he is making the appointments, the Minister should select the best men, and the best are those who are properly trained. I cannot stress too much the fact that properly trained does not just mean experienced. The basic training such as an engineer or a scientist can get is absolutely necessary for the thorough understanding of such things as modern telephone equipment, carrier lines, methods of transmission and radio installation, and a lack of mathematical and general engineering knowledge cannot be counter-balanced by mere experience. I ask the Minister to take those matters seriously into consideration, and, if he is getting engineers, the position of the engineer should at least be equal to that of a corresponding administrative grade.

Mr. Dillon

I think Deputy de Valera is barking up the wrong tree. I would undertake, with the present staff of the Post Office, to precipitate a revolution in the public service within 12 months. I have had dealings with the Post Office staff for a long time and I think there are few Departments of State in which are to be found more experienced, more skilful and abler men than in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It is one of the very few Departments the servants of which, in my experience, deal with an ordinary member of the public as if he were a human being and do not treat him as if he were a lowly serf who would be addressed civilly only as a concession.

I remember them planting a pole right in the middle of my business premises. I would not have believed it possible that anyone could be persuaded to allow a pole right in the middle of his business premises, but by the time I had finished with the officials of the Department I had begun to think that instead of injuring me they were bestowing a benefit on me. Would to God that every bureaucrat went about his business in that way. There are many of us who realise, as so few bureaucrats do, that the world is not such a bad place at all if only people would be reasonable. The amazing thing was that they got the pole in where they wanted it without using any compulsory power. If I were just to stick my heels in the ground they would not have put the pole in; they actually forewarned me that they had no power to put it there at all unless with my express consent. At any rate, as I have already said, they led me to think that instead of imposing a burden on me they were conferring a benefit.

I am not at all sure that it is a wise thing—I speak from the point of view of the man accustomed to administer a modest business—to employ a regular staff of persons who esteem themselves experts. There is nothing on God's earth more difficult to control than an expert. Somebody has to run the Post Office and the man next in authority to the Minister is the Parliamentary Secretary and, if he is to be told every morning where he gets off, by an engineer out of University College, Dublin, still wet behind the ears, he will find it difficult to run his Department.

It would be more satisfactory in certain branches of the Post Office that they should avail of the services of expert consultants from outside and carry out their general recommendations with a competent staff rather than install a collection of Czars within the organisation, all of whom are too highly educated to be told how to do their work by poor ignorant, common creatures who have not had the inestimable advantage of qualifying to put a B.E. after their names. If I had to run the Post Office to-morrow morning, I would sooner have the poor common creatures than the B.E.s, and with their help I would undertake to do a very much better job.

I am bound to say this, although I know the Minister will resent very much what I say, that I believe the reason why the Post Office is in the chaotic state it is in is because the Minister will not try. He has himself absorbed in this idea: "You cannot do anything; there are no supplies; you cannot do this or that; this has got dear and that has got dear and you cannot get anywhere." Once you get yourself into that frame of mind, the tendency to sit down and say: "Well, there you are, things are very bad; it is awful but you can't get supplies——"

Mr. Little

That is not the whole trouble.

Mr. Dillon

Look at the Minister; he is as bland and as mild at milk.

Mr. Little

I am exercising extreme patience with the Deputy.

Mr. Dillon

That is the trouble. The Minister has kept so blooming patient that he is quite prepared to sit immobile there for the next 15 years without doing anything to remedy these complaints. I wish to goodness he would lose his patience some time and go into his Department and say: "Look here boys, I am ashamed of my life to go into Dáil Eireann with the story I have to tell." Here I am on my feet and I will show you the things you could do and should have done six months ago which would have materially mitigated the difficulties of the public. We have to complain frequently of the condition of the trunk lines. Our complaint is simply that if we want to call up a business man from rural Ireland we cannot get on. If you put through a call on the telephone at 8 o'clock in the morning, you will get the connection at 9 o'clock when there is no one in the office. Put it through at 9 o'clock and what happens? You can put through six or eight numbers to six or eight men at 9 o'clock and what happens? You get the first call at 1.5 p.m., the second call at 1.10 p.m., the third call at 1.15 p.m., the fourth call at 1.20, the fifth at 1.25 and the sixth at 1.30. In each case the man you called up has gone to his dinner. You learn by bitter experience and on the following day you put through six calls at 2 o'clock in the afternoon hoping to get the man when he comes back from his dinner. You will not hear a sound until 5.30 and then you will get the first call at 5.30, the second at 5.40, the third at 5.45 and so on. They have all gone home to tea at that time. We are told blandly that there is nothing we can do about it, that there is no equipment.

Again, you may call up a friend. There is nothing criminal, nothing contrary to public spirit, to want to call up a friend and to have a friendly chat on the phone but it has come to be that in this country. The only servant of the Post Office whom I hear losing his temper is the man who breaks in on your conversation after six minutes and says: "I want this line; how dare you keep on talking?" It has become a kind of offence against public morality to dare to speak to a friend on the phone. Is that not so?

Mr. Little

The Deputy does not realise the difficulties under which we are labouring at the moment or the devoted work that is being given by the staff.

Mr. Dillon

I am not blaming the operators. I know their difficulties, but we are being manoeuvred into the difficult position that we are putting on the shoulders of public servants the uncomfortable burden of having to decide that it is wrong to indulge the natural desire to have a chat with one's friend on the phone. It has become an anti-social act to call up your neighbour and have a chat with him. Everyone sympathises with the Minister and says: "Is it not an awful thing to have people talking idly on the phone?" What is wrong about talking to your neighbour?

Mr. Little

In my statement I asked specially that people would curtail their conversations at present owing to the extreme difficulty and stringency of the situation.

Mr. Dillon

There you are. We should all be delighted to impose on ourselves any self-denying ordinance the Minister asks for, if only the Minister would give us the slightest indication that he is doing his part. What are the facts? Every rural telephone exchange closes down at 8 o'clock in the evening. I am told there are thousands of boys and girls emigrating from the country because they can find no work. Why not employ them as night operators? If the Minister does that I shall promise never to talk to my neighbours on the phone until 10 or 11 o'clock has struck or even until 12 o'clock. If the Minister came into the House to-day and said: "Owing to the extreme pressure of business, I would ask people to be kind enough, if they want to have a chat with friends, to postpone their calls until midnight", then I would say that he was asking something reasonable and fair and that he was going half way to meet us if he employed night operators to keep the telephone open. He could say to the House: "The equipment is insufficient to deal with the traffic but in order to facilitate the public, we will keep the exchange open for 24 hours instead of 14. It is not economic and we are going to lose a bit of money on our side, but you, the public, will help, by postponing every conversation you can until 11 or 12 o'clock at night." Just imagine the difference it would make if every person in rural Ireland knew that if he abstained from any social contacts on the telephone between 9 o'clock in the morning and 8 o'clock at night, he would have from 8 o'clock until 9 o'clock for all the social contacts he wanted. If it were not urgent such people could refrain until they came from the pictures, to ring up a cousin in the country so as not to put any burden on the telephone services. That one gesture, that one change would, overnight, abolish 50 per cent. of the complaints that obtain at the present time in rural Ireland about trunk closing. Is that not simple? Think of all the people in rural Ireland whose telephone goes off at 8 p.m. Think of Sunday—for the whole of Sunday, except from 8 o'clock until 10 o'clock in the morning and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., no call can originate or be completed in rural Ireland except in a few select centres like Clonmel, Monaghan and Ballina.

Mr. Little

That is not so.

Mr. Dillon

It is so.

Mr. Little

There are 110 altogether in the country areas alone.

Mr. Dillon

How many country towns are there?

Mr. Little

The number of post offices is about 2,000.

Mr. Dillon

So that it represents one in 20.

Mr. Little

We have to put in 900 telephone exchanges under our new scheme.

Mr. Dillon

One in 20 can get a call on Sunday. Many of us would be prepared to say that we would not use the telephone for any social purpose at all, except between 10 o'clock at night and 8 o'clock in the morning, and on Sunday, if the Minister would say that, on his part, he is prepared to pay a duplicate staff. A duplicate staff consists of one girl who will attend to the exchange and who, if she puts her bed beside the exchange on the vast majority of premises, would enjoy her night's sleep undisturbed. If she is wakened up, she will not be wakened up more than three or four times on a busy night. Will the Minister do that? Will he even consider experimenting— using his equipment for 24 hours a day for six months and see what a relief it will give to the telephone system?

Mr. Little

I will have it examined, but I am not sure that we can do very much. I will not make any promise, but I will have the possibilities examined.

Mr. Dillon

It means that, overnight, except during the business hours of the day, one will be able to contact any person one wishes to talk to almost immediately, because the present experience is that if one calls up Clonmel or Monaghan or any of the towns with a day and night service from Dublin after 11 o'clock, one need not leave down the receiver—the call comes through almost at once.

What puzzles me is that the Minister says we are unduly critical of him. He has never even thought of that. Does he not blame himself, when he found that the burden of work was far in excess of the equipment's capacity, for not calling in the high officers of the telephone division and saying: "You tell me that the volume of work is too heavy for your equipment. You tell me that you cannot increase the equipment. Very well; can you not make the equipment work harder than it is working?" When they reply that every girl on the telephone exchange is working harder than they think she ought to be called upon to work, why does the Minister not say: "Why not double the staff and let us have a night staff and a day staff and see if we cannot shed some of the burden in that way"?

Mr. Little

We have it in the big centres.

Mr. Dillon

Of course you have, and the grave complaints are not arising in the big centres. I do not think the delay in getting through from Dublin to a large centre like Sligo or Cork or Clonmel—it is bad enough—is comparable with the delay in getting through to the sub-stations therefrom and what delay there is is largely occasioned by the influx of waiting calls which are pouring into these centres. Take the case of Sligo. What is blocking Sligo is that Donegal, North Roscommon, and, I think, North Mayo are coming in and all struggling to get through Sligo to Dublin. If you lifted off that bottleneck of the social contacts by providing a night service, it would be some improvement in any case—I will say no more than that—and it would be an immense boon to people who are labouring under very great stress at present in connection with the telephone service in rural Ireland. That is one suggestion of dozens which might be made, had I behind me the vast experience and resource of the officers of the Department.

The second reason for which I indict the Minister as Minister is that I think he is quite dead to the patent fact that we have got into such a mess in respect of telephones that two things are necessary: an ad interim plan and a scheme for the permanent development of the telephone service. I do not believe that, if the resources of the Post Office were mobilised, we could not gravely mitigate the present troubles if some kind of provincial central exchanges were established to help out the large central trunk exchange in Dublin. If I want to telephone from Sligo to Cork, I must go through Dublin. I cannot imagine that something could not be done if you had a large central exchange situated in Athlone and filtered off Dublin as much of the cross-country trunk traffic as you could. I do not suggest for a moment that that would necessarily be an economic thing to do as part of a permanent national plan, but as an ad interim plan to relieve us until such time as the permanent scheme could be put into operation, it would, I believe, achieve a great deal. Does the Minister imagine for one moment that the Bell Telephone Company of America would be allowed to retain its mercantile monopoly of telephone and telegraph services if it sought to defend its administration to the Federal Government of the United States with the kind of excuses the Minister brings before this House?

Mr. Little

The United States at present has a shortage of 2,000,000 telephones.

Mr. Dillon

And what is their rejoinder to that? Does the Minister read their advertisements? Their rejoinder is not to say: "Shortage is to be expected in the situation in which we find ourselves," but: "Be patient with us a very little longer. We are searching the world and we are getting the stuff."

Mr. Little

That is what we say.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, but the difference is that they do it and you do not.

Mr. Little

That is not fair to this country.

Mr. Dillon

In 1931, we acquired the site for the St. Andrew Street telephone exchange. In 1931, the decision was taken that a new exchange was required. It is now 1947 and one barrowful of dirt has been removed from that site. Three sets of plans have been drawn up and the last one I heard of was declared to be out of date. For 16 years, the site for the central telephone exchange in Dublin, which is deemed to be the bottle-neck of the whole problem, has remained derelict and anyone who wants to go up there and look at it can do so.

Mr. Little

We are starting in June on the St. Andrew Street premises.

Mr. Dillon

Glory Hallelujah! After 16 years, we are starting the job.

Mr. Little

Let us stick to the one year. This is one year's Estimate. On the Estimate last year the Deputy raised this whole question and gave us a history ranging over 15 years which was entirely out of order. I can assure the Deputy that one year is quite enough for anyone to deal with.

Mr. Dillon

Does the Minister not think that we might not have a carnival on that day? We ought to mark it. Having had the carnival, we might have a procession down to Pearse Street to the sorting office and end up with a nice alfresco supper on the tarred roof.

Mr. Norton

A pretty good programme.

Mr. Little

Is it an invitation?

Mr. Dillon

I was putting in for one. I will come, but I think that, if the Bell Telephone Company had that tale to tell, representations would be made in the Senate of the United States that the time had come to take over the telephone services in the United States. I am struck by the manifest gleam of triumph in the Minister's eyes when he announces that he is going to start building next June. Córas Iompair Eireann decided they were going to build a traffic terminal at the North Wall a couple of years ago. They were opposed by this interest and that interest but they just did not give a damn, they started building the terminal. As Deputy Norton said, if a fellow wants to build a cinema in Kiltimagh or in Ballina, the cinema goes up like a mushroom, in the night. I remember going down to Foyle and, standing on the side of a hill, was a palatial hotel with nobody in it. They had decided to build and did build their hotel so quickly that they built it in the wrong place and by the time they had it built they found there was nobody to go into it, that they should have built it about 30 miles away. But the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs——

Mr. Norton

Will not build any place in case it might be a mistake.

Mr. Dillon

Exactly.

Mr. McGilligan

He is waiting for the place to come around to him.

Mr. Dillon

He has waited 16 years and he is now about to launch his thunderbolt in St. Andrew Street and what I am terrified about now is that when it is built he will change his mind, because he has changed three times already the whole plan. May I ask him this question: When he erects the exchange in St. Andrew Street, what has he in mind as to the capacity of that exchange for handling telephone traffic? Is it ten times or 20 times or 40 times the existing capacity? I wonder does he himself know the answer to that question or are we going to drift back into the same old doctrine which he once enunciated in this House that it was the policy of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs never to provide service until the demand existed?

Mr. Little

Until the demand would justify it, because we have to deal with public funds, you see.

Mr. Dillon

Exactly. There is the root of the whole catastrophe that has come upon us. We have been trying to provide telephone accommodation which the demand justified and by the time we have the accommodation provided the demand is three times what it was when we decided to provide the accommodation, and by the time we get around to providing for that, the demand is ten times what it was. We are for ever dragging the devil by the tail, and will be, until the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs takes one date, say Budget day this year, and says: "Demand for telephone facility is to-day x. I will therefore direct that in the St. Andrew Street Post Office there should be accommodation for handling 10x, and when we have got that capacity to handle the traffic, go out and get the traffic, go out and look for it. Let us make money out of it. Let us develop it. Let us start a publicity campaign to get the telephone into every house.” It is simply crazy to accept the proposition that you must not provide facilities until the demand exists for them.

Mr. Little

We are more than doubling the present trunk accommodation in that building.

Mr. Dillon

The thing is ludicrous, perfectly ludicrous. I am quadrupling the accommodation in my own miserable tin-pot establishment as soon as the Post Office will give me the equipment.

Mr. Little

The Deputy is not speculating with other people's money.

Mr. Dillon

No, but I want now, at this moment, four times the accommodation the Post Office are at present in a position to give me. There is not a business premises in Ireland that, if they could get the facilities, would not ask for from four to ten times the accommodation the Department at present are in a position to supply. I took four numbers this morning—the Minister can check with the operator downstairs—I rang the whole series three times before I got any one of them disengaged—21461, 23122, 21176, and I think the other was 52216. I rang that series of numbers three times, through the operator in Leinster House, before I got one of them disengaged. There is not a single one of these business establishments that will not double, quadruple, or sextuple their existing outlets to accommodate the calls coming in and going out. And the Minister is going to double the present capacity.

For the Minister to admit that, at this day and hour, reveals his utter incompetence for the job he is at present occupying. To multiply the capacity for telephone traffic in the central trunk exchange by ten times the existing accommodation would be the very minimum requirement, and to build a central exchange to provide for less than that is to throw public money down the drain. Long before you open that exchange the demand will have outstripped the accommodation and it is recklessly improvident to embark on any such programme.

I do not say that the Minister can bespeak equipment to provide ten times the accommodation but the building ought to be designed to accommodate that equipment as soon as it can be got. I venture to prophesy that unless the building is designed to accommodate that equipment and to permit of extension to provide as much more, most of the men in Dáil Éireann will see the day when a new building will have to be found in which the additional equipment will be housed. How the Minister can come before the House and say he proposes to do no more than double what is at present available is a mystery to me and, in my judgment, a shameful admission of woeful incompetence.

There is one other thing I want to ask. Four to six months ago I asked to have a telephone removed from one room to another in my house. I got a very civil reception and I was told that as soon as it was possible it would be done. I am still waiting. I would have been ashamed to mention that, owing to the heavy burden of work that fell upon the wiring men as a result of the blizzard, but for this additional fact, that a young fellow came to me who had served in the Army all during the emergency. He was a linesman in the Army. He had put in for a job in the Post Office as a linesman. He would not get it. They would not employ him. I wrote to the Minister for Defence and I wrote to the section of that Department which is supposed to look after ex-servicemen and they said: "Let him put his name down at the labour exchange". I think I wrote to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and they said that if they wanted men they would get them in the labour exchange. That man is going to England next week.

I can quite understand that the huge havoc wrought on the system has been so great that the Post Office availed of the service of every linesman in the country and still finds that the burden of repair taxes them to the utmost of their capacity. What I do not understand is why the linesman must go to England as a miner although he would sooner stay at home as a linesman. Can any Deputy in this House solve that riddle? Either the telephone ought to be shifted or else, instead of my labouring boy having to go craving for a job, the Post Office ought to send fellows down to hire him. Is there any answer to that? I do not think so. My telephone does not matter a fiddle-de-dee. What is puzzling me is why my neighbour cannot get the job and has to go to England.

The last thing I want to ask is this: What has happened to the parcel post and to the letter post? If one posts a letter now on Friday it is quite likely to be delivered on Monday, but woe betide you if you post a letter on Monday. You are lucky if it is delivered by the following Friday. Is it because Córas Iompair Eireann have declared that they will not carry the mails except at their own sweet will? Because if it is I want the House to remember that the newspapers did not lie down under treatment of that kind. When Córas Iompair Eireann discovered mighty quickly that they could deliver them when they discovered that the newspapers were prepared to do it themselves. Is the Department of Posts and Telegraphs required to accept whatever services Córas Iompair Eireann chooses to provide? Have no complaints reached the Minister about protracted delays in the delivery of letters recently? Has the Minister heard of that? Has he heard about complaints——

Mr. Little

I wish the Deputy had been in for my first statement. I dealt with that matter at some length.

Mr. Dillon

I suggest that there is no explanation. If the newspapers can deliver the newspapers all over the country the morning they are printed the Minister can deliver mails. Is there any answer to that? Is that an unreasonable request? Now, if the existing methods of delivery of the mail bags cannot achieve that end I suggest to the Minister that he has a very grave obligation upon him forthwith to find out what method the newspapers employed and employ the same method. I am afraid the Minister's boasted patience is proving his worst enemy. It is time to stop being patient. You know there is a very narrow dividing line between patience and complacency, and there have been those who held the view that complacency was a euphemism for laziness. I wonder would the Minister turn that over in his mind? I heard Deputy Major de Valera before he left the House remind the Minister that the salaries paid to the expert staff that he is to recruit must be proportionate to their skill. He seems to forget that the policy of his Party is that no man in this country is worth more than £1,000 a year. We have reached the interesting stage at which the Secretary of a Department in this country gets more than the Minister. It will not be very long until Ministers in this State will be one of the lowest-paid categories of persons. I do not know what that is due to. Most employers pay their servants what they believe them to be worth. Fianna Fáil controls the majority in this House. They fix the salary of these public servants. They have put them pretty low. They know them better than we do. To judge by this month's record, we have no reason to cavil at the verdict that has been passed on them.

Mr. McGrath

I am sure there is no necessity for me to tell the Minister about the state of the telephones in Cork City. On any occasion I approached him on the subject he admitted that it was the worst in the whole country, so whatever other Deputies have to grumble about the people of Cork have more. Since I came into this House I have made numerous requests for people who wished to get in telephones, and it was put up to me that they could not get them. There was no equipment. Then I was told that there was no room on the exchange: that it could only accommodate 2,000 numbers and that, as a matter of fact, they have an auxiliary board in the General Post Office so that when people ring up in Cork they are constantly being told "Number engaged", and it was explained to me that the reason for that is that they are unable to be put on the board. I can assure Deputy Norton that I have been through the Cork telephone exchange and that it is a very sad state of affairs. There is no accommodation there for anything. They have hardly room to move. As a matter of fact I understand that there are plans for a new exchange in Cork and that the work will very soon be in hands. I would like to know how soon. The strain put upon the people using the telephone service in Cork at the present moment is such that in time we may have to provide ourselves with a larger asylum. For business people especially it is intolerable that they should be put to the inconvenience of having to ring constantly, of being given the wrong number and being delayed for an unconscionable time. If it is not possible to provide a new exchange with any degree of quickness, the Minister should take some steps to make a temporary exchange available. Some alternative to the present system must be provided. The provision of an exchange is more important than the cleaning of the post office walls. The Minister has admitted that the situation in Cork is worse than it is anywhere else in the country. That being so, Cork should receive priority.

With regard to the post office, there is only one entrance. That is not sufficient. The staff in the post office are as courteous a staff as one will find anywhere. I think the public could help a lot by avoiding rush hours. It is an unfortunate habit on the part of people to buy one or two stamps at a time instead of buying, say, a dozen. If they were buying any other commodity they would buy sufficient for a week or for a couple of days.

Deputy Dillon spoke about "chats" on the telephone. I think something should be done to limit the time especially in the case of young people who carry on long conversations in the telephone kiosk while business people and others are kept waiting outside. I think a new sub-office should be erected in the suburbs. I spoke to the Minister before about Gurranabrahar. I would again press on him the necessity for establishing a post office there. I think the business of the post office is increasing even more than the Minister says. Some years ago we erected a new sorting office in Cork but even with that the post office is not able to cope with the remainder of the work. As Cork has admittedly the worst telephone service in the country, it should receive priority over everywhere else.

Mr. Flanagan

Sir, I wish to direct the Minister's attention to the hopeless telephone service in my constituency. Deputy Dillon and Deputy McGrath have referred to the appalling state of affairs existing in their particular areas. The only conclusion to which one can come, having listened to the criticisms levelled against the telephone service, is that the entire service throughout the country is completely rotten. Let us take, for example, a particular line to which the Minister's attention has been directed on numerous occasions. Time and time again I have made representations to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs about the Dublin-Edenderry-Portarlington telephone service. The Minister is well aware that for all practical purposes no telephone service exists between Dublin and Edenderry. It is an exceedingly busy line, used by traders, business people, solicitors and, more recently, the Turf Development Board.

One could stand in Edenderry Post Office for four hours before one could get a call through to either Dublin or Portarlington—and Portarlington is only 15 or 16 miles away. The telephone subscribers in Edenderry are gravely inconvenienced. Recently, a trader wrote to me, asking me to bring this matter to the Minister's attention. On numerous occasions he himself has furnished the Department of Posts and Telegraphs with particulars as to difficulty and delay. On each occasion he has got a formal acknowledgment from the Department stating that the matter is receiving attention.

"Telephone subscribers in Edenderry are really dog sick of the service which exists between Edenderry-Dublin-Portarlington and other towns. The operation of the phone in all the exchanges seems to be simply rotten, but over and above this even when one does eventually succeed in getting on after hours of delay the line is so bad you cannot hear a word. It is really dreadful to expect subscribers to pay for a service that really does not exist. I know the Department will send back one of the usual pious apologies with the usual lame excuse. There are hundreds of them here which I got during the last few years, and nothing whatsoever being done by the Department, as a matter of fact the service was never as bad.

I was wondering, therefore, in these circumstances if you would take the matter up personally with the Minister, because it is just futile writing to the Department. You are sure to get one of these stereotyped replies, and they seem to be just experts at apologising, and that is supposed to satisfy all subscribers. If you can put the matter up strongly, I will feel very much obliged."

The telephone service between Edenderry and Dublin is disgraceful. Indeed it might be said to be non-existent. I have spoken on the telephone from Edenderry to Dublin and I found it impossible to hear the person at the other end of the line. Telephone subscribers should not be asked to pay for a service from which they receive no advantage. The Minister is receiving money under false pretences. I trust the Minister will take some steps to have some improvement made in this direction. There is at the moment a direct line between Mountmellick and Portlaoighise. I had occasion recently to phone from Mountmellick to Portlaoighise, and it took me the best part of three-quarters of an hour to get my call. Portlaoighise is only four and a half miles distant. Last week I had an urgent call to make to the Minister for Agriculture with regard to an important section of my constituents. I went in to Mountmellick Post Office to put a call through to the Minister. That was at 3 o'clock. At five minutes past five I left the post office without having got my call. The next morning I went in at 10 o'clock and arranged to have a personal call put through to the Minister. At 1 o'clock I left Mountmellick Post Office without having got my call and I was asked to pay 1/-extra—for a call I did not get—because it was a personal call. I fail to understand why anybody should be asked to pay 1/- for a service which he did not get.

I am only giving these as examples and I am directing the Minister's attention to the inconvenience caused to all sections of the community. Every doctor and clergyman that I have met has complained about the very bad telephone service. That is especially so with dispensary doctors, who have very important messages concerning the health of patients. They have to communicate with surgeons and county hospitals and they find the telephone service very bad. If you want to ring from Mountmellick to Dublin you would be up in a motor-car far quicker and have your business done and you would be half-way back again by the time the telephone call would be put through. As Deputy Dillon pointed out, that state of affairs should not exist. There is something radically wrong and the Department should take the necessary steps to see that there is an immediate remedy. Genuine grievances come from the local subscribers, and the general public have expressed entire dissatisfaction.

Deputy McGrath referred to the desirability of a time limit in the use of public telephones. I think the Deputy was quite right—there should be a time limit. There are people who go for sport into public telephone boxes and they remain for long periods discussing unimportant things. I have seen people walking in for sport, ringing up friends and having almost a fireside chat while business people were queueing up outside waiting to make a business call and finally walking away in disgust. I hope Deputy McGrath's appeal will not fall on deaf ears and that there will be a limit on these calls so that business people and those who require the service urgently may be able to avail of it.

I wish to refer to the provision of employment on the telephone lines. Part of the engineering section of the Department requires the services of numbers of men to carry on work of importance as it arises. I think the number of men employed by the engineering section is insufficient to cope with the work there. It is very regrettable to see ex-Army men and other young men who have knowledge of the work allowed to remain idle. Deputy Dillon referred to a young man in his constituency who had an intimate knowledge of the work. He applied for a job in the Department. It is an outrage that men with a knowledge of engineering work should be forced to emigrate.

Mr. Little

We have taken on 600 of these men and we are prepared to take on any more who are suitable.

Mr. Flanagan

I am delighted to hear that. Strong words bear fruit.

Mr. Little

That was done before the matter was mentioned here at all.

Mr. Flanagan

It is right that the Minister should have employment provided for those men. I am glad to hear him say he is prepared to take on more. The trouble is, will they be here by the time he makes his mind up to take them on? Men with the finest qualifications are fleeing out of the country like the swallows in the autumn. There are plenty of young men who have all the necessary diplomas in wireless and engineering and they cannot get an appointment here. They secure employment abroad or in the marine service, but they have to wait their turn until vacancies arise. Where you have qualified wireless operators, some steps should be taken to avail of their services here. Employment should be provided for them in the Department. I know of one young man whose parents are poor but, to their credit be it said, they helped him to qualify in relation to wireless and engineering. He is under 21 and he cannot take up a position in the marine service. He took out his degrees early in life and now he must remain idle until he is 21. It is regrettable that he cannot be put into a position in the Department. I know there are vacancies there for such men. I hope cases of this nature will be given sympathetic consideration.

I trust that the chief engineer of the Department will do his best to create employment for such men. Everyone knows he has a difficult job, but when you see young men with excellent qualifications you feel it is only right that every effort should be made to derive here the benefit of the knowledge they have secured. We should not force them, through economic conditions, to emigrate. It would be a great loss to this could try to allow these men to go away. A serious attempt should be made to keep them at home. I believe there are likely to be more vacancies in the Department. There is a great obligation on the Department to keep here people who have such valuable knowledge. It would be in the interest of the Post Office and its efficient working to have their services made available.

I may say from my own knowledge that the Department, generally speaking, is being run efficiently. I have no great complaints to make with regard to the delivery of letters. Deputy Dillon made a very good point when he mentioned the newspapers. He said the newspapers are distributed in all parts of the country on the day of issue. The very same thing should apply to mail deliveries. The post is, if anything, more important than the daily paper and there is no reason why letters should not be delivered more expeditiously. I do not say that in my part of the country there has been any undue delay in the delivery of the mail. No complaints have been made to me about late deliveries. The postmasters and postmistresses are helpful and obliging.

There is one matter that I would like the Minister for Justice to mention to his colleague the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs who, at the moment, is absent from the House, and that is that when one walks into a country post office and uses the telephone, his conversation is apt to be listened to by whoever is in the shop. In many parts of the country there is a grocer's shop side by side with the post office and when you wish to make a telephone call you will have all the customers hanging round the counter with their ears cocked to listen to what you have to say.

Your conversation will be around the village as quickly as thought and everyone will know about it. Would it be possible to have the telephone box made sound-proof? Is it possible to prevent the sound of your voice going outside? At the Hill of Down and other post offices there are shops attached and the people in the shop can hear the telephone conversation from beginning to end; then they add to it and it is surprising what can be heard outside afterwards following the talk over the telephone.

Some steps should be taken to make such telephone boxes sound-proof. There might be a bell or a hummer going at the same time as you make your call, but probably that might affect the person calling. It is hard for a non-technical person to know what to do, but some steps should be taken to see that no sound will get outside the telephone box. It is wrong to have telephones in the centres of shops. There are many offices in my constituency with the telephone right in the centre of the shop. If you have to make a call on a Saturday evening you will find the shop full of customers and you would not hear a pin drop while anyone is on the telephone. They are all anxious to hear what the conversation is about. I suppose it is only human nature for people to be more concerned with other people's business than their own. The whole countryside around knows of the conversation. In all sincerity I would ask the Minister to take some steps to see that that is remedied. People may say: "We will not go in there until the shop is clear", but by the time the shop has been cleared, the line has been closed. These are the only points I wish to bring before the Minister and I hope that he will endeavour to find some remedy for the grievances which I have mentioned. Generally speaking. I have no fault to find with the postal service. It is efficiently run with the exception of the points I have mentioned.

Mr. Cafferky

It is too bad that the Minister has had to go out to his tea but, like all of us, I suppose he must get his tea some time. I expect the Minister for Justice will bring to his notice the points I have to make in connection with this Vote. I should like to know first of all if the Minister has any intention of reducing the present postal rates. I think it should be possible to reduce letter rates from 2½d. to 1½d. or even 1d. I often wonder why the Minister has not considered such a reduction because this is a Government Department and it should not be run for profit. It should be utilised for serving the people in general. I would suggest to the Minister that between now and this time next year, he should consider the possibility of reducing the letter rate of 2½d. A rate of 2½d. is altogether too high for inland letters or for letters which have to be sent to Great Britain.

I have listened to the criticisms expressed by various Deputies in regard to the telephone system. I do not intend to labour the point unduly as the field has already been covered adequately by other Deputies and the Minister is quite aware that on a number of occasions I dealt with the matter also. There is no doubt that the present telephone system is deplorable. It was rather amusing, if it were not so serious, to observe how the system collapsed during the recent snow blitz. I wondered at that time if we had an invasion by a Hitler or a Churchill what would happen, seeing that our telephone communications collapsed so completely owing to the snowfall. The Minister may say that we would have the Army field service to fall back upon in an emergency, but the collapse that occurred during the snowfall was very noticeable. There seemed to be absolute chaos. It was impossible to get in touch with Dublin or with any town, no matter how near, for a number of days. Eventually, the governor of the prison in which I was at that time managed to get through via Belfast and Enniskillen. Even then he could not hear what the person was saying at the other end until the lady in Enniskillen acted as a sort of interpreter or mediator.

I should like in particular to draw the Minister's attention to the conditions of the telephone exchange in Claremorris. It is about time we should have a new exchange there. The present exchange is out of date; it is not large enough and I believe it is not staffed sufficiently. The periods that one has to wait for a call, even to districts which are only six or seven miles away, are longer than it would take to travel the distance. That situation existed even before the recent blitz. I admit that many of the wires are out of order yet, but even before that, the time taken to get a call through to Dublin was greater than a single journey to Dublin by car would take. The Minister may find a number of excuses for that situation but I have been listening to these excuses for the past four years, and other Deputies who were in this House before I entered it have been listening to them for even a longer time.

Deputy Flanagan commented on the fact that a conversation carried on in a telephone booth in a post office is often quite audible to people in the office. I would say to Deputy Flanagan that that is often due to the fact that some people do not know how to use the telephone properly. They imagine that it is necessary to shout at the top of their voices. You will hear people phoning to Dublin who apparently imagine that it is necessary to shout to make themselves heard at the other end, as if they were not connected by wire at all. No matter how loud they shout, if there is something wrong with the wire they will not be heard. In nine cases out of ten, these people do not know how to use the telephone. That has been my experience and I have used telephones both in this country and elsewhere.

I regret that the Minister is not here for another reason also. I should like to congratulate him on a certain matter. As you are aware, Sir, I have had reason to complain constantly in the past in regard to the appointment of sub-postmasters. I have always urged that the Minister should take into consideration the qualifications of applicants more than anything else. I am glad to observe that the Minister has been converted to that view. I think it is an achievement as far as I am concerned.

In one instance, in Kilkelly, he has done what I always wanted him to do in the appointment of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses. He has appointed a young woman who for a number of years was employed in the service. Whether she had any political influence or not does not matter so long as she has the necessary qualifications. I should like the Minister for Justice to convey to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs my appreciation and acknowledgment of his conversion in that regard because on almost every other occasion for the last four years Deputies had reason to complain as to the manner in which the Minister made such appointments. They were always made as a result of political pull or influence; these were the conditions that meant most so far as the Minister was concerned. In the case of Kilkelly he has appointed a candidate who has a record of efficient service, a lady who, I am sure, will continue to give such service when she takes up the appointment within a week or two.

I think the Minister should concentrate on the erection of telephone booths in as many areas as possible, and not to confine the erection of these booths to towns. We have reached the stage in this country at which we have greater respect for private and public property than ever in our history. The reason we had not that respect formerly is that we were governed by an outside Government and we looked on all public property as belonging to that outside Government and had no great respect for it, but, in the past 25 years, things have definitely changed for the better and the Minister should concentrate on erecting these telephone booths at crossroads so as to facilitate certain villages. They will in no way be abused because people nowadays understand the importance of the telephone. It saves a lot of letter writing and one can get a message to a friend more quickly and more easily than by letter. The telephone will eventually take the place of the letter in this country as is the case now in other countries.

The rural community are a very important section and they have a perfect right to demand equal service to that given to communities in the cities and towns. It is only natural that the Minister should give them every possible facility to make it easier for them to communicate with friends at home or across the water. The Minister will understand the difficulty of people living in rural districts having to travel into town for the purpose of posting a letter. If there was a telephone booth available, they could get in touch with friends in this country or across the water for a few coppers.

Deputy Flanagan complained about the length of time people spend in telephone conversations. I always thought that, in relation to what one pays, a period of three minutes is very short. The period is the same in England, and I always regarded it as very short there, because sometimes the operator on the exchange might butt in some 20 or 30 seconds before the three-minutes' period was up to ask if you had finished and thus upset the whole trend of one's conversation. A period of three minutes is extremely short for conveying a message and one does not make a trunk call for fun. As Deputy Corish suggests, it might sometimes be necessary to ring up a girl friend and save a lot of writing, and I could quite understand Deputy Corish doing it. I hope the Minister will recognise the need for more of these telephone booths.

I understand that an advertisement has appeared in relation to the opening of a sub-post office in Sinnlawn in the parish of Kilmovee. I am glad to hear that a sub-office is to be opened there because it was too much to expect people to travel the distance between Kilkelly and the lower part of Kilmovee. I hope this office will be equipped with a telephone. I do not want to see it opened merely for the purpose of posting letters, and I suggest that, as the Minister has recognised the necessity for providing a sub-office there, he will equip the office with a telephone, as soon as possible—I know there is a shortage of materials; whether the supply has become easier since last year, I do not know—if not immediately.

I understand that increases have been, or are about to be, given to sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses. We had a motion relating to that matter some time ago, and there is no necessity for me to go into the point now, but these increases were essential. I want to say also that it is time the Minister made an effort to reduce postage rates. A sum of 2½d. for a stamp on a letter to Great Britain is too much. I suggest also that he should reduce the fees for telephone calls from Dublin to the West of Ireland which are too high at present. Such a reduction would not mean a loss of revenue, but, because the telephone will be used more often, would mean an increase. In England, one could get a call over a ten-miles radius for 2d., which was very reasonable. I do not think one could get a call over that distance for 2d. here. The smaller the fee, the more popular will the telephone service become, and, while a reduced fee might mean a temporary reduction in revenue, it will bring about an increase in revenue for the year because greater use will be made of the telephone. We should try to encourage the ordinary working-class man to use the phone. Many such men are not very anxious to write letters, having got out of practice, and in many cases the last thing they want to do is to write a letter. If the facilities are provided for conveying over the telephone what they hate writing in a letter, they will use those facilities.

I ask the Minister also to look into the matter of the telephone exchange in Claremorris, where a new or enlarged exchange is required. These exchanges require increased staff because the very fact that one finds the young men and women in these exchanges irritable—I must admit that, taking them as a whole, they are very courteous—indicates that they are overworked and the Minister should see to it that that overworking ceases.

With regard to postal services, I have mentioned the matter of daily deliveries to the Minister on a number of occasions. The Minister can make no case in 1947 why the people in rural Ireland should not have a daily delivery. Here in Dublin there are three deliveries in the day. What better are the people in Dublin than the people in Mayo? What contribution do they make to the State that the people of Mayo or the people of any other county which has not got a daily delivery do not make? That is one thing I could never understand—why one section of the community should be better treated than another. People in Dublin have very few relatives living across the water because the people of Dublin generally find employment in this large city. Their sons, daughters and husbands have not to go across the water to earn a living, but people in Mayo, Galway, parts of Roscommon and Sligo have to emigrate, and it is very unnatural that, in some instances, there is a delivery only every two days. It is deplorable that a letter should be two or three days in a local post office before it is delivered or before it is sent off. It is a disgrace. I ask the Minister to convey to his colleague the necessity of providing daily deliveries in every rural district. In my town, if I post a letter this morning it does not leave until the following morning. The post that leaves Dublin in the morning and arrives in Ballyhaunis in the evening is not delivered haunis in the evening of the following day. The Minister should try to have something done to provide a daily delivery. There are thousands of letters, containing money orders and cheques, coming to Mayo. The people's livelihood is crossing the Channel every day in the form of cheques and many women with large families are waiting for those cheques. They may be in the post office two or three days before they are delivered.

If the people go into the post office to ask for them their noses are snapped off. They are told that it is merely to oblige them that the letter is given to them. They must wait there until everybody else is attended and then if they say: "Would it be too much trouble to see if there is a letter for Mrs. So-and-So from such a townland?" it depends on the mood of the postmaster or postmistress whether they get it or not. They may be told to wait until it is delivered by the postman in two or three days' time. If the people of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Drogheda are entitled to two and three deliveries a day, and if every town is entitled to a daily delivery, the people of rural Ireland, who are ratepayers and taxpayers, and who are just as important, are entitled to a daily delivery. I ask the Minister to impress upon his colleague the importance of having a daily delivery put into operation immediately. It cannot be done too soon. It is long overdue.

I understand that prior to the establishment of a native Government there was a better postal system in this country than there is now. Is it not regrettable that after 25 years of native administration we have to admit that the postal system has deteriorated? If we had a British Government administering the affairs of this country we would be kicking up a terrible row and telling the people what a native Government would do. Yet, after 25 years of self-government people in rural areas have to wait two or three days for the delivery of letters.

It is a pity the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was not here when I started. I notice that he has reentered the House. I hope his colleague will convey to him what I have said. I doubt that he has taken a great deal of interest. I have been watching him closely and I did not see him taking notes. I want a daily delivery in the rural areas. I want telephone booths erected at certain venues which would be suitable for the rural community. I want the telephone exchange enlarged or a new one built at Claremorris.

The telephone system is deplorable and the proof of its inefficiency was the blitz that we experienced five or six weeks ago. Woe betide us if we were as ill prepared for invasion as we were for the snowstorm. The Minister may smile but I am sure he is aware that Sligo was cut off from the outer world for two days. It was as if an earth-quake had taken place. I want the telephone exchanges staffed so that those who are working there will not be irritable when they are called upon to supply a certain number or asked why delay is taking place. I ask the Minister to consider these matters carefully. Particularly, in regard to the Kilkelly Post Office, why is it that if I post a letter in Kilkelly this morning, it does not leave until the following evening? I ask the Minister is that fair or would he like to think that any district would be subject to such an inefficient system? Has he any reasonable explanation for it? Surely it is not in order to save taxation. I do not believe it is because he is not worried about taxation. In my estimation, it is because he has not taken any interest in the matter. The people of Kilkelly and the surrounding areas should have a daily service. I congratulate the Minister on his conversion in relation to the appointment he made in Kilkelly a short time ago. I am glad I have succeeded in getting him on to the right road. That was not easy. It is very hard to change him. I believe it is well worth my four years here to change him.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

Did the Deputy make representations?

Mr. Cafferky

No, I did not make any representations.

Mr. Little

Perhaps the Deputy has changed his point of view.

Mr. Cafferky

Not at all, but the Minister has changed his and he knows it but I will not argue with that. As regards the sub-office in Sinnlawn, I am glad the Minister has seen his way to grant permission for the establishment of a sub-post office but, if it is established, I would suggest that telephone facilities should be made available. It is a very highly populated area and the telephone would be very convenient.

Mr. McGilligan

Would the Minister give me some information in connection with the salaries and wages paid in this Department of his? As far as I can calculate on the A headings relating to salaries, wages and allowances, it is proposed to pay a sum of about £3,180,000 to those that are in the A headings plus salaries, wages and allowances for the engineering department. In these five—the first four, A1, A2, A3, and A4, page 298 of this Estimate, and L1, salaries paid on the engineering side—as far as I can make out from the calculation that is done here, there is an increase of about £300,000 as opposed to last year. Would the Minister oblige me by telling me what would be the tot of the similar provisions for wages, salaries and allowances under these headings in 1939?

Mr. Little

I can get the figures.

Mr. McGilligan

If the Minister has not got the figures, would he tell me what is the percentage increase? Is there a third extra paid now over what was paid in the year 1939? Is there an increase of a third? This shows only an increase of a ninth or a tenth on last year but last year showed an increase on the year before.

Mr. Little

I am afraid the Deputy would require to calculate the gradual increase in bonuses which occurred in 1939.

Mr. McGilligan

I only want a rough figure.

Mr. Little

And then to add to that the general increase in the Civil Service—between 40 and 50 per cent.

Mr. McGilligan

What is the allround increase in wages and salaries? Does it represent a third of the 1939 total for wages and salaries? I do not believe it does.

Mr. Little

I would have to look into that.

Mr. McGilligan

I am taking that it does not represent a third. If it does not represent double, then these people have had their wages reduced.

Mr. Little

Which people?

Mr. McGilligan

I do not care what public servant it is, but I particularly think of the lower-paid public servant. Unless that person has got 100 per cent. increase in wages, he is not as well off now as he was in 1939. I thought that was established beyond any further argument.

Mr. Little

That is a question which the Deputy should raise with the Minister for Finance.

Mr. McGilligan

I am raising it with the person who is dealing with the salaries, wages and allowances of the Post Office. The Minister for Finance has accepted this because he made a parade of it in his Budget speech two years ago, that the whole range of wholesale prices is up by almost 99 per cent. on the year 1938. The cost-of-living figure which does not deal with the whole range of these commodities but with only a very limited range shows an increase of over 70 per cent. at the moment. It is accepted ordinarily in debate in this House that the £ of 1939 has only a purchasing power of 10/-. If that be so, and I would suggest that it is beyond argument in this House, then, unless I can be told that the salaries and wages of the lower-paid classes of the Post Office have doubled, they have been reduced in their real wages as the years have gone on.

I think that is the situation. I do not think the Minister is going to claim that there has been a 100 per cent. increase given. The best will be about 40 per cent. for the lower paid and something between 20 per cent. and 25 per cent. for the higher paid.

Mr. Little

Do not ask me to commit myself on questions which largely belong to another Department.

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister cannot put it any higher than that. If his lower paid staff have achieved a 40 per cent. increase it is the best that has been done. I have made a calculation here that the average of certain of the provincial staff last year was about £58 per annum. Now it has gone up about £6 or £7. The average of that particular group—call it £70 this year—is only worth £35 of the 1939 purchasing power. £35 a year is very small as an average to pay to provincial operators in connection with this great Department. I have pointed out on other occasions that the most amazing document that has been issued by a Government in regard to financial operations is the pamphlet National Income and Expenditure. From that emerges this amazing calculation that in a country with 3,000,000 people by far the greater majority of the people are not getting more than £3 per week. £3 a week represents easily an average personal income of the biggest fraction of the population, but whatever it was the operations of the last five or six years with regard to prices or the lack of control of them have resulted in this, that 100,000 people of the population who used to get more than £3 a week are now, as far as purchasing power goes, below the £3 a week level. They have been pushed below that very low level and, remember, personal income is not a matter of earnings. It is a matter of what a person gets anyway—subventions, doles, reliefs, anything at all, totting them all up. The attempted manipulation of the currency in recent years or the failure to control prices which has resulted in the depreciation of the whole currency has meant that 100,000 people have gone below the £3 a week level. Out of 3,000,000 people, that leaves something in the neighbourhood of 66,000 people who are above the £3 a week level—I am taking the equivalent of the other £3 a week. The Minister has his share to bear for a certain group and I suggest that the manipulation to which he has been a party in the last five or six years has brought about this disastrous result and the Minister should remember the company he keeps.

This is the only country except countries that were devastated by the war about which it can be said that wages now being paid are lower in real value than those paid in 1939. There are three other countries that occupy that disgraceful position — France, Czecho-Slovakia, and Japan. They were devastated. Their currency was manipulated by all the hordes of people who came in there for their own personal gain and in the circumstances which enabled them to make money out of the exigencies of the terrible situation. This country had not that. We stand to be paraded before the peoples of the world as one of the four countries that could not control prices so as to enable the poorer element of the people to get in purchasing power what they got in 1939. If the best the Minister can do is to raise an average of £58 per annum for the whole lot of provincial operators to an average of £68 he has nothing to boast about. It would be difficult for anybody to follow up the results of all this lowering of pay because that is in fact what it comes to for a big number of people. I have tried myself to break it up into items of bad health, family break-up, people forced to emigrate and leave the rest behind to do as best they can for themselves, and the tendency there is among people, because goods get in short supply and there is no money in the house to buy them, to go thieving.

The Minister is well aware from debates in this House of the terrible devastation that has been wrought in this country by diseases which spring from malnutrition. The Minister must know well that this particular matter of low wages deprecates to his discredit in one way, i.e., the courts. There have been quite a number of examples in recent months. Young people have been paraded in court for larceny and when the question has been examined it has been found that they have been hired as assistants in local post offices. These people in local post offices do not get enough money to pay these people whom they take on as assistants at a few shillings. There was a particular case recently. A young girl was paraded for the larceny, I think, of postal orders. It was proved that all she got from her employer, who was employed by the Minister, was her tea.

Mr. Little

Not the Minister.

Mr. McGilligan

The post office mistress is employed by the Minister and she employed this girl. I say this girl was employed by the post office mistress and the post office mistress is employed by the Minister. He paid his employee such a wage that she could not afford to pay this girl anything towards her support. And this girl of definitely tender years was discovered to be working, and working quite hard over a prolonged period of hours, receiving in return some kind of tea money per day which, I think, was in the neighbourhood of 2/- additional pay. Two shillings do not buy much in these days. At any rate it is not a wage about which one cares to brag, much less to talk. If the Minister is going to give us the authentic voice of Ireland over his new broadcasting station he certainly will not talk much of his lower-paid Post Office employees. He certainly cannot parade them as a lead to be taken by any other country in that respect.

As far as the remainder of this Vote is concerned, we have had here again to-day the usual statement about schemes which are going ahead with promises that one of these days they will be carried out. I have listened to that statement for many years, and the only comment I wish to make is that I sometimes feel happy that they are only put up as schemes and are not intended to be much more than promises because, faced with the circumstances of this country to-day, I doubt if anybody would give a very high priority to this scheme for providing more telephones. It seems to me sometimes that people are apt to get exhilarated over the particular work in which they are engaged and they tend to idealise the particular piece of work they have to do. An amazing urge seems to have gripped the Post Office to make people more telephoneminded and to install more telephones throughout the country. There was a time—not so very long ago—when a great deal of public criticism was directed towards people of whom it was said that they would prefer to have a Baby Austin in the house rather than a child. Are we coming to a time now when people will begin to think of what they must pay for a telephone instead of living their lives in a proper human way without a telephone?

Deputy Dillon forced from the Minister an admission that since 1931 we have been promised year after year a central exchange. Now, when Deputy Dillon badgers the Minister to-day, the Minister says—as if anybody is going to believe him—that the telephone exchange is going to happen in June of this year. Even if it is going to happen in June of this year, can the Minister now explain the 15 years' delay and the changes of plan? Deputy Dillon criticised the Minister on another point and his criticism is sound in so far as it marks an outlook that is sound. But, again, I do not know whether it is worth while trying to encourage the Minister to adopt the other attitude, because that might lead to a development which I personally do not want to take place at the moment. The Minister agreed with Deputy Dillon that his line of approach was that he was not going to supply postal facilities or telephone facilities of any kind unless there was a demand for them. That is not certainly what one understands by a businessman's outlook. I remember a time when the hydro-electric development was taking place in this country. Great criticism was directed at the people then because they were told they were outrunning the demand; they were supplying a demand that merely was not there at the time but would not be there in the future. So they were told. Everybody knows what the present supply position is in regard to electricity. The demand is more than another five years can overtake. The Minister's attitude seems to be that he certainly will not do much to develop the demand. I sincerely hope that he will not do very much to develop it in the future. In present circumstances I would prefer to see our energy, skill and industry bent in other directions rather than in the provision of telephones.

The Minister speaks of the lack of materials and lack of supplies. Surely the Minister reads the newspapers and surely he is aware that in this city every other day we are faced with the scandal of luxurious cinemas for which, apparently, all sorts of building permits and facilities can be secured. The Minister knows that when his colleague wishes to do anything with aviation, hotels, hutments, hospitals and all manner of buildings will be put up without delay. At the beginning of the war a good deal of criticism was directed to the Minister for Supplies concerning his neglect to get in here and store supplies of petrol.

I remember a debate in this House when we were told that there was never any suggestion made that such stores should be located here. When the matter was developed further we had the Minister producing files behind which he cowered—files which proved that there had been almost fantastic efforts made to get in and store petrol. In the end it was suggested that it was a matter for the interests concerned and, in any event, it was impossible. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs must know that part of his difficulties arises because of the fact that available building materials are being sent down to Shannon airport to erect there a storage for an enormous gallonage of aviation spirit to provide for people who come here for a brief moment or two, express themselves as wholly delighted to get here, but never fail to take the next plane out.

I say again to the Minister that, while I do not want to see any enormous or exaggerated drive for the installation of a multitude of telephones all over the country, a great deal can be done with the existing supply as has been pointed out by Deputy Dillon. Deputy Dillon has made certain suggestions here and the Minister has said that he will look into them. Surely, suggestions of that kind must have been made before. People are not ordinarily just bound by the fact that they are limited in the supplies they would like to have for development purposes. Surely, there are ways of manoeuvring inside a limitation imposed by outside circumstances. Apart from the suggestions made by Deputy Dillon, have any alternative schemes or suggestions been considered by the Minister? Has the Minister thought over them? Have they been rejected and, if so, why? Being a city dweller I certainly do not find the same difficulty as Deputies who have spoken in connection with this matter seem to have found. There are certain ways of getting through in places where the exchange closes down at a certain hour and it is possible in a limited way and for a limited purpose to get into communication with people in a particular neighbourhood.

The Civic Guard barracks does allow facilities now and again but they are apparently tied very tightly by regulation in the matter. I did not appreciate how tight the regulation was until one day when I was going on my holidays. I was left stranded in a place not very far from Dublin and I thought it would be as well to make a telephone call to acquaint the people expecting me that I was going to be either very long delayed or perhaps would not reach my destination that night. I mentioned that in a casual way in a shop and I was told that I could get no telephone message out of the place that night. It was after a particular hour. It was then suggested that possibly the Guards would facilitate me. I applied to the Guards and a man faced me with a knowing look and he said: "Are you dead or are you very seriously ill because those are the only two conditions on which you can be allowed to telephone from here?" Then he relented a bit when I explained my position, and he said: "If you cannot get your car fixed inside an hour come back and we will see what we can do for you." Apparently it is the regulation that only in the case of death or serious illness can the Guards' telephone be used. I can understand regulations being made to prevent everybody charging into the Garda barracks after hours in order to get telephone facilities. Surely, particularly in these days of limited supplies and bad service, there could be some relaxation of the regulations imposed upon the Guards in the early days. Surely people could, without being seriously ill or actually approaching death, be permitted in certain circumstances to send a telephone message of an obvious and important type. Deputy Dillon made other suggestions along the same lines. It seems to me that there are any number of suggestions that must have been made to the Minister from time to time as to how the obvious difficulties of the situation were to be met. I should like the Minister to tell us what these were and why they have been turned down.

I appeal to the Minister, in this matter of staff, to make some improvement. Deputy Dillon said that one way of increasing the facilities the population would require at this moment would be to increase the staff. Will the Minister not think of increasing the staff unless he is first going to give better emoluments to the people he has? I would rather see the staff he has better enthused to do their work, possibly to do it more speedily, although I have no complaint in that regard, by giving them something approaching their old rate of pay than by adding to their ranks another group of badly paid, under paid, people to help him out of his difficulties. I suggest he should be more generous to the people he has rather than take in other people to try to help him over his difficulties.

Mr. Corry

I had not the advantage of hearing the Minister's opening statement, but I am anxious to know from him when he will improve the deliveries of letters in the rural areas. I agree fairly well with what Deputy McGilligan said in connection with the payment of the postal staffs. There are two sections in this community who have not got any of the increases that should be given to them. They are the rural community on the one side and the postal officials on the other. It is about time that the Minister increased, if not doubled, his charges for telephones and telegrams. That is one way in which he can get an income sufficient to pay those sections.

There is no doubt the business community have increased their incomes by something like 300 per cent. since the emergency started. Taking the professional side of the community, the lawyers who were very glad to get a £5 note for an opinion, or what they called an opinion, in 1939, will now charge anything from £40 to £100. It is about time those people were made pay for the services they get from the State. There is a very simple way of making them pay. The well-off sections of the community require telephones and the telegraph system, but the poor unfortunate farmers who have to pay for all, get deliveries of letters only two or three days in the week and, if they want to post letters, it takes two days before they get to the post office. These are things that could very easily be remedied.

In my constituency there is now an opportunity offering of making a very desirable change. I suggest that the post office might be changed from Matehy to Fox's Bridge, and it would mean that the people there would get delivery of their mail at least five hours earlier in the day and they would have some opportunity of having their letters taken out of that place that evening instead of on the following day. It would be a very simple change. There is no post office there at the moment, but the Minister will shortly be appointing a new postmaster or postmistress for the Matehy area, and I suggest that now is the time to make the change. It will convenience the people there very considerably if he shifts the post office from Matehy to Fox's Bridge.

There is no justification whatever for miserable wages and miserable conditions among the postal officials, particularly in the rural areas, and at the same time providing telephone and telegraph facilities at pre-war rates for sections of the community who have fattened on the emergency, namely, the professional and business men. If the Minister wants an income which will enable him to increase the miserable payments to rural postal officials, a very easy way to get it is to make the business and professional men pay for the services they are getting.

Deputy McGilligan spoke of 100,000 people below a certain level. There are 480,000 people supposed to be employed on the land. The prices the agricultural community have to pay for what they require in the course of their business has gone up from 200 to 500 per cent. and they are far below the 1939 level. The business community and the professionals are given every facility in the matter of telephones and telegrams and letters, but the rural community have to do with two or three deliveries a week. There is no justification for that.

There is no doubt that the service needs to be improved. Those who want telephones can afford to pay for them, and my advice to the Minister is to make them pay. Special sections of the community have increased their incomes beyond all bounds and it is wrong that they should get away with services at the expense of the taxpayer. It is time to stop it.

Mr. D. Morrissey

I should like to join with those who have asked for a more frequent rural service. I look upon this service, as I stated here many years ago, as a national service—it is supposed to be that—and I think all citizens are entitled to get a satisfactory service from this Department.

I do not agree with Deputy Corry because I think—the Minister will perhaps make it clear—that even the present restricted service to rural areas is in itself uneconomic. It is the congested areas or the business areas, of which the Deputy speaks, that make it possible to put on an economic basis the deliveries and services which are granted to rural areas. My view is that an adequate service should be provided in rural areas, whether it is a question of postal deliveries or of telephone facilities, and that a farmer who in an emergency wants to use the telephone service, instead of relying on a delivery of two or three days a week, should have convenient to him a telephone service. Neither in the city nor in any part of rural Ireland is the telephone service at present satisfactory. As Deputy McGilligan has stated, I do not know why we cannot have a proper system. I have listened, year in, year out, for 15 or 20 years to successive Ministers for Posts and Telegraphs telling us: "Next year, next year, next year." I do not pretend to know very much about postal, telegraphic or telephonic systems in other countries but I should be sorry to think that any of them was more backward than our own. We saw what happened recently when the whole telephonic and telegraphic system in this country was paralysed by snowstorms and snow-drifts. That was due, of course, entirely to the system of over-head wires which we have in this country.

I should not like to pass from that without paying my tribute to the Post Office staff for the way in which they tackled that work in the circumstances and in the sort of weather in which they had to tackle it, and for the comparatively short time which it took them to disentagle a very bad mess. I do not think it is completely disentangled yet and I doubt if any reasonable person could expect that it would. So far as one's experience of the telephonic system in this country goes, it would appear that it will take another 12 months before it is completely straightened out. I am not saying that as a criticism or saying that it is due to lack of efficiency or of a desire to get the things straightened out, but I am saying that the extent of the damage and the dislocation caused in itself is a proof that the whole telephonic system is completely wrong and wants to be changed.

It is unfair and unjust that citizens living in certain parts of this country see the postman only twice a week. It is no answer for the Minister to say: "It does not pay to give any more frequent service." It should be made to pay. All citizens are liable for taxation and rates in this country. All citizens have to contribute to the upkeep of national services and, in so far as it can possibly be done, citizens should get equal services. I do not want to go to the extremes to which Deputy Cafferky went. Deputy Cafferky says that if you have three services per day in the City of Dublin, you should have three services per day in the most remote part of the County Mayo. That is neither necessary nor desirable. Certainly it is not desirable. I should like Deputy Cafferky and others to remember that the three services or the two services per day in the city may be of as much convenience and of as much importance for the rural community as for the people living in the city, because a large volume of the correspondence is from the city to rural Ireland or from rural Ireland to the city. It is not all simply a matter of sending a letter from Clontarf to Ballsbridge or vice versa.

Some of the post offices in the provincial towns are a disgrace from every point of view. The buildings in many cases are entirely unsuitable. In most cases there is not sufficient space or accommodation for either the public or the staff. The Minister has been promising—and indeed, for that matter, his predecessors over many years have been promising—to take steps to remedy that. Before the war there was a certain excuse. Now, of course, there is the common excuse that it is due to shortage of supplies. We know, as Deputy McGilligan has pointed out, that supplies are available and are being used for other purposes which are not nearly so necessary or important as the particular purposes to which I have referred. I do not want to take up the time of the House further than to support the point of view expressed by Deputy Cafferky and Deputy Corry—a point of view to which expression has often been given in this House—that the rural population should get a better service from the Department than they have been getting for many years or than they are getting at the moment. I am not so sure that increasing the charges for telephones, telegrams or even for letters would provide a remedy. I suppose if we were to take pre-war values and present-day values, the Minister could probably make a case for increasing the charges for telegrams, telephones and ordinary letters but I do not know that increasing the charges, particularly for the telephone service, would bring any greater revenue than he is getting at the moment. While there may be a certain amount of truth in what Deputy Corry stated, a great number of people have telephones installed because they are absolutely essential to the carrying on of their business and a great many people find the telephone charges pretty steep. If the Deputy talks the matter over with some people in the City of Cork or Dublin, he will find I think that the general opinion in these cities is that the people are paying a very high figure for a service which is not at all satisfactory.

Mr. Corry

Most of them have good incomes.

Mr. O'Leary

I was somewhat taken aback on hearing the Minister state to-day on introducing his Estimate that we have to pay £1,820 for conferences held in Paris and in Washington. I wonder whether we gain anything, in the way of an improvement in our postal services, by sending people to these conferences? For the last three or four years I have been advocating the erection of a public telephone kiosk in the town of Enniscorthy, a town with a population of over 5,000. The Post Office authorities asked the urban council to provide the ground on which this kiosk was to be erected. We did that, but nothing has been done since. You have to go to a hotel after closing time in the post office—Deputies have to make these calls now and again to hospitals, to Dublin, and so on—and you are under a compliment in using the telephones of these people although you pay for doing so. The day has come when the people in provincial towns and rural areas should get better facilities from the Post Office than they get at present.

We heard of the big increase in revenues in the Post Office to-day. Where are these moneys to go? They are not to be given to the auxiliary postmen who had to go out during the storms without protection and very badly paid. They are the worst paid men in the State. The men who go out from the towns have trade union rates, but the auxiliary postman, who has the same responsibilities and who has to go into the laneways and the byways to get to the farmers' houses and cottages, receives very poor pay, and I would have been very pleased if the Minister had told us to-day that these badly-paid workers were to get some increase.

With regard to the delivery of mails, I can get the Independent or Irish Press in my town at 8.30 in the morning, but people who want their letters cannot get them delivered at that hour. Why does the Post Office not deliver mails by the same method instead of waiting for a goods train in the middle of the night? Something must be done in this direction because it does not look as if train services will be normal for some time and business people are at the disadvantage that they cannot get invoices and so on by post until midday, and perhaps 3 o'clock in the day.

In previous years, I drew the attention of the Minister to the congestion in the post office in my town. On Tuesday, children's allowances are paid and, on Fridays, old age pensions, widows' pensions, dog licences and so on are dealt with and you must stand there until the official gets time to attend to you. Are there no people to be got for Post Office work from all the people who are unemployed? Business people have asked me if I can get anything done about it and complain about having to wait so long until the official there gets an opportunity to attend to them. Since this Government came into power, everything has been piled on the Post Office assistants. All the social services have to be dealt with by these assistants without any increase of staff, with the result they are overworked, and, as Deputy Norton said, too much overtime has to be worked, although people are looking for positions. There should be no such thing to-day as overtime in these post offices. There are young men and women with the best of education looking for positions, but they have to leave the country.

The rural areas are very badly served at present and I may say I do not agree with Deputy Corry when he suggests an increase in fees. I occasionally make a phone call to a point 14 miles away and it costs 7d. and one sometimes has to wait for half an hour before getting through. When I ring up Dublin, I go into the post office at 10.30 or 10.40 a.m. and often have to go back for my dinner and return to the post office before getting through. Business people cannot afford to wait and I suggest that the Minister should have the position in all post offices examined and see if there are enough officials to deal with the business of the public. I suggest that he see to it that all the post offices are properly staffed and, if necessary, to employ further assistants.

I suggest also that he should make provision for increased payments to auxiliary postmen and to ensure that these men will be protected from the weather as the ordinary postmen are. The auxiliary postman is regarded as working for only a couple of hours, but he is engaged by the State for that period and should be protected against the weather. There are thousands of Local Defence Force and similar capes lying in stores, and probably rotting, which could be distributed to these auxiliary postmen. It is a sin that men in rural areas receiving a miserable few shillings from the State should have to trap rabbits or work for a couple of hours for some farmer to earn money. The Minister for Agriculture compels the farmer to pay the agricultural labourer 44/- a week while the Post Office into which all the money of the country is going pays starvation wages—19/-, 20/- and 25/- in different parts of the country. That is a very bad example and I appeal to the Minister, if he intends to do it at all, to do it now.

With regard to telephone installations, I get letters from all over my constituency asking me to see the Minister about getting telephones installed. Business people tell me that they want a telephone for business purposes, that they cannot do their business without it, but, when I put forward their claim, I am told that there are certain people who have priority and that the materials are not available. At the same time, when it suits the Minister—and I have seen it—for political reasons, telephones are installed in the houses of certain people, while business people who need them are left without them.

Mrs. Redmond

Most of what I have to say I said last year, but I feel I have to repeat it this year. We all realise that the Minister has had many difficulties, by reason of shortage of materials due to the war, but we should be seeing light now, and there are a few pertinent points with regard to the telephone service to which I want to draw his attention. The last speaker has referred to the delay in getting calls through and I can support him in everything he said in that respect. It happens all over the country and also here in Dublin in connection with calls to country areas. Time is precious, and particularly to business people, and a delay of four or five hours seems incredible, but it is a fact that delays of as long as four or five hours take place, as can be confirmed by people in the telephone exchanges. I am sure it is not any fault of theirs but is due simply to the inadequacy of lines available. I have received many complaints from people in my constituency about this undue delay.

There is a lack also of private telephones. Should the attitude of this Department not be to encourage people to get in telephones? That is not the case, because it is, and has been for years, almost an impossibility to get a telephone installed, whether it be for a business or a private house. Surely the day has come when supplies must be a bit more plentiful and when a genuine effort should be made to meet the public in this respect. Enough is charged for the telephone service. It is one service which gets the better, so to speak, of the person having a telephone, and for that reason I do not think there should be any undue delay about giving anyone who is prepared to pay for it the necessary service. In certain parts of the country there are large areas that have not even one telephone. People in those areas are as liable to become ill or as liable to an outbreak of fire as people in the towns. They have no way of getting through a quick message. It has to be done by a boy on a bicycle. Surely that is not business. Would it not be worth while for the Minister to consider the question of providing at least one telephone in every small district? In addition, the period of operation should be extended. In some places at the present time, the post offices and the telephones are shut down from 7 o'clock in the evening. That seems preposterous in an advanced State like this. After 7 o'clock the telephone service is out of operation. Even if somebody is dying, you cannot get a call through, and you have to go to the next town where there may be a better service or an all-night service.

It should be possible to give the people a service at least up to 12 o'clock. As has been said by other speakers, there are so many people here clamouring for positions that even if it did mean more money to carry out the extra service it would give employment and would give the people a service they are willing to pay for. A Deputy suggested the provision of kiosks. That would be an excellent idea but the people down the country would be quite satisfied even with a telephone at an exchange or a post office. If they could get that far, they would not worry so much about the other part of it.

The question of late delivery of letters has been stressed. In 1947 it does seem extraordinary that we should be so far behind in this matter. I would ask the Minister to consider it. Even if it cost a good deal of money to provide a daily delivery, the Minister should consider it well worth while. It would be in a good cause. The people in these districts have had their back broken from time to time with taxation of one kind or another but they are not given the ordinary facilities that the general public get in Dublin. I would be glad if the Minister would look into these few points: the daily delivery of letters in the country; encouraging individuals to have a telephone installed in their homes, and encouraging those who have them by trying to reduce the charges rather than increasing them, and the provision of a telephone service in every district. We all appreciate how vital it is and it is difficult to conceive how people can manage without it. A number of people are clamouring and are willing to pay for a service. They are denied it. There is something wrong. We must get down to it to see what can be done for the convenience of the public.

Mr. Murphy

To one who has been in this House for a very considerable time, the rather surprising thing about this Estimate is that over a number of years the discussion has been almost invariably in the same tone. I can remember practically all the matters that have been raised here this evening being raised over a number of years on this Estimate. I think that is the strongest indictment of the policy of the Post Office and of the failure of the Minister to make any substantial change in regard to a number of matters.

I want to support the arguments that have been put up in favour of fuller consideration for the people in the rural areas in the matter of a better and more up-to-date delivery of letters. The people in the rural areas have been very much neglected in that respect. There should be a move to provide more efficient, more regular and more prompt delivery of letters in the rural areas than there has been up to the present. There is another difficulty in rural areas in regard to the delivery of telegrams. I understand that while there is a number of recognised, officially appointed telegraph messengers throughout the country, there are certain districts in which there is no recognised messenger and where the delivery of telegrams is in the nature of a haphazard arrangement for the payment of certain fees to the postmaster and the chance of the postmaster being able to pick up a ready messenger. That position ought to be changed. It is most unsatisfactory. I have some knowledge of this matter. Occasionally it has been found impossible to get messengers to deliver telegrams and the telegram was sent the next day with letters to be delivered by the postman. That is an entirely unsatisfactory manner of dealing with telegrams which by their very nature call for prompt delivery. It may be that the number of cases in which that has occurred is not large but there should be no case of that kind. I would urge the Minister to look into that matter and to see how it can be changed. I do not think that the expense involved in changing it would be very considerable.

I want to refer to that old friend of ours, the auxiliary postman, and to put up what is one of his principal troubles at the present time, that is, his insecurity on the termination of his service. Many of these men who have given good and long years of service have no positive prospect of any security at the end of their days. It is a disgraceful position that a man who has served for 25 or 30 years as an auxiliary postman should have to establish to the Minister or to somebody in the Department his absolute poverty before he can get even a few pounds out of a fund at the disposal of the Minister.

That is an unsatisfactory position. It is entirely out of line with the desire that there is in enlightened countries at the moment to make progress in those matters and it is entirely out of harmony with the statements of the Minister's colleague here recently in regard to services of the kind and in regard to general social improvement. I repeat therefore the plea for pensions for the auxiliary postmen in this country and I think the case for favourable consideration for such a proposal is unanswerable.

I want to join with the other members of the House who have also raised again this old question of the wretched, insufficient and miserable payments or allowances given to postmasters and postmistresses in sub-post offices. It is true that some increases were granted some time ago but I understand that they have not yet been paid. I think that another social complaint against the Post Office is that in many respects there is a great delay in coming to decisions and in giving effect to those decisions. I would urge that the position of the sub-postmaster and the sub-postmistress in the small offices should be reviewed and that they should get some specific increase in their allowances or salaries. There has been a case for that for very many years. That case has been very much strengthened in view of the whole economic position, in view of the difficulty of living, and in view of paying one's way in recent years. I think the Minister must see the force of doing more in that direction if for no other reason than the risk of security and the integrity of every single one of the servants so far as that can be assured by removing them from any temptations that are not so easily resistible, no matter what may be said to the contrary, by people who are faced day after day with pecuniary difficulties and who at the same time handle money and property which is not their own.

I should like to remind the Minister about another matter in which he might show more progressive indications of policy, i.e., in connection with the demand invariably put up—I think on a well-reasoned basis—by local people for the installation of letter-boxes, collection-boxes, here and there along the routes of postmen, who could collect the letters and return with them to the town, and in that way help to provide convenience for the rural people. I do not know on what basis the Minister decides applications of this kind, but quite frequently one is told, in the time-honoured phraseology of the Post Office, that "the proposal would incur a certain amount of expense which would not in the circumstances be justified". I cannot imagine a great deal of expense in the installation of a letter-box at the particular point of the road that would serve a number of people and would enable them to get rid of whatever letters they have to send in a convenient and easy and reliable way without trusting to messengers and to the memory of messengers to post letters, as many people have to.

I want also to press the case for better telephonic services for people in the small towns in parts of the country. I am talking of the delay in getting messages through. I see a problem confronting the Minister in regard to some connecting services in small towns at night by reason of the tremendously increased demand for telephone service. In a number of small towns there is no telephonic service after 10 o'clock. That is the case in the town I live in, Dunmanway, West Cork. There is a similar position in a number of towns in West Cork. Although there is a night service in Cork City, it is of no use to the people in smaller towns, because they are cut off at 10 o'clock.

I have had personal experience of the tremendous difficulty confronting people occasionally in time of illness and mental stress because of the absence of some service of that kind. In that connection I want to pay tribute to the courtesy of the Gardaí in an emergency of that kind. I do not think that it should be the job of the Gardaí in any area to do that work. I think there should be a service by which people can, in times of difficulty, emergency, and such cases, make ready contact which is very often necessary if a certain emergency in the home or the locality is to be surmounted.

These are the main criticisms I have to offer. The majority of them are in the nature of complaints. I feel that perhaps now there might be some possibility of an improvement in the early future which would remedy these complaints. If the Minister would even make some reasonable attempt to rectify these matters—and they are not made from any particular quarter, they are general in the House—I think he would be doing something to merit recognition and, in fact, distinction by taking up and backing and putting through a policy that has been asked for, pleaded for, unfortunately without result, for a number of years in this House.

Mr. Cogan

I suppose it can be safely said that the County of Wicklow has suffered more severely than any other county during the recent storms and the winter months. I think it right that a tribute should be paid to the rural postmen throughout the length and breadth of the country for the valuable services rendered and for the risk they took in bringing the services to the people. There was a valiant effort made to deliver the post daily under appalling conditions, and there is no doubt that those rural postmen throughout Wicklow risked their lives again and again in the delivery of letters. It is only right that their services to the community should be fully recognised. It is also right that a tribute should be paid to those workers of the Minister's Department who fought valiantly to restore the telegraph wires throughout the country districts. They had to work under appalling conditions of great hardship and of great danger and, notwithstanding that, they did their work satisfactorily.

I have one complaint to make and it also concerns Wicklow. The Minister may or may not be aware that there is in Wicklow a town known as Arklow. It is an important town, an important business town, and an important tourist centre and, for a very long time, an agitation has been going on in Wicklow to secure a day and night telephone service. Now the people of Arklow are not looking for this service merely for amusement, or to annoy the Minister, or for any other reason. They are looking for it because Arklow is a business centre. It is a very enterprising business centre and it has been developed industrially by those people who are determined to put their town on the map and keep it there. They feel that they are suffering a very grave injustice when they find other towns, with a smaller population and less business, with a day and night telephone service while Arklow is still denied that particular facility. I think there should be no further delay in making this amenity available to the people of Arklow. It is not a question of providing any extensive installation for which material would be required. The Minister ought to be able to meet a reasonable demand. Arklow has been agitating for some time for two postal deliveries within the town. I think that is a reasonable demand in a large centre of population and a busy centre. The demand is made in the interest of the town and in the interest of the nation because the town of Arklow is developing considerably, both as an industrial unit and a tourist centre, and as such it will be an asset to the nation as a whole and it should receive all possible help and assistance.

There is one matter in which I am interested but which I approach with a certain amount of misgiving because I am not an expert. I think it should be possible to provide underground transmission cables particularly in exposed country districts. An enormous amount of money is spent annually in restoring over-head telegraph wires. I do not know what the relative cost would be. I am sure that the provision of underground cables would be much more costly initially than the provision of over-head wires. Taking the long view, however, I think the underground cable would eventually be the cheaper. Every year we have storms which disrupt the telegraphic and telephonic services. If we had underground cables that disruption would not take place and in the long run a saving would result, as well as safeguarding the community as a whole from disruption of business and isolation. All those factors should be taken into consideration in investigating the possibility of providing a more permanent and safer system of communication.

Mr. Killilea

I appreciate very much the Minister's statement as to the proposed revision of the present telephone system. I think the Minister should take serious notice of what has been said about the urgency of this matter. Every town in the country has had experience of the long delays in putting through trunk calls. Probably when this overhaul takes place the delay will be minimised. The present situation in the town of Tuam is a disgrace. All our phone calls have to go via Claremorris, where they suffer one delay, and from Claremorris to some other centre where they suffer a still further delay. The whole system requires a complete rearrangement.

With regard to those people who have made applications for telephones over the last four or five years something should now be done to meet their demands. Materials must be more plentiful and I think that everybody who asks for a telephone should be provided with one. I know important public people in the town of Tuam who have been looking for telephones for a long time. Business people suffer loss when telephones are not available to them. Recently the lines were increased from 60 to 100 and we were told that with that increase telephones could be installed.

I would like to join in the general expression of opinions with regard to auxiliary postmen. I am not one of the people who think they are not getting a fairly reasonable wage for their hours of work, but I do say that they give the best years of their lives in this important service and some provision should be made for them with regard to pension. I think, too, that in most of the towns there should be a second daily delivery of mails. These are matters which require investigation and I trust that the Minister will see his way to examine into them and see what exactly can be done.

Mr. Corish

There are only two matters I wish to raise. First of all, I want to refer to the shortage of telephones. I would ask the Minister to make every effort to make telephones available for professional people, especially doctors and nursing homes. I have made representations to the Department in some instances on behalf of doctors and nursing homes, and I think they should have first preference as regards supply. I appreciate the Department's difficulties, but I think the difficulties could be overcome to some extent, because the numbers of applications from the medical profession could not be very large and it should not be too difficult to meet the demand. If it should happen that a private subscriber gets rid of his telephone that telephone should immediately be given to some member of the medical profession.

The only other matter I wish to raise with the Minister is one in which I have had personal experience in the town of Wexford. I am referring to the inability to get stamps when the general post offices close. In Wexford—and I know the same conditions obtain in practically all other provincial towns and villages—there is a difficulty in getting stamps after 7 o'clock when the general post offices close.

There are certain shops which are licensed to sell stamps, but in a lot of cases—at least in my experience over the past few weeks—these shops do not have the stamps which people require. I do not know whose fault it is, whether the owner of the shop did not buy sufficient stamps or whether it is the fault of the Department which, through the Post Office, did not issue the stamps. Anyhow, the position is very unsatisfactory. Most private people write letters after their tea and it is 7 or 8 or 9 o'clock before they get out to purchase the stamps they require.

In that respect, too, the slot machines, from which we are supposed to get stamps, are broken down on a lot of occasions and the "out of order" notice is posted across them. That is a regrettable state of affairs, especially when people have several letters to send out. There should be some arrangement whereby certain shops, which would remain open after 7 o'clock, would have a good supply of postage stamps.

Mr. Commons

As previous speakers have indicated, most of the complaints and grievances were raised last year and, I suppose, the year before, and like those Deputies who have been a long time in the House and have continually raised these matters and not got much heed, I do not suppose there is much use in talking about them this year also. Still, we might as well keep complaining and perhaps in the long run there will be some attention paid to our complaints.

There were a lot of matters dealt with from telephones down to the price of stamps. I have no doubt the Minister will do whatever he can to bring about a satisfactory solution of the various matters that have been pointed out to him. One of the main troubles in my area is the delivery of letters. About a month ago we had only a three-day delivery in a week. We had reached the stage when the delivery of letters on Saturday ended one week and no letters were delivered until the following Tuesday. That left us in a pretty backward position. Some of us who received a good number of letters were many a time receiving letters which should have been answered the day before they reached us.

I will say this much by way of compliment. The post now comes on a Monday, so we have a four-day delivery. But even that is not sufficient. There are two or three deliveries each day in the towns and we in the country should be entitled at least to one delivery each day. It was suggested there should be two deliveries each day in the country, but that is not necessary; if there is one delivery every day it will satisfy everybody in the country. Seeing that they are general taxpayers, the country people are entitled to a daily delivery when the townspeople have two or three deliveries every day.

Telephones are another bone of contention. There is no doubt that the telephone service is not what it should be. We have been told that one block of buildings in New York has more telephones than the whole of Eire. I believe that is true, but they have the advantage that all their telephones are grouped together and there is less wiring. Nevertheless, we should have a better telephone system.

Our telephones are not good for sound. I have had the experience time and again of having to shout so loudly into the telephone that my voice could almost be heard at the receiving end without any telephone at all. I have heard many complaints that the kiosks are not sound-proof. People have grumbled that the walls are not sufficiently thick and the material in them is not suitable to make them sound-proof. The point is that if a person speaks any way loudly the voice may be heard outside.

Switchboard operators come in for a certain amount of criticism. I do not intend to give them any, because I know quite well what a harassed switchboard operator has to experience when working a switchboard that is not up to the standard required in these days. I know what it means for an operator having to inform a person that the line is still engaged and that he may have to wait for some time until his call can be put through. The operators are not to blame. Very often the person who makes the call is inclined to blame the operator. Occasionally people will tell you that the operators are snappy and will not give sufficient attention. I think that is not so. The whole trouble is the antiquated type of switchboard. I am no authority on switchboards, but when we hear so many complaints there definitely must be something wrong and I think the switchboards are largely the cause of the trouble.

Where two towns are eight or ten miles apart, there should be a telephone kiosk erected in between so that the people in the country can make calls. It is possible that some person may become seriously ill or a fire might break out and it might be essential to call the neighbouring town at once. It is rather hard to expect somebody to cycle five or six miles to get to the town and it would be very convenient if a telephone were available. Perhaps the Minister could see his way to have a telephone box erected in between towns so situated as I have described. It would be a welcome improvement, and I do not think the cost would be considerable. The lines are already there and it would simply mean attaching another wire.

We have been told about the Gardaí and what they have to do in the matter of telephone calls at night. The barrack telephone should not be used. There should be some system by which offices could be kept open until 11 or 12 o'clock at night in order that calls could be made. If that were done it would not be necessary to worry the Gardaí, who should not be asked to allow the use of the barrack telephone. A skeleton staff might be kept on in the post office, or some official might be appointed to facilitate people making late calls. That would be a move in the right direction.

So far as telegrams are concerned, in localities where there are no regular messenger boys and where telegrams have to be delivered by somebody selected in the town, some improvement must be made in the present system because occasionally it may be very difficult for the postmaster to find anybody who will undertake to deliver telegrams. The search to find a suitable person may necessitate a delay of three or four hours whereas the telegram, if it is to achieve its purpose, should be delivered within an hour or a half an hour. I suggest also that the charges for the delivery of such telegrams should be reduced. The present charge for the delivery of a telegram, which, I think, is 1/- for a distance of over three miles, is entirely too high.

It should be reduced to at least 6d. which would be sufficient for the amount of labour involved in the work. If another 6d. has to be added so as to provide a sufficient recompense for the person making the delivery, the Department should contribute the extra money. Again, in regard to postal rates I think the time has now come when we should revert to the 2d. stamp for letters addressed to inland destinations or for letters to countries for which a 2½d. stamp is at present necessary. Even though expenses are still inclined to soar, I think there is no need to retain the 2½d. stamps and that we should go back to the 2d. stamp. I would not ask that it would be reduced to 1½d., as some Deputies have suggested, but the 2d. stamp should be sufficient to carry a letter to any point within the country or to other countries for which a 2½d. stamp is at present necessary.

I think more attention should be devoted also to the question of extending the telephone service. Very many people are anxious to have telephones installed in their premises. I understand the Minister has a scheme under consideration as a result of which he hopes to increase the number of telephones and also to extend telephone lines to post offices which at present have no such services. In my own locality, I have a complaint to make in this connection in regard to the Mayo Abbey Post Office. A few local merchants as well as the parish priest and several other people would find telephones very useful. They are only too willing to have telephones installed and to subscribe whatever fees are necessary if these facilities were made available. I hope the Minister will make a note of that and give the matter his early attention.

I should like to refer once again to the old complaint as to the insufficiency of the salaries paid to sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses. Because of their meagre salaries they, in turn, are unable to remunerate their assistants sufficiently with the result that thefts are sometimes committed by these assistants. Some of them yield to the temptation to embezzle moneys which are entrusted to them. When we see officials who are in receipt of salaries of £1,000 or over claiming increases of 10, 15 or 20 per cent., I fail to see why such lowly-paid officials as sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses should not get some consideration. The payment of a sufficient salary to these officials would in the first place enable them to pay better wages to their assistants and would remove the temptation which sometimes exists to embezzle public moneys. Human nature being what it is, a person in a responsible position who is insufficiently paid will occasionally fall by the wayside and take somebody else's money.

I certainly have no complaint to make as regards the courtesy of the officials employed in the Post Office. I find them very obliging, even when they are over-burdened with the immense number of duties which they are called upon to discharge—dealing with letters and telegrams, paying old age pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions, issuing postal orders and money orders and attending to deposits that are made in the Post Office Savings Bank. Nobody can say that they are not earning their money and that they are not as courteous as they possibly can be to the public. We have heard various complaints that the Post Office buildings are not large enough. I am inclined to agree with those who suggest that these buildings should conform to a standard size. After all, they are public buildings and if they are to be suitable for their purpose, a certain minimum accommodation should be provided. It is very disagreeable to find a telephone box stuck away in one corner and quite close to a short public counter. Three or four people are often jammed up against the side of the box, with the result that they can occasionally hear what is passing inside the box almost as well as the person who is making the call. I therefore think that there should be a minimum standard for even the smallest of these buildings.

As regards postal deliveries in rural areas, if there could be a daily delivery in every district it would be the ideal arrangement. If the Minister could make good even half the promises he made in former years, or if he would only listen to the ten- or 15-year-old appeals which have been addressed to both himself and his predecessor in this House, he might do something which would be of great benefit to the rural community. There is no doubt that the rural community are obliged to submit to very primitive arrangements as regards the delivery of letters. A two-day service per week is not sufficient for any country. Our old friends, the auxiliary postmen, are also entitled to more generous consideration than they have received in the past. We all remember the old tag that the mails must go through. In Western America it was a great cry in the old days. Even during the hardest weather we experienced this winter, the auxiliary postmen spared no effort to complete their deliveries. That very frequently involved an immensity of labour. If some scheme could be adopted by which these men, after ten or 15 years' service, would be entitled to a pension, no matter how small, I think they would be well entitled to it and nobody in this House would grudge paying it to them. As I stated at the outset, all this may be worthless talk and the Minister may decide to do nothing. Next year we may have the same complaints to make but we shall continue nevertheless to make these complaints, and perhaps, as constant dripping wears a stone, we may succeed in getting some redress in the years to come.

Mr. Little

So many matters have been raised in a rather lengthy debate that I do not know whether I can deal with them all or not. I do not know whether it would not be better for me to confine myself to some general remarks. A great many of the matters discussed were dealt with in my opening statement and the unfortunate thing is that people who did not hear my original statement raised questions which to a large extent were answered in that statement. However, I will try to deal with some of these matters.

Clearly, the postal service and the telephone and telegraph services have been hit from every possible quarter, particularly during the past six months. On top of the pronounced shortage of supplies—and that shortage continues, with rising prices, so that it is almost impossible to get some materials, such as lead—we now have the shortage of transport, and, in addition, we had these desperate storms which, as I pointed out, will have cost us over £100,000 before we are finished and which put back all our schemes by at least six months, if not longer. I suppose it is fair for the Opposition to take advantage of all these difficulties in order to make a case, but the country generally is not likely to be impressed when some Deputies, like Deputy Dillon, talk too extravagantly, without showing an appreciation of the difficulties and the tremendous services given by postmen, linesmen and everybody connected with the service from top to bottom.

With reference to telephones, we have had conferences continuously for some considerable time past, and all these difficulties are presented to us from time to time. Deputy Roddy said that we are very much behind other countries, but any references I can get indicate that other countries are in just as great difficulties as we. In America, as I mentioned, about 2,000,000 demands are being made and they are not able to meet them at present. They have various slogans posted up such as: "Why not use a postcard?" to induce people not to be so telephone-minded. Indeed, as Deputy McGilligan pointed out, it is developing into a kind of mania. We should be delighted to be able to give telephones to all the people who want them, if it was possible, but in the present situation the pressure is extremely severe and all these problems are constantly before our minds.

As to motor transport, we have in fact switched over in many cases to motor transport. The actual position is that, for heavy traffic, it is much better to use the railway, but when you consider that we had to change to horse traffic during the emergency, then switch back to railways and now switch from railways to motor-cars, I think our people have done extremely well. We have night motor services running at present from Dublin to Westport, from Limerick, from Ennis, West Clare, Mallow, Waterford, Ballybrophy, Roscrea, and so on—a whole list of places where we are using motor night services because of the inadequacy, for the time being at least, of the railways.

I am very concerned about Sligo and have asked about Sligo on different occasions at my conferences. I have been told that the premises, which are not by any means ideal, are at least for the moment the best that can be provided and we are trying to make temporary improvements there. The securing of other premises is being examined, but, due to examination of title and so on, it has not been possible to settle the matter yet. I will press to have the matter pushed forward, but, as I think Deputy Norton said, I made so many optimistic promises in the past that I think I will reverse my policy and tell Deputies that I am going to give them nothing, so that when things do come along they will come as a surprise.

Mr. Norton

Whatever promises you make, nothing happens in any case. Is that not clear?

Mr. Little

Oh, that is not so. Some Deputy asked me for a résumé of the amount spent since the passing of the Telephone Capital Bill. For 1946-47, the amount we are spending is £358,000, and, for 1947-48, we shall be spending out of that capital account, £1,463,000. Deputy Corish asked about giving medical men and hospitals priority. At the very beginning of the emergency, I put that forward as a matter to be attended to as a first priority, and, unless there is some special reason, we adhere to that policy of giving priority to doctors, hospitals and nursing institutions.

Deputy Cogan mentioned Arklow. There is a two-day postal delivery in Arklow and there is also a continuous night service there. I do not know how he was misinformed on that point. Deputy Cogan and Deputy Morrissey raised the question of underground cables. I was always very enthusiastic for underground cables, but the cost is extremely high. We are putting down underground cables in certain places, as I mentioned in my opening statement, and especially we are planning to put down a long underground cable to Cork with branches to Athlone and Waterford. We have them in Limerick and we are putting them down at present. I was able to get special concrete pipes made for these cables and we had to get them made early because these pipes have to mature—some chemical process has to take place— and five years or so has to clapse before the cables are put in. A new form of underground cable came in which was far better but which is dependent on a supply of lead, and there is a real world shortage of lead which makes it impossible for us to get supplies at present.

Deputy de Valera raised the question of engineers. The payment of professional people in any Department is a matter for Finance. It is one which covers the whole service and a contrast between what they are paid and what officers in the administration are paid is a matter for Finance and not for us. The policy of the Department has been for many years, and still is, to appoint the great majority of assistant engineers from candidates with university degrees in engineering or physics, or corresponding qualifications. This policy has not been changed, but, with the very rapid development in all technical occupations which has taken place in the past few years, the supply of university-trained applicants has not been equal to the demand. In these circumstances, certain men of outstanding practical ability and character, but without the formal educational qualifications of university engineers, have been promoted for work for which they are quite capable, and I am satisfied that this course was in the public interest.

The question of all-night telephones was raised and the fact of the matter is that more than 80 per cent. of subscribers in the whole country have continuous night service. Where continuous night service is given, the number of calls made after 10 p.m. is small and after 11 p.m. almost negligible. I do not know whether there is anything in the suggestion made by Deputy Dillon of asking people to make their social calls after certain hours, so as to enable us to give an all-night service in certain out-of-the-way places. It is an experiment we might try, but it is with misgiving that I even mention the experiment, because I do not think it will carry us very far along the road towards relieving the very heavy load of traffic at present, most of which is of a business nature.

Some Deputies suggested that we should have a separate section to deal with telephones only. We have such a section. Telephones in all aspects are dealt with in a separate branch of the Department and the staff are not required to engage in any other class of work. Some of the most competent officials available in the public service are in charge of the telephone work on both the administrative and technical sides. Any difficulties being encountered arise not from the organisation but from the shortage of supplies and the recent storms.

Deputy Norton raised the question of the Cork Exchange. I mentioned it in my opening statement, but I may repeat that the preliminary structural alterations have already commenced. The main job will start in another month and will, it is hoped, be completed by the end of this year. The necessary plant and equipment are on order and they will be ready for installation immediately the building contractors are ready to hand over the building. Allowing for the time necessary for installation of the plant and assuming that no unforeseen difficulties arise, I expect that a new exchange at Cork will be in operation by the late autumn of 1948.

A Deputy raised the question of increased deliveries in country places. We have been going into that in great detail and we find that we will be able to give a four-day service almost every-where. There are only 1,700 places in which there is less than a daily frequency out of the thousands of posts all over the country, so that the problem is smaller than it was. When we see how it works out for the four-day posts we would hope to go on and improve it further still. There are places where it would not be possible to give a two-day delivery but, of course, I suppose it is natural that the public should increase their demands and that when they get something done, they want more.

There was a number of other questions raised but I think the best thing I can do is to have the files examined and any matters that we can deal with we will try to deal with in the very severe circumstances in which we are labouring at present.

Mr. Norton

Before the Minister concludes, what is he going to do in respect of staff?

Mr. Little

We are really doing the best we can. I do not know that we can do very much better. We are trying to increase the staff as much as we can.

Mr. Norton

Why have you thousands of hours of overtime each week in single offices if you are doing your best?

Mr. Little

I do not know. It is very hard to fill in quickly. We have about 38 learners in training in Dublin at present and about 109 in the provinces.

Mr. Norton

And you want about five times that.

Mr. Little

I will have the thing further examined and see if we can do more. There is a limit to the amount of money we can spend, as the Deputy knows.

Mr. Norton

You are spending more by overtime.

Mr. Little

We have had so many services heaped on us, as the Deputy knows. There has been the general and substantial growth of ordinary post office business, the restricted recruitment during the emergency owing to the uncertainty of post-emergency conditions, the continuance, subsequent to the emergency, of abnormal telegraph traffic especially telegraph money orders, and the unprecedented increase of work involved by the new services that had to be undertaken by the Post Office and which could not have been anticipated. But every possible effort will be made to improve the services and to take on the people that will be necessary, having regard all the time to expense.

Mr. Norton

What about the promise the Minister made in June last year to make up his mind in connection with the incremental scheme?

Mr. Little

I had gone into that matter pretty carefully and I had better not indicate what my view on the matter is, but I will say that I felt that the general increase which had been given to all the services rendered it an inopportune time to raise any further questions. It must be remembered that we have already given a considerable amount to sub-postmasters and in some cases we have not been able to pay them what is due to them but they will be paid from the fall of last year. They will get their back money. The fact that they have not got it yet is due to the rather complicated accounts which have to be made out before the payments can be made but, in the case of the incremental salaries, I am afraid the Deputy will have to wait some little time before a final decision is made on that matter.

Mr. Norton

Could the Minister give any indication as to when the final decision will be made?

Mr. Little

No. I will not make any further promises. The Deputy has been charging me with making too many promises.

Mr. Norton

Would the Minister make a guess?

Mr. Little

No. I will not have the Deputy coming back to me later on with my guess.

Mr. O'Leary

He will only make promises at election time.

Mr. Little

I will wait a while. I do want to conclude with a word to pay a very high tribute to the services of the whole staff.

Mr. Norton

Would the Minister mind paying it in cash?

Mr. Little

We already have done something in that respect.

Mr. Norton

You paid a composition.

Mr. Little

It was not bad. It was something to go on with.

Mr. Corish

The Minister mentioned Arklow. Would the Minister say how long this all-night service has been in operation in Arklow?

Mr. Little

I think it is about three years.

Mr. Corish

The only reason I ask is because I asked the Minister a question about two months ago and he admitted that there was not a night service at Arklow and he said he would have the position examined.

Mr. Little

I am wrong about that. I was under a misapprehension. There is not a night service there at the moment. It is being examined. I misunderstood a note I had here. It is being examined.

Mr. Norton

You were chancing your arm on that.

Vote put and agreed to.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again to-morrow.