Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Jul 1949

Vol. 117 No. 3

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

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Everett)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £3,366,630 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, 1950, 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 1949-50 amounts to £5,359,452 but, allowing for receipts to be appropriated in aid, the net Estimate is for £5,117,800. This represents an increase of £327,000 over the net provision for 1948-49 after taking into account the provision of £161,180 in Vote 74 for that year in respect of increased remuneration for Post Office employees. I should remind Deputies that towards the end of 1948-49 a special Supplementary Estimate—Vote 74—was taken to cover increased remuneration for all Civil Service employees. The portion of this attributable to Post Office staff (and which otherwise would have had to be provided by the Supplementary Estimate for my Department) amounts to £161,180 as shown under the heading "Increases in Remuneration" on page 340 of the Estimates volume. To get a true comparison between the estimated expenditure for the current year and the actual expenditure last year amounts for 1948-49 under sub-heads A (1) to A (4), I (1) and Q (1) should be increased by the appropriate portion of the £161,180. I have endeavoured to provide for this in my references to these sub-heads which follow.

The more substantial variations (those of £5,000 or more) occur on the following sub-heads:—

Sub-heads A (1) and A (4)—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—There is a net increase under these sub-heads of £170,980 (after allowing for a provision of £146,130 in Vote 74 for 1948-49). Provision is made for additional expenditure amounting to £135,714 in respect of increased remuneration and for £94,253 to meet increased remuneration to sub-postmasters, normal incremental increases, additional staff, etc. Against this additional expenditure there are offsetting decreases amounting to £59,987, due to savings on retirements, reduced provision for temporary staff, etc.

Sub-head C—Rent, Office Fittings, etc.—The increase, £5,770, is mainly attributable to increased consumption of gas, electricity and fuel.

Sub-head D—Purchase of Sites, etc. (Postal and Telegraph Services only)— The increased provision, £5,150, is for the acquisition of additional sites.

Sub-head E (1)—Conveyance of Mails by Rail—The increase, £28,070, is in respect of higher payments to railway companies for additional services, including day mail train services between Dublin and Wexford.

Sub-head E (5)—Conveyance of Mails by Air—The increase, £14,500, is due to the growth of international air mail traffic. The additional traffic leads, of course, to increased revenue.

Sub-head G (1) — Stores (Non-Engineering)—The provision in this sub-head is for the purchase of non-engineering stores. The increase, £21,665, is accounted for by anticipated additional expenditure of £21,580 on motor vans and accessories and of £13,515 for cycles and miscellaneous stores. The additional expenditure is offset by a reduction of £13,430 in the provision for mail bags.

Sub-head G (2)—Uniform Clothing— The increase, £12,690, is mainly attributable to the improved quality and therefore the higher cost of post office uniform serge, the delay in the delivery of serge during 1948-49, and the partial restoration of the normal frequency of issue of certain garments to uniformed staff.

Sub-head G (3) — Manufacture of Stamps, etc.—The increase, £5,195, is due to the replenishment of the reserve stocks of watermarked paper which had been drawn on for commemorative stamps, new denominations of insurance stamps, etc.

Sub-head I (1)—Engineering Establishment, Salaries, Wages and Allowances—Increase £59,705 (after allowing for a provision of £14,325 in Vote 74 for 1948-49).

This sub-head provides for the total pay of the engineering branch staff but the cost of staff time employed on the development of the telephone service as distinct from its maintenance, is defrayed from telephone capital funds.

The increase is attributable to additional expenditure on labour, increased remuneration, additional staff, etc. There is an increase of £70,115 in the relief from telephone capital funds, and of £3,037 in savings due to retirements, leaving a net increase of £59,705 on the sub-head.

Sub-head I (2)—Engineering Establishment Travelling Expenses—The increase, £17,990, is due to the anticipated increase in travelling resulting from an expanded engineering works programme, and to revised travelling and subsistence rates. The gross increase is £30,160 which is offset by increased relief of £12,170 from telephone capital funds.

Sub-head K—Engineering Materials —This sub-head provides for the total cost of engineering materials but the cost of materials used for development of the telephone service, which represents the major part, is met from telephone capital funds. While, therefore, there is an increase of £191,620 in the gross amount of the sub-head, relief from telephone capital funds amounts to £221,590, leaving a net decrease on the sub-head of £29,970.

Sub-head L (4)—Rent, Rates on Wires, etc.—The increase, £7,230, is due to provision for increased rentals on new telephone exchanges, to higher rates on wires and to increased user of electricity due to telephone development. The gross increase is £7,540, which is offset by increased relief of £310 from telephone capital funds.

Sub-head M—Telephone Capital Repayments—Increase, £32,179. As Deputies are aware, funds for the development of the telephone system are provided under the authority of the Telephone Capital Acts (1924-1946), which authorise the Minister for Finance to issue out of the Central Fund sums for this purpose. They are repayable by means of terminable annuities extending over a period not exceeding 20 years. In consultation with the Minister for Finance provision is made each year under this sub-head for the repayment of the instalments of principal and interest on the annuities created. The increase indicates the continuing expansion of the telephone system.

Sub-head N (1) to N (3)—Superannuation Allowances, etc.—The increase under sub-head N (1) amounts to £19,700 and is due mainly to an increase in the number of pensioners (£17,000), increased provision for marriage gratuties (£3,400), and increased grants from the Minister's special fund (£1,700); these and other minor items are offset by a decrease of £4,200 in the amount of retiring allowances payable. The decrease, £3,460, under sub-head N (2), is due to the decrease in the number of Treaty pensioners.

The decrease (£3,000) under sub-head N (3) is due to a fall in the cost-of-living figure applicable in the case of officers who gave notice of retirement under the Treaty prior to 1st March, 1929, and to the decline in their numbers. The retiring allowances in these cases are paid without an overriding maximum in regard to the cost-of-living bonus, and the British Administration repays the difference in respect of the cost-of-living figure at the time of retirement and any higher cost-of-living figure which subsequently may become operative. The repayments are brought to credit under sub-head T (12).

Sub-heads Q (1) to Q (3)—Civil Aviation and Meteorological—Wireless Services.—These services are controlled by the Department of Industry and Commerce but the engineering personnel (technical and labour) is provided by the Post Office and paid for out of this sub-head, which also defrays the cost of providing and installing equipment and the maintenance charges of the radio stations, rent, etc. The amount so paid is charged against the Department of Industry and Commerce in the Post Office commercial accounts as a "Service Rendered."

Sub-head T—Appropriations-in-Aid.— The principal variations are based on an anticipated increase of £7,300 in receipts from the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund for administration expenses; and anticipated decreases of £8,500 in receipts for agency services performed on behalf of other Governments and of £3,000 in the amount repayable by the British Government in respect of Treaty pensioners.

The financial position of the three main services—postal, telegraph and telephone—at the end of 1947-48, the latest year for which complete figures are available, was as follows:—

Postal Services	deficit, £22,148; as against a deficit of £26,980 in 1946-47.
Telegraph Service	deficit, £251,985; as against a deficit of £140,515.
Telephone Service	surplus, £161,897; as against a surplus of £253,430.

There was thus a net deficit of £112,236 on the three services for 1947-48 as compared with a net surplus of £85,935 for the previous year.

While there was a slight improvement in the financial position of the postal services, the position of the telegraph and telephone services disimproved as compared with the previous year. On the telegraph service the increased deficit was mainly attributable to an increase in salaries and wages arising from consolidation, to higher costs of maintenance, etc., and to a decrease in revenue. The reduced surplus on telephones was mainly attributable to an increase in salaries and wages arising from consolidation, to higher costs of maintenance, etc., and increased provision for depreciation, offset to some extent by additional revenue from extra traffic.

The completed revenue and expenditure figures for the three services for the financial year 1948-49 are not yet available, but preliminary figures suggest that there will be a small surplus for that year.

I am glad to say that the improved day mail services introduced in May, 1948, have worked satisfactorily. As a result it has been possible to improve substantially the times of the second deliveries throughout the country and posting facilities have also been materially improved. There are now reasonably good facilities for day mail postings throughout the South and West of Ireland and correspondence forwarded by day mail connects with practically all night mail despatches from Dublin including the despatches by the cross-Channel packet.

As I indicated last year in my speech on the main Estimate, it had not been found possible at the time to improve the day mail services at offices on the Dublin and Wexford line. I am glad to say that, as a result of discussions which took place recently with Córas Iompair Éireann, it has been found possible to provide, as from 31st May, a fairly suitable day mail train to and from Wexford. The resumption of these services will materially improve the day mail deliveries at Wexford line offices and correspondence posted for up day mail despatches will connect with the cross-Channel packet and the night mail despatches from Dublin.

The service provided by the Holyhead-Dún Laoghaire night packet is not nearly so satisfactory as in pre-war days. The Department is seriously handicapped in its mail arrangements by the late scheduled hour (7.0 a.m.) of the arrival of the steamer from Holyhead, with the result that it is quite impossible to secure satisfactory connections for cross-Channel mails with the early morning down day mail trains from Dublin. In present conditions there does not appear to be much hope of an improvement in this position, and it is difficult to say when it can be remedied. The matter is, however, receiving active consideration.

In order to improve the mail service to Great Britain, the surcharge on correspondence intended for transmission by the surcharge air mail service was reduced from 2d. to ½d. per item (as from 1/2/1949). This amount is payable in addition to ordinary postage so that an ordinary letter now costs 3d. instead of 4½d. to go by air mail to Great Britain. The number of despatches has been increased to improve the outlets and obtain quicker delivery, and it is believed that the service is now much more satisfactory than formerly.

Supplementary use is now made of the Rosslare-Fishguard packet service, and this has improved the transmission and delivery of correspondence between certain centres in the South of Ireland and southern areas in England.

As regards the rural delivery services, I mentioned during the course of my speech on the Estimate last year that a complete examination was being undertaken with a view to giving a weekday frequency of delivery throughout the country generally, and with the further object of improving rural posts. As a result of the work so far carried out, a daily delivery has been granted throughout the whole of the Roscommon postal district. A similar scheme has also been introduced in the Ballinasloe district. The services in the Cork and Longford rural districts have also been surveyed and schemes for bettering the services in these districts will be formulated as quickly as possible.

I should emphasise that the reorganisation of the rural services is not concerned solely with the provision of increased frequency of delivery. Not alone is increased frequency being afforded but deliveries are being expedited and posting facilities are being improved. Furthermore, new sub-offices are being established where warranted and postal facilities at existing sub-offices are being extended. For example, in the revision of the services in the Roscommon district, apart from a daily frequency being afforded on 17 restricted delivery posts, the hour of delivery generally was improved by about one and a half hours and posting intervals were extended appreciably, in some cases by as much as four hours.

In the Ballinasloe district three new sub-offices are being established, money order and savings bank business is being extended to five other existing offices, deliveries are being expedited by about an average of two hours and posting intervals substantially lengthened, apart from a daily delivery being given on 33 restricted frequency posts.

In the Cork area it is expected that 16 new sub-offices will be opened and a daily delivery afforded on 39 restricted delivery posts, apart from many other improvements.

Deputies will, I am sure, appreciate that the work involved in the survey of a head office district is very considerable—it entails the planning of motor, cycle and foot routes designed to afford the best service possible throughout the area. In addition it is necessary to consider the effect on existing personnel. It will, consequently, be realised that an appreciable time must ensue before the reorganisation of the whole country can be completed.

During the past 12 months the Department's motor fleet was increased by 13 vans, and it is expected that the reorganisation of the rural services will result in many more vehicles being added. During the past year 19 sub-offices were opened, money orders and savings bank facilities were extended to 28 sub-offices and 55 new letter boxes were erected.

The internal postal traffic during the past year was very heavy. During the fortnight commencing 4/10/1948 almost 3,000,000 new ration books were delivered in addition to the ordinary mail. The Christmas postings reached an all-time record and it is estimated that about 70,000 turkeys passed through the post for delivery in Great Britain. Heavy postings of tinned jam and tinned fruit added to the difficulty of dealing with the traffic, but the number of complaints of delay in the delivery of turkeys received was negligible. In this connection a word of praise is due to Córas Iompair Éireann, the Great Northern Railway and the British Railways for their co-operation and assistance in dealing with the heavy traffic expeditiously.

On the foreign mails side, a big step forward was taken in the introduction as from 1st February, 1949, of air conveyance as the ordinary means of sending, without air-mail fee, first-class mail to European destinations. Despatches are made daily by air service via London to practically all the European capitals, and the introduction of air conveyance has resulted in a big acceleration in the time of delivery throughout Europe as a whole. During the year 1948 the transatlantic air-mail traffic again showed a remarkable increase, the number of items despatched by air to the United States reaching a total of approximately 3,250,000 as compared with 2,500,000 in 1947.

An air parcel-post service to the United States has just been established. In addition, reduced air-mail rates have been introduced for second-class mail to the United States and Canada. The air parcel-post rate to the United States is 6/- for the first ½ lb. with an additional 4/- for each subsequent ½ lb. The air-mail rate for second-class matter is 9d. for the first ounce with an additional 4d. for each succeeding ½ oz.

Surface mails to and from the United States are being shipped regularly via Cobh. It has been found possible on occasions to utilise with advantage the services of Irish Shipping for their despatch.

A matter which has been causing concern is the extent to which correspondence from the public for Government Department is being posted without pre-payment of postage. It has been the practice of the Post Office to accept and deliver all such correspondence, but this arrangement was originally intended to apply only to correspondence which was on the business of the State. It has, of course, been impossible for the Post Office to determine what correspondence posted by the public in private envelopes is on the business of the State, but from a recent examination of correspondence for my own Department, it is clear that many letters which should have been prepaid were posted without postage. It has. accordingly, been decided that letters addressed to Government Departments will have to be fully prepaid by the senders in future, unless, of course, an official paid envelope supplied by a Government Department for the purpose is used.

Telegraph traffic showed a very slight decline on the figures for the previous year, with a consequent decrease in revenue receipts. The loss on the service for the year 1948-49 is, therefore, likely to exceed the loss, already mentioned, of £251,985 for 1947-48.

This is obviously an unsatisfactory situation, and I am taking steps to have the whole position thoroughly examined with a view to securing whatever amelioration is possible. Meanwhile the quality of the service is being improved as much as possible.

A second voice frequency telegraph system between Dublin and Limerick will shortly be available for service, and the substitution of an 18-channel system for the present six-channel system between Dublin and Cork is nearing completion.

So far as the telephone service is concerned the main effort of the Department during the past year was concentrated on the provision of telephones for those people whose applications were on hand on 31st December, 1947. There were approximately 7,000 such applications and before the end of the year the great majority of these had been satisfied. Applicants in the area to be served by the new Cork Automatic Exchange and by a new automatic exchange at Ballsbridge will not be dealt with until the new exchanges are ready later this year.

The total number of additional lines installed in the whole of 1948, including new applications for priority lines dealt with during the year, was approximately 7,000. The greatest number ever previously installed in a year was about 2,600.

The policy of concentrating engineering staff in particular exchange areas to clear off waiting applications there before proceeding elsewhere is being continued during the present year. In the provinces all applications made up to the time the engineering staff move into an area are, so far as practicable, being cleared together. Applications for lines requiring a considerable number of poles have had to be deferred owing to poles shortage, but the supply position in this respect has recently improved and long-outstanding applications will be dealt with gradually during the year. In Dublin, owing to underground cable difficulties, applications made up to 31st December, 1948, are being dealt with before applications received this year and not at the same time, as in the provinces. It is hoped it may be possible to deal with the 1949 applicants in some districts before the end of the year. The principal difficulties to be overcome are lack of exchange equipment and shortage of spare circuits in the underground cables. These are being dealt with as quickly as the supplies and labour position will permit.

The rural call office scheme, under which a public telephone will be provided in every post office which has not hitherto had a telephone, was suspended during the past year in favour of the provision of telephones for waiting applicants. It is hoped to resume work on this scheme later in the year.

Telephone traffic continues to increase. During 1948 the total number of local calls made was 57,000,000, as compared with 54,000,000 in 1947. The number of trunk calls increased from 7,462,000 to 8,111,000.

Because of the concentration of engineering staff on the provision of telephones for new subscribers, trunk construction work had to be restricted during the year. A certain number of circuits were, however, provided mostly by means of three-channel carrier equipment (which enables three additional channels to be obtained from one pair of wires). Three additional circuits between Dublin and Galway have recently been provided by this means.

There is still unavoidable delay, considerable at times, on calls over many of the main trunk routes. Owing to heavy loading of the pole routes radiating from Dublin, the only satisfactory way of giving relief is by laying main underground cable. The scheme to lay such a cable from Dublin to Limerick and Cork with branches to Athlone and Waterford will, it is expected, be completed in two or three years. This cable will provide sufficient circuits to enable a "no delay" service to be given over a large part of the trunk system.

Calls over many of the shorter trunk routes are also subject to abnormal delays during busy periods. The relief of these routes will be given particular attention during the coming year.

In Dublin a new suite of 30 switchboards and ten monitors' desks was installed in the Central Trunk Exchange. This suite adds approximately 65 per cent. to the original capacity of the exchange and enables more operators to answer calls to "O", "30" and "31".

Additional or larger switchboards were installed at Limerick, Sligo, Bray and over 100 other exchanges. At Malahide a new unit automatic exchange was installed in replacement of a smaller-type automatic exchange. Malahide subscribers can now dial directly into the Dublin automatic system.

Work is at present in progress on the installation of an automatic exchange at Bray and this, with the new automatic exchange at Cork, will be opened later this year.

The Department's efforts to provide adequate accommodation to cope with the growth in postal and telephone traffic and the consequential increases in staff have continued to be hampered by the difficulties which beset the building industry.

Plans are in various stages of progress for the provision of new buildings at a number of centres and for reconstructions, alterations, or improvements, at practically all the offices in the remaining centres. A considerable amount of internal alteration and improvement has already been carried out.

Progress has also been made with a number of major projects. As already indicated, building have been completed for new telephone exchanges at Cork and Bray. In Waterford the steel structure for a new telephone exchange has been erected, and we intend to press on with the remainder of the work as quickly as possible.

Work on the erection of the new trunk telephone exchange and public office at St. Andrew Street, Dublin, which I mentioned last year had been temporarily deferred, has commenced. Good progress is being made with the building at the rere of Hamman Buildings, O'Connell Street, Dublin, which is to house the North City Automatic Telephone Exchange and the administrative headquarters of the telephone service.

I regret that it has not been possible to make much progress with the plans for the proposed new central sorting office at Pearse Street, Dublin. We are, however, giving some relief to the present office by the erection of a temporary extension, which we expect to have ready for the Christmas mails. We are also considering how best relief can be given to the overcrowded parcel office at Amiens Street, Dublin.

Other works in hand in the Dublin area include the provision of some additional accommodation at the engineering branch headquarters at Leitrim House, the development of premises at Distillery Road for engineering workmen and motor transport, and the erection at the St. John's Road depot of a new motor repair shop and garage.

The value of contracts placed by the Department's stores branch last year was £1,530,740 as compared with £1,385,970 for the previous year. This increase was mainly attributed to the greater quantities of engineering stores required for telephone development. An improvement which took place in the general supply position during the first half of the year was not maintained; and it was difficult to obtain supplies of steel and other metal products. The lead supply position was very difficult but the Department was fortunate in being able to place contracts for all its requirements of lead-covered cables. Prices, particularly for mentals, showed a tendency to harden during the year.

The amount (including interest) to credit of Savings Bank depositors on 31st December, 1948, was £39,000,000 an increase of £2,134,000 on the amount to credit on 31st December, 1947.

In 1948 the deposits exceeded withdrawals by £1,350,000, as against an excess of withdrawals over deposits in the previous year. This return to a deposits surplus is in the main attributable to the restoration of the 2½ per cent. interest rate from 1st July, 1948, since when the amount of deposits has shown a marked increase.

A comprehensive savings campaign was undertaken by the Department towards the end of 1948. The full effect of the campaign, however, will only be reflected in the accounts for 1949.

The amount remaining invested in saving certificates at the end of 1948 (exclusive of interest) was £11,979,000.

During 1948 the sale of certificates amounted to £1,108,000 and repayments (exclusive of interest) to £815,700. The corresponding figures for 1947 were: sales £960,600, and repayments £680,400. The increase in sales is mainly due to the increase in the maximum holding from £500 to £1,000 per person from 13th May, 1948. The increase in repayments may, no doubt, be attributed to the continuance of post-war spending on goods formerly in short supply.

In pursuance of Government policy, preference for subordinate employment continues to be accorded to ex-members of the Defence Forces. During 1948 116 ex-members of the Defence Forces were appointed as established postmen following their success at the limited examination held in August, 1947.

During 1948 152 temporary and part-time postmen were appointed as established postmen as a result of success at a limited examination held in August, 1947, and 51 part-time postmen in the provinces were appointed as full-time unestablished postmen as a result of revisions. In the same year 30 temporary postmen in Dublin, each with not less than ten years' service, were appointed in an unestablished capacity; this was an exceptional arrangement to meet staff difficulties in Dublin.

The new schemes in the sphere of staff management which were introduced during the last few years, that is to say-review of organisation and methods, training of new entrants, conferences with postmasters and conferences with telephone supervising officers and telephonists—are being continued with very satisfactory results.

In conclusion, I wish to express to all grades of the staff my appreciation of their excellent work during the year in dealing so efficiently with the heavy tasks in all branches of the Department.

Mr. Little

May I move that the Estimate be referred back so that we can discuss it and reserve my right to speak later?

An Ceann Comhairle

No, the reason being that in every case the question is widened by referring it back and the House is entitled to know for what reason and to debate the full matter.

Mr. Little

I move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. The purpose of moving the Estimate back was to widen the debate so as to discuss policy rather than Departmental matters. There is very little to be said in criticism of the Department itself. It has been able to withstand all sorts of storms. It was able to stand up to four blizzards in my time, and then it was even able to stand up to a change of Government. Before I get on to the question of policy, there is one matter that I want to deal with which is really a matter of administration. It is in relation to the way in which the accounts are presented. Having seen the machine working from the inside and now seeing it from the point of view of the outside public, I feel that it is a pity that the public cannot be given a clearer picture of the relation between the commercial accounts and the Estimates. The Estimates do not really give a clear picture of what is the profit and what is the loss. The figures are clear enough as stated in the Minister's statement to-day with regard to the year 1947-48, where you have under three headings the figure of the loss on postal services and the telegram service and the profit on the telephone service. It is stated that in the year 1948-49, when the commercial accounts are supplied, there will probably be a small profit.

Just to show how one may be misled by the Estimates for this year with regard to the commercial accounts, which cannot be shown at the moment, under Vote 61, page 340, you have an indication of what is estimated for the year—the estimated expenditure and the estimated profits. The estimated expenditure is £5,511,753. The Appropriations-in-Aid, the postal, telegraph and telephone revenue estimated to be paid into the Exchequer, amount to £4,441,652. Then there is a little note at the bottom referring you to Appendix C, but to the outside public it is not clear whether Appendix C is taken into consideration or not. Appendix C deals with the services rendered to other Department and the value that is given for them. The total amount estimated for this year would be £640,750. Taking that into consideration, the deficit, instead of being roughly a little over £1,000,000, will be only about £400,000. Now, it will be a year or two before we know what the exact amount on the commercial side will be. The reason it is important to mention this is that if the public are left under the impression that the deficit is £1,000,000, it will have a depressing effect.

This brings me to the question of policy. Obviously the postal system and the telephones and telegraphs are the nerve centres, the whole nervous system, of commerce and they are vital to the development of industry and commerce. Indeed, there is nothing so important for us as to give them every possible facility and take every opportunity of decentralising industrial effort and enterprise throughout the country. For that reason all expenditure, no matter what may be the deficit, is to the good, because it will bring about a real return to the nation. Especially is that so with regard to our biggest export trade, which is now derived from the tourist traffic. That traffic is more than twice as big as the cattle trade. Last year it brought us £35,000,000. This year I do not suppose it will be as much as that, but still it is a trade well worth fighting for because it will help to solve our dollar problems. For that reason I think the Ministerial policy deserves to be criticised because they have not gone out on a bold enough scheme.

With regard to telephone development, I did not notice in the statement the exact amount involved. I do not think it states how much of the telephone capital of £6,000,000, which was authorised under the Act of 1946, was utilised. We had great hopes then that we would spend that £6,000,000 and possibly go for a total sum of £10,000,000 in order fully to develop telephone facilities all over the country. We were hoping to do that within a period of five years. So far as I can make out, there was not more than £3,000,000 spent. Perhaps there may have been £4,000,000, and I would like the Minister to give us information about that. In any event, the feeling at the time was that immediately supplies became available we should go all out to develop the telephone system.

That was why last week I asked a question with regard to whether it was the policy of the Government to put a telephone exchange into every post office. I did not mean by that that a telephone exchange should be put into a post office if there is one in the immediate neighbourhood. Our attitude should be to make it possible to advertise our wares to such an extent that once the telephone was installed in a post office we would have applications up to the number requisite to justify turning that telephone connection into an exchange. I forget the number which justifies that course. I think half a dozen or a dozen subscribers were usually regarded as the number which would justify an exchange.

I urge the Minister to develop the telephone to the fullest possible extent. There is nothing that impresses a stranger so much as to find that the public services are up to date and efficient. We have nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed, we are ahead of some of the other countries in our postal services. We are in a position now where we should try to take the fullest possible advantage of the development of our tourist trade and our industries. I do not believe we will be able to do as much as we ought for the farmers until our industries have been developed. Countries much smaller than Ireland have a larger population because they have developed their industries and that should be our objective. I feel the postal, the telegraph and the telephone services are vital as a stimulus to progress.

I asked a question with regard to buildings. When I plead for more buildings I hope the Minister will not put up the excuse he put up last year, and that is that housing for the poor must go ahead. It is not an honest argument and it is merely throwing us back. It is drawing attention to the fact that the onus now lies on the trade unions. They are in a position of power that they did not occupy before; they are at the back of the Government and they should be in a position to influence the building trades and accept their responsibility to the nation and to the people who require houses both by bringing people back to this country to engage in house building and giving every facility so that the houses that are so urgently needed will be built in the shortest time and at the most reasonable figure. That responsibility rests heavily on the trade unions and the Government, because the Government could not exist without the support of labour. Industrial development relies very largely on our postal, telephone and telegraph services.

One cannot but notice the number of buildings that are being taken up at once. There are very many. Of course I appreciate the difficulties. I know that the in-and-out arrangements between the Board of Works and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs render constant correspondence and negotiation necessary because of the very special type of building required. The architects' work has to be checked by the engineers, and so on. I have always felt that we shall never arrive at a satisfactory system until there is a complete reorganisation. I appreciate that a certain amount of reorganisation was taking place at the end of 1947 in the architectural branch of the Board of Works. I have a very uneasy feeling, however, that the rate of progress is still very slow. On the whole it might be more satisfactory if the Department of Posts and Telegraphs had its own architectural branch. We all know that the Board of Works is very conservative. We know that they are cluttered up with work. Even architects in outside employment have more work than they can cope with satisfactorily. I cannot see why local architects should not be employed in the provinces. I myself would, if necessary, have brought in architects and contractors from outside to carry out the essential work of this Department and to get it done as rapidly as possible. The quicker the work is done the more employment there will ultimately be. Bringing in outside contractors would not interfere with employment here because there is plenty of building to be done all over the country. The problem is one of tremendous urgency.

I do not think I need go into these buildings in detail. The St. Andrew Street Post Office is famous. I think it is a pity that the Minister did not see fit to bring out the bands and let us all march down there for the opening ceremony when the first barrow load of bricks was wheeled in. I was disappointed that he did not give us that opportunity. This scheme has been on hands for a very long time indeed. I was attacked about it when I was in office for delays which had occurred as far back as 1931. We were not, of course, in office then. It is a building which will be of considerable importance to the country as a whole because there will be a big telephone exchange there.

There are three buildings which have nothing to do directly with telephone development. Pearse Street Post Office is still held up. Possibly it will become as famous as the St. Andrew Street building. Since the Minister for Social Welfare is not in the House I shall not refer to it. He abused me every year when I was in office because work was not done on these premises. In my time the principal difficulty was to get title completed to certain property in the neighbourhood. I think that has been settled satisfactorily now and the only matter that remains is to start the actual construction.

The number of buildings mentioned in the answer I received was very small compared with the number actually on the list in the Board of Works. Perhaps the Minister would tell us in his reply something about these buildings. There is the post office factory; the central heating system of the stores at Infirmary Road and the new warehouse at St. John's Road. Then we have the Arklow post office improvements, Ballina, Ballyhaunis, Birr, Cahirciveen, Carlow, Claremorris and Cork. I hope the Cork office will be completed as quickly as possible. I think the Minister mentioned that it would be finished by the end of this year. There is a great deal to be done there.

Mr. Everett

The new telephone exchange will be completed.

Mr. Little

That is very important. Then there is the Drogheda post office, Dundalk, Carlow extension, Kilkenny, Kilrush, Letterkenny, Nenagh, Rathluirc and the Waterford head post office. That is going ahead. I think the Minister mentioned that the steel frames were already up. There is the post office in Wicklow, too. I would like the Minister, in his concluding remarks, to elaborate the plans for these buildings and tell us whether he takes a sympathetic view of the necessity for developing these as rapidly as possible.

There is a feeling that the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is too subject to the Department of Finance in the sense that it handles so much revenue. I think it handles 50 per cent. of the total Civil Service personnel. One can hardly object to the Minister for Finance having a pretty big say. It requires a good deal of driving on the part of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to ensure that the initiative and enterprise necessary to the proper operation of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is not to be hampered by over caution on the part of the Department of Finance.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

There is only one matter which I propose to refer to on this Estimate. It is a matter to which I have directed attention when this Estimate has been under consideration in the past. I refer to the incremental scales operating in respect of salaries and wages among various sections of the postal staffs. This is one of the contributing factors to discontent in the postal services. It has been in existence for a very long time. It is linked up with a very bad history of the Post Office itself. It was notorious at one stage that salaries and wages in the Post Office were worse than in other Departments of the public service and compared very unfavourably, indeed, with the salaries and wages paid in private employment. There is a still worse feature to this problem. There is a system of increments ranging over a period of something in the region of 22 to 27 years. The actual figures run from 1/- to 1/6, 2/- and 2/6 per week. The actual salaries and wages are bad, but dissatisfaction is aggravated one thousand-fold because of the very low rates of increment on particular basic scales. Whatever improvements may have taken place in recent years, I am informed that this unsatisfactory feature in relation to increments still remains. A postal servant passes the great portion of his official life before he reaches the maximum of his salary scale. That offers no incentive to the official and does not take cognisance of the fact that money values have changed materially in recent years nor does it take cognisance of another feature which is, I am glad to say, becoming more pronounced in private employment. That is that recognition is given to the fact that a young man around about the age of 26 may have serious commitments in the way of marriage. His responsibilities at that time, and for a few years afterwards, are the greatest of his life.

There is a public board, of which I and other Deputies are members, which recognises that responsibility and actually gives double increments over a period of years—that is, when an employee is between the ages of 26 and 30. That shows a great contrast with the conditions in this big national concern which, so far as I know, still lags behind in that particularly vital matter for the staffs. The question was raised here on previous occasions, and on the last occasion on which I raised it, the Deputy who has just spoken pleaded as an excuse that he could not do anything because of the standstill Order. I hope, and I am sure, that the present Minister will approach this matter sympathetically. I hope he has had an opportunity of surveying it in all its implications and that he may be able to indicate to the House before the debate concludes that it will be possible for him to remove the injustices to which I have referred. May I say that I am sure the House would like to join with the Minister in congratulating the staffs of all ranks on the wonderful service they have rendered during the past 12 months in the great expansion of this national concern? The very high level of efficiency which has been reached is appreciated, and highly appreciated, throughout the country.

Mr. Briscoe

Before I come to the details of the statement of the Minister there is one item to which I should like to refer which I think is conspicuous by its absence from it. I should like him to have stated to what extent increased revenue has been brought about by the increased charges which were imposed on ordinary postage within the country. I think it would be interesting to know how much the increased postal charges imposed last year contributed to the increased revenue. In connection with that, I should like to say that the stoppage of free postage for letters to Departments of State is, in my opinion, a very serious matter and is going to affect the very poorest people in the community. The Minister has not stated to what extent he expects to get increased revenue in that way. He may be able to tell the House when replying what extra amount of money will accrue to the Post Office as a result of making people, who hitherto had the right of free postage on letters to the Departments of State, frank their letters in future. We all know the very many letters containing questions of many kinds which are sent to Departments of State. The Department for Agriculture, for instance, has a tremendous correspondence from farmers all over the country who have to send for all kinds of forms and instructions. The fact that they will have to frank their letters in future will impose a very serious burden on them.

I do not know to what extent Deputies will be affected by this arrangement, but it will affect us very seriously if we have to pay postage on all our letters to Departments of State. As a matter of fact, the Committee on Procedure and Privileges on many occasions put up a fight for a free postal service for members of the House in the case of letters to constituents. That privilege was never conceded, but if we are now going to have to stamp every letter we write to a Department in connection with our duties to our constituents it is going to be a very heavy burden unless the Department will supply us with franked envelopes beforehand.

Mr. O'Gorman

Send it to the secretary of the Department and you need not stamp it.

Mr. Briscoe

Oh, no. The Minister has now indicated that letters going to Departments, including those sent to secretaries of Departments, will have to bear stamps.

Mr. O'Gorman

We are stuck so.

Mr. Briscoe

We are stuck, like the stamp.

Mr. O'Leary

You can pay your income-tax in that way.

Mr. Briscoe

They have given us salaries free of income-tax but I do not think Deputy O'Leary will realise what this means until he has to go to the post office to post letters dealing with old age pensions or containing complaints from some fellow who has grievances, and finds that the postmaster will not take the letters unless they are stamped. Somebody suggested that the secretary of the Department should be allowed to pay double postage on such letters. The Post Office officials will have clear instructions not to accept letters addressed to the secretaries of Departments unless they are fully stamped. I should like the Minister to tell the House what revenue he anticipates as a result of this new measure, and also what he reaped last year as a result of the increases in postal charges.

I have gone through the 17 pages of the Minister's statement and marked them, for the purposes of reference, so as to make it easier for the Minister and his officials to follow the matters to which I shall refer. On page 7, the Minister states that

"in order to improve the mail service to Great Britain the surcharge on correspondence intended for transmission by the surcharge air mail service was reduced from 2d. to 1/2d. per item as from the 1/2/1949."

This is a welcome announcement. I mentioned on a previous occasion—I think it was on one of the Supplementary Estimates—that the Minister should have the air mail service to different parts of England examined. I happen to know that the air mail service to London and other centres to which there is air traffic is quite satisfactory, but if you send a message by air mail to some place about 50 miles from Manchester, to which there is no air service from Manchester, that message takes longer to reach its destination than the ordinary service mail. I wonder if the Minister could not have his officials examine this matter with the British authorities with a view to seeing whether an improvement can be brought about. I happen to have experience of that particular difficulty. I am making no complaint. I think the introduction of an air mail service is quite a good thing as it indicates that we are trying to keep in step with world progress, but matters of this nature should be looked into with a view to seeing whether innovations which are regarded as improvements are not, in fact, disimprovements.

The Minister has indicated in connection with air mail services to European countries that there is no extra charge for the service. I want to know will it be necessary in future to mark letters for delivery in all parts of Europe "Via air mail," or can it now be taken that every item of first-class mail matter will, in fact, be sent by air mail without the sender having to put on it "Via air mail." It would be a good thing if the Post Office would make that known. This is a distinct improvement and the Department is to be highly commended and congratulated on such a development. Up to now people had to ask themselves whether they would put the extra franking on the letter, in order to have it sent by air mail. It is a distinct improvement if they will have to put no air mail stamp on it and if it will go automatically by air mail. I should like the Minister to confirm that so that it will receive the publicity which it deserves.

With regard to the proposal that letters addressed to Government Departments will have to be fully prepaid by the senders in future, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider that before he decides upon it. I should like him to tell the House what he expects to get in extra revenue by making everyone in future pay for that service which hitherto was regarded as a service to be paid for by the State. Will the Minister also make it clear to Deputies that they will come under this proposal? We can figure for ourselves what it will mean to us. I would ask the Minister to reconsider the matter, because it appears to me to be really unnecessary. It is a small grievance which will be felt by us every time we put a stamp on a letter to a Government Department. When they begin to realise it, Deputies will feel it very much. As it is, Deputies have to pay enough for stamps for answering letters from their constituents.

With regard to the general development of the installation of telephones, I wonder would the Minister consider a suggestion which I am going to make. Great progress is being made with regard to the installation of telephones for applicants on the waiting list. Would the Minister remove from Deputies the task of having to write to him asking to have a kiosk erected here and a kiosk erected there? I suggest to him that his officials should make a survey, particularly of the newly built-up areas in Dublin in order to see where kiosks are required from the point of view of being of use to the public, apart from the question of revenue to the Post Office. In the district of Inchicore, for instance, there is a new area being built up at Ballyfermot where a large housing scheme is being carried out. Some of the houses have already been built. If anybody living in these houses wants to use the telephone they have either to go into Inchicore or to the Half-way House, a public-house which has a telephone. That public-house usually is not open when people want to telephone for a doctor. Will the Minister save Deputies the trouble of having to make representations on behalf of people with regard to kiosks and get his own officials to make a survey with a view to meeting this public need? I am not saying that the Minister has not given reasonable and fair consideration to requests made to him by Deputies from all sides of the House on that matter, but it is something which could be better dealt with by the Post Office authorities themselves. Over and above that, we can always come along, like Oliver Twist, and ask for more and more and let the Minister justify any refusal to erect a kiosk.

The Minister also made reference to the possibility now of dealing with applicants for telephones in more or less rural areas, where the erection of a considerable number of telephone poles is necessary. Up to the present there have been two things militating against the development of telephone installations in rural areas (1) the cost; and (2) the physical impossibility for the Post Office in certain cases to supply the number of poles required. It is very welcome news that poles are now becoming more readily available and that this class of applicant for a telephone will have consideration given to him in the immediate future. I would suggest, however, that when the Post Office receives an application for a telephone from somebody, say, with a stud farm five miles from the nearest telephone exchange, where it is a vital matter for such a farm to have a telephone service, the Post Office officials, in such a case, should do what the Electricity Supply Board do, namely, try to find out whether other people in the immediate vicinity might not be prepared to take telephones. In that way, the additional cost could be spread over a number of people rather than being paid by one person. In addition, that would bring in the best class of telephone subscribers, which the Post Office wants, because the trunk-call individual is responsible for very considerable revenue to the Post Office relative to the number of calls made. I have transmitted a few cases of that kind to the Post Office in the ordinary way. Of course, I admit there are certain difficulties. In one case, when it was difficult to get poles, I suggested that the applicant should supply the poles by cutting down some trees. Now, however, that the situation with regard to poles has been somewhat improved, I suggest that the Minister should ask his officials to examine the matter from the point of view I have put forward.

I agree with Deputy Little that the telephone is to-day one of the most important State services. Conditions to-day are quite different from what they were 100 years ago. The telephone is now a vital part of our daily lives and it should be extended as far as possible. I agree with Deputy Little also that the approach to the matter should not be solely from the point of view of the revenue resulting. It should not be entirely considered from the point of view of profit and loss. I think the Minister is doing all he can to increase the number of telephone subscribers, but the extension of the service in rural areas which have no service at present should be considered as a matter of importance.

Deputy O'Sullivan talked about conditions of employment in the sense of the remuneration of the staff of the Post Office and particularly the lower grades. I should like to ask the Minister to consider the position of the boy messengers. Can boy messengers be taken into the Post Office with some hope of continuity of service after they reach the age when they cease to be boy messengers and with some hope of promotion? The system may have been changed recently, but a number of boys were dispensed with after having reached a certain age. If that is not the case, I shall be glad to be corrected. I understand that a certain number are surplus to the normal intake requirements of the Post Office. There should be some hope for those boys, even though they do start as messenger boys in the service. They should get the opportunity of being able to reach a fairly decent position in the service through having educational facilities and examination tests made available for them. The examination test, I suggest, should take place before they enter the service. I am talking now of the boy who is taken in and later has to go for some reason or other.

In conclusion, I want to say that I agree with previous speakers in that I think this is one of the Departments in respect of which there will be no complaint from any side of the House. There will certainly be no complaint about the staff of the Post Office, from the highest to the lowest. They are, like the rest of us, human beings, but as servants of the Post Office they are noted for their courtesy and efficiency and they do their best in all kinds of circumstances to meet the wishes of the public. When I suggested before that the Minister ought to follow one of the ideas of the Electricity Supply Board, I would like, in conclusion, to suggest that the Electricity Supply Board, from the highest side down, should study the courtesy, the efficiency and the decency of the Post Office staff as it meets the public.

Mr. O'Gorman

It is certainly refreshing for Deputies to find this discussion on the Estimate for Minister for Posts and Telegraphs being conducted in what one may describe as a spirit of sunshine. We are not enjoying the sunshine in this chamber, though it tries to percolate through the roof. Yet there is sunshine in the chamber in the happy and peaceful manner in which this debate is being conducted. One, of course, has to contrast that with the electrifying atmosphere that is sometimes experienced in this chamber. We had experience of it in the discussions that were conducted here during the last fortnight or three weeks. It was certainly a joy to all of us to hear the eulogistic references that were made to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and to his staff, and, I would say, deservedly so. Certainly, the atmosphere in the chamber this afternoon proves conclusively to me, and I would say to every Deputy, that the Minister is doing a good job. As a Deputy who has been in the House for 16 or 17 months, I should like to pay my own tribute to the Minister and to his staff. During my short service as a member of the House, I doubt if there is any other Department of State that I have visited more frequently than the Department which is in the charge of the Minister who sits below me. At all times I have found him the personification of courtesy, always anxious to help me in any request that I put to him, and desirous at all times to accede to any reasonable request that I might have to make on behalf of a constituent. I think it is only fair that, at the opening of my remarks, I should pay that tribute to the Minister. When one visits the Minister or his secretary, one has the feeling that one is going to be received nicely, and that the request that you are going to make will get every attention from the Minister.

I was glad to hear the Minister say, in his opening statement, that it is his intention in future to put on a daily postal service in most of the rural areas. In the last few months we have heard a lot here about the dullness and the drabness of life in rural Ireland. We have heard Deputies on different sides of the House say: "Well, there is nothing really to cheer them up". In my opinion, the sight of the postman on his daily round gives cheer to everyone unless, of course, he has a letter from the income-tax authorities for you, or something of that sort, But it is a real tonic to the people in the rural parts of Ireland to see the postman on his rounds.

In my constituency of East Cork there are places where the deliveries of mail are made on only three days a week. I do not think, in the era in which we are living, that that is in accordance with the momentum of the world, if I may put it so. There are places like Watergrasshill, Rathcormac, Ballinoe and Glenville, all within easy reach of Cork City, and yet the mails are only delivered to these localities on three days a week. I understand that for many years past the mails that come for delivery to the places that I have mentioned originate at the head office in Mallow, which, as the crow flies, would be about 40 miles away. They come from Mallow, go to Fermoy and from Fermoy they come out to Watergrasshill. I am reliably informed by the people living in those places that some of these mails are not delivered until 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening. I think that is hardly fair to them. I would respectfully suggest to the Minister that instead of having Mallow the source from which these mails come, it should be Cork, which is only 16 miles from Watergrasshill. If that were done, and if the mails were sent out in the morning, the same as the post is sent to every town by motor van, they could be delivered to the people in the localities I have mentioned at 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, the same as happens in every other town in Ireland.

I should also like to say to the Minister that I agree with Deputy Briscoe that, in the modern world in which we live to-day, it is absolutely essential that any person who feels that the business he is doing justifies him in installing a telephone should be able to have it. In most of our towns now the people have become telephone-minded. The phone is really an absolute necessity for them in their business. In most towns, if people have not the telephone in, they can go to the exchange or to the post office which may be in close proximity to them. There is, however, a section of the people who, I will not say have been neglected, but who, perhaps, have not been brought up to date in this matter. I refer to those living in the villages throughout the country. I am sure that what applies to my constituency applies in the constituencies of other members of the House. Nobody will deny that having a telephone in a village means a great link-up with the outside world. It can be of great service, particularly in cases of extreme urgency where the services of a doctor, a nurse or a clergyman are required. If a patient is seriously ill in a village and there is no phone there a great delay may take place before a clergyman or a doctor can reach the house. The Minister, I know, is a man of the people. He is a good, plain man, who lives amongst the people and knows their requirements. I respectfully suggest to him that every village should have a telephone. I am not speaking now of villages with a population of 500, 600 or 1,000 people. I have in mind the ordinary village in rural Ireland where you may have 50, 60 or 100 people living. These are the people that I am pleading for. For example, at a place called Mount Uniacke, which is about seven miles from my own town, the Minister, as a result of representations which I made to him, was kind enough to grant the establishment of a sub-post office there. It was an absolute necessity. They had it in days gone by and it was only within the last ten years or so, when the war intervened, that it was done away with. We have it back again. Villages like that have a postal service but they have no phone. No sub-post office should be left without a telephone. If they leave Mount Uniacke they have to go to Killeagh, four or five miles away. Deputies can imagine what might happen if there was an urgent call for a priest, a doctor or a nurse or anybody else. I know the Minister will accept this suggestion in the spirit in which I make it and I would urge him to give every attention to this matter.

Deputy Briscoe mentioned a matter that I think is most important. There should be at least two kiosks in every town, one at the northern end and one at the southern end, that would be open to the public at all hours of the day and night. People may be inclined to oblige their neighbours by allowing them to use their telephone, but after 11 o'clock at night they would not be too delighted to see their neighbours coming to use the phone. Therefore, there should be a kiosk in every village so that people may use the telephone independently. There are kiosks in many towns but, for the convenience of the public, there should be more and I feel certain that the Minister will erect considerably more before his term of office comes to an end.

There are many towns of considerable importance in my constituency where the telephone service is restricted to certain hours. One example is the town of Mitchelstown. One night last winter I wanted to ring up Mitchelstown on a Sunday night from Fermoy. I was amazed to find that I could ring up only between the hours of 6 to 8 or perhaps it was 7 to 9. That seems a ridiculous state of affairs nowadays. I made inquiries afterwards and found that they were the hours as arranged but I am aware that, in view of representations I made to the Minister subsequently, he is considering the question and I have no doubt that as a result there will be an increase in the telephone service within the next few months and that there will be a day and night service. In many towns the telephone service closes down at 9 or 10 p.m.

I know that to increase the telephone service would cost money but we vote millions every week for various purposes and we do not seem to hear any more about it. This is a service that gives value for money. The people are entitled to these amenities. People in towns of over 1,000 population should have day and night telephone service. At present many of us have to rely on the telephone in the local Garda barracks. The Guards have always been very courteous in these matters. I would suggest to the Minister that he should consider the case of towns such as Mitchelstown, which are of considerable importance in the commercial and business life of the community.

Deputy Little has suggested that the Minister should go all out to develop the telephone system. I agree with Deputy Little, but I think the Minister is going as fast as he possibly can. In every phase of his Department he is running the 100 yards in ten seconds. I do not think it would be possible for a man to do more. When I leave Youghal on my journey to Dublin I pass five or six postal vans and see linesmen putting up new lines. One cannot but feel that we are getting value for the money that every one of us has to contribute to the State.

I want now to bring the position in post offices in seaside resorts during the summer time to the notice of the Minister. Youghal is a pretty extensive seaside resort. Thousands of people visit Youghal during the summer. I say that for a dual purpose. I hope to tempt some of the Deputies listening to me to visit Youghal. It is one of the loveliest towns in Ireland. It has often pained me to see during the rush hours anything from 20 to 30 people in the post office waiting for stamps and one girl trying to serve. I do not think that is fair to the lady behind the counter or to the people who are waiting. People get rather irritable if they are kept waiting too long. They expect the State to give them service. The position is all right in winter; one post office assistant will do then, but during the busy summer season, from May to the end of September, when the turnover may be six or ten times the winter turnover, there should be adequate staff. If there is any harassed person in the world to-day, it is the person who has to serve behind the post office counter. An immense volume of work has been thrown on these people within the last 20 years. They have to deal with pensions and other matters. In our young days all they had to do was to issue stamps or receive deposits for the Post Office Savings Bank. The volume of business has increased considerably. I am not referring to Youghal in particular but to all the seaside resorts. They certainly deserve to have bigger staffs during the summer months.

Deputy Martin O'Sullivan referred to the case of the lowly-paid workers in the Post Office. If anyone deserves increments in wages and salaries, those people do. It is a hard life. In all weather, winter and summer, the letters must be delivered. The public expect it. The State is paying for it, but I often wonder if the State gives adequate return to the men who serve it so loyally. The lowly-paid workers in the Post Office should be considered by the Minister.

I feel that the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is being run by an admirable Minister. He is a man who knows his job and he is doing it in a thorough and business-like manner. I am very glad to be able to pay him that tribute, for he richly deserves it.

Mr. Brennan

I have only a few points to refer to in connection with this Estimate. One relates to the installation of telephones in sub-post offices. That matter was referred to by Deputy O'Gorman and Deputy Briscoe. I have particularly in mind one sub-post office in my constituency. Efforts were made for a number of years to have a telephone installed there. I refer to the village of Rathdangan. For a number of years the Minister took a great interest in having a telephone established in that village. He was then on these benches. Now he is in the saddle and I hope he will see that the telephone is installed.

I put down a question on the 23rd February last in connection with the installation of a telephone in Rathdangan. The reply given to my question referred to the intention to install public telephones at all post offices, but it was pointed out that work on that scheme had to be suspended temporarily in favour of more urgent work, particularly the provision of telephones for waiting applicants, and I was informed that, accordingly, it was not possible to say when the installation would be carried out at the office I indicated.

I think the Minister will agree with me that on a number of occasions when he submitted questions, when the last Government was in power, he received replies saying that owing to the shortage of materials, particularly during the emergency, the Department were not able to comply with the request, but that immediately materials became available, not alone in that sub-post office but, I presume, in other sub-post offices throughout the country, telephones would be installed.

As Deputy O'Gorman pointed out, it is an essential service in small villages. The particular village I refer to—and the Minister knows it quite well—is a place where we have no clergyman, doctor or nurse, and if it is necessary to get any of those people, those residing in the village have to travel four or five miles by horse-cart, bicycle or motor car—if they are lucky enough to have one—in order to obtain the service that may be required, medical, religious or otherwise. That is a position that should not obtain. We discussed this particular telephone installation heretofore.

One of the cardinal principles to be observed is that whether a public service is a paying proposition or not, it should be given to the public. Where the service is economic and pays its way, it should be in a position to carry that portion of the country where such a service might not be an economic proposition. The fact is that the Irish people in the rural areas are entitled to the same type of service as the people living in other areas where the service may prove more economic.

The Minister said there were 7,000 applicants for private telephones. I know he has concentrated on having private telephones installed. I asked him a question as to the amount of material used by the Department since the establishment of the inter-Party Government. The Minister's reply was to the effect that it was impossible to give me the required information. The purpose I had in view in asking that question was to make an appeal to the Minister to the effect that now that the raw material is available he should, in justice to the people living in isolated areas, divert a certain amount of that material so that those people will get the service they require and be placed in a position where they can have medical or religious aid within the shortest possible time.

As regards the installation of private telephones, I live in a small town and I must say the position is very trying at times. If I make a trunk call to Dublin I may have to wait in the post office for one and a half hours. In fact, I can honestly state that I have had, on occasion, to wait for one and three-quarter hours to get through to Dublin. That position obtained before the Minister became head of the Department. Like the provision of telephones in the sub-post offices, I presume the overloaded lines were due to the fact that the material for their relief was not available. Now that the material has become available the first job the Minister should ask his engineering department to carry out is to relieve the overloaded lines by erecting extra lines. They should concentrate on that work rather than on installing private telephones, particularly around County Wicklow.

I appeal to the Minister to do something about the provision of extra lines. He should consider the ordinary individual in the small rural areas who requires a telephone. He should think of him as someone who has other business to do quite apart from waiting one and threequarter hours in a small sub-post office to put a call through to Dublin. I can give the Minister an experience I had myself recently in my own town. I had occasion to make a call. The cost of the call was 4d. I had to wait 50 minutes before I could get through. Had I known it would have taken me that length of time I would have taken my car and gone to the particular district to which I was making the call and I should have been back home long before the 50 minutes were up. I think we should have progressed far beyond that to-day. I believe the reason for these delays is that there are not enough lines. I suggest to the Minister that he should take this in hands. Instead of piling further work on already over-loaded lines he should lay extra cables which will give a quick service to the general public. I believe that is what the Minister intends to do. I know the Minister personally and I know that when he takes on a job he likes to make a success of it. I think that the installation of this abnormal number of private telephones is directly detrimental to the interests of the people in the rural areas. I think the Minister is permitting that to be done because he is influenced by the fact that he is on solid ground there from the purely financial point of view. I would remind the Minister of the cardinal principle for which he has always stood. I would remind him that the man in the mountainous area is entitled to the same public services as is the man in the city or large town. I want the Minister to ponder on that and take the necessary steps to ensure that the people in the rural areas will have as good telephone facilities as the people in the urban areas. I am sure that what I have said in relation to my own constituency is equally true of other constituencies.

Mr. McQuillan

I, too, would like to pay tribute to the Minister and to his Department. I think it would be a good thing if some of the other Departments of State took a lead from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs with regard to the conduct of their business. There are two matters in particular to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention. I do so not so much in a spirit of criticism as in an effort to inform him of certain difficulties which have arisen in my constituency. I believe my constituency was the first selected for a rearrangement of the postal services. The Minister and his Department are to be congratulated on their efforts to provide a daily delivery of mails all over the country. My constituency, as I have said, was the first selected to put this scheme into operation. It has been of tremendous benefit in the rural areas. As Deputy O'Gorman pointed out, it is very satisfactory to have one's letters delivered daily. Possibly people may not get letters every day, but with the number who have left this country over the last 30 years and gone to America, England and elsewhere, there are always letters coming back and it is a good thing that the recipients of these no longer have to wait two or three days extra for their delivery. Actually the time a letter takes to cross the Atlantic is shorter than the time it takes to be delivered after it arrives in the appropriate port.

In the operation of that scheme in my constituency an effort has been made to give a decent wage to the postmen working on the different routes. Up to the implementation of this new scheme the rates of wages for these men were wholly inadequate. Postmen could barely exist on the scale of pay. In the effort to improve the conditions the aim seems to have been to reduce the number of postmen in order to give better pay to those who are left. I do not know whether that is actually correct in theory, but that is the way in which it has worked out in practice. Where hitherto there were three auxiliary postmen the number has now been reduced to two and they are expected to cover the same ground covered by three men in the past. I speak from personal knowledge on this. I have tested that out in the different areas. I have found that in some areas the two postmen are four to five hours late in returning after delivering the mail. I do not know whether the type of country over which they operate is taken into consideration. One man's route may lie over a steam-rolled road with good by-roads. Another man may have only three and a half miles to go, but that three and a half miles may be in culs-de-sac and over very steep gradients. He is up against a much tougher proposition than the man on the other route who has not much trouble if he has a good bicycle. Possibly these difficulties arise because of the fact that this is a test area, so to speak. Having brought that to the attention of the Minister, I trust it will be rectified in the future. If two postmen are insufficient to do the work there should be no hesitation in putting a third man on the job.

The second point to which I would like to refer is in connection with telephone installations. This has been adverted to by several Deputies already. I am not too keen on the installation of private telephones in the cities. The tendency seems to be to give preference to Dublin in this respect. I know there has been a long waiting list for a number of years and I know that the people in Dublin are howling for telephones. As far as I can see, Dublin comes first in everything. People seem to forget that there is another part of Ireland.

Everybody in the House realises that we must do as much as we can to make conditions in rural Ireland as tolerable as possible in order to provide an incentive to our people to stay at home. Believe it or not, the installation of telephones in post offices in rural areas could be a great help in that respect. Apart from that aspect, there are many business people in rural Ireland who are most anxious to have a telephone and to pay for it. They feel very sore when "wait, wait", is the only answer they get to their applications for a telephone service. When they see the people in Dublin getting preference, they feel annoyed and, I think, justifiably so. It may be a matter of policy but I question the wisdom of it. Instead of concentrating on city areas, I think rural areas should get first preference. I do not say that because I come from a rural area myself, but I think we have to be fair to rural Ireland and put it first.

I do not want to introduce minor matters but there is nothing like an example to prove a case. Suppose you have a dispensary doctor living in a certain district which is seven miles from the nearest telephone, as one district in my constituency is. I refer to a place called Brideswell. If the doctor there wants to get a patient into Roscommon Hospital he has to travel seven miles to the nearest telephone if he wishes to call up the hospital. He would, of course, be much better advised to get a car and go straight into the hospital to find out if there is a bed available instead of travelling to the nearest telephone. I consider that people in an area like that, and especially the doctor, are far more entitled to a telephone than a businessman or a private individual in Dublin. People in Dublin have to go only outside their doors to find the nearest telephone booth; if it means that sometime they have to wait half an hour of so for a call they are getting a service, at any rate, which the man down the country is not getting. To give another example, there is a small village in the county in which there is a post office and the telephone lines, between two big towns, pass within 20 yards of the door. I do not know much about the engineering end of the work, but I should imagine there would not be any difficulty in tapping in on these lines and putting a telephone into the post office.

There is a third case, which I think is the worst example, and I think the Minister knows about it. I refer to Bellanagare Post Office, which is a money order office. It is a substantial village, a small town actually; buses pass through it, but there is no telephone service in that place. The nearest telephone is about two and a half miles away in Frenchpark. I think there should not be much trouble in extending the telephone lines from Frenchpark to that post office. I appreciate, of course, the Minister's difficulties in this matter. Every Deputy has his own grievance. I am not criticising him one bit. He has made a very good effort to improve conditions generally, but I still question the advisability of concentrating on the extension of telephone facilities in the city at the expense of rural areas. In my opinion, rural areas should get first preference in the provision of telephone services.

In regard to the rearrangement of postal services, seeing that my constituency is the first area to be tackled, I think it would be a great help if the position were re-examined and if any grievances or complaints of postmen in regard to the extra work were inquired into as sympathetically as possible. I know that the Minister and his Department will naturally be anxious to see that no hardship will be imposed on the postmen in question, but I should like to suggest to him that any grievances which may exist should be examined as soon as possible and not to have them hanging over for six or eight months more. These matters should be settled immediately before the reorganisation of services is started elsewhere.

Mr. Lynch

In the few remarks I have to make I intend to be very brief, but I do not want the Minister to misconstrue my brevity as insincerity on my part. I first want to ask the Minister about the position of Post Office engineering workers in and about Cork Borough area. There is a fair amount of work being done in the immediate vicinity of Cork in connection, I presume, with the laying of cables and other work connected with the telephone department. There are temporary men employed on this work and in many cases they work side by side with permanent men. The permanent men are able to earn £5 11s. Od. per week whether they are working inside the city or outside it, but the temporary men outside are getting only £3 3s. 11d. per week. I am sure the Minister, as a trade unionist, must agree that it is very hard for men working side by side with other workers, doing exactly similar work, to be paid almost 50 per cent. less simply because they are classed as temporary workers. I think there is a more or less general rule that a temporary man, by reason of the temporary nature of his work, is entitled to a little more than a permanent man. I want the Minister to ensure that there will be equality in the rates of pay as between temporary men and permanent men working outside Cork borough boundary.

The Minister is aware that the area which is limited by the Cork borough boundary is comparatively small in relation to the actual size of the city. The city extends about a mile outside the borough boundary in almost every direction. At present work is being carried on by the Post Office engineering department in the suburban districts of Douglas and Blackrock. For all practical purposes these are really borough areas. The people who live there work daily within the city boundary. I understand that there is some regulation, of which the Minister may or may not have control, which gives rise to this inequality of payment as between permanent and non-permanent men. Nevertheless, I suggest that when men are doing the same type of work side by side under exactly similar conditions there should be no discrimination between one man and another as to rates of pay. If the regulation I have mentioned applies as between urban and rural areas, I suggest to the Minister that Cork, owing to its limited borough boundary area, is entitled to special consideration and that the area for the purpose of the rates of pay for temporary men, in order to bring them up to the same rate as the permanent men, should be increased to coincide with the area as delineated at present by the Cork borough constituency area. If that were done, the men who are at present being employed by the Post Office engineering department in a temporary capacity would be able to earn the same amount as the permanent men.

At the moment, I believe there are about a dozen men involved who are working side by side with permanent men and, while the permanent men get £5 11s. 0d., these temporary men get only £3 3s. 11d. At least seven of these 12 men gave voluntary service in the Defence Forces during the emergency. Even on that score, I think these men are entitled to special consideration from the Minister and his Department. If the Minister is not responsible for this differentiation in the rates of pay, I ask him to make strong representations to whatever Department is responsible for this inequity—I suppose the Department of Finance. I confidently leave the matter to the Minister.

The Minister mentioned in his opening statement that the provision of the automatic telephone system would probably become effective in Cork in the near future. I have already asked the Minister by way of parliamentary question to ensure that, as a result of this change over from the old system to the automatic system, there will be as little as possible transfers in the Cork Telephone Exchange. The Minister is aware that the Cork Telephone Exchange is operated mainly by young girls who entered the service confident in the knowledge at the time that they would spend their time in the service in Cork living at home and being able to contribute to the upkeep of their families. I appreciate that, with the new system, it will not be possible to retain all the assistants now working in the Cork exchange in their home town. I would ask the Minister, however, to view any necessary transfers from a humane point of view, to alleviate hardship where he will find it. As the Minister will appreciate, many of the girls who may have to be transferred will have relations and friends in various parts of the country. I ask him to facilitate these girls so far as possible by sending them to areas which they may choose where the Minister can accommodate them without any redundancy in the service.

I think the Minister should use this opportunity of providing much-needed telephone kiosks in outlying suburban areas of Cork City. I think the Minister has cognisance of this problem. These areas are fast growing in population. Many of them are at present not being served by any public telephone system. In nearly all of these areas the new residents are largely young married people. I have known of cases of young children becoming sick at night and the parents being unable to summon a doctor unless they possessed a car or could get to a telephone kiosk a mile or so away. People will not be encouraged to buy homes in suburban areas if the ordinary facilities of modern life are denied them. There are many such cases in Cork and I am sure the Minister has a volume of correspondence from development associations and other people in connection with the matter. I ask the Minister to pay particular attention to that aspect of the matter and not to be concentrating the kiosks in the heart of the city where they are necessary to someextent, but not as necessary as in the outlying districts.

I have also received complaints from residents in these areas of delays in postal deliveries. In many of these places one postman is given the job of delivering letters ina given area. It is only natural that when the new houses spring up in such an area the time taken for the delivery of these letters will be much longer than before the new houses were built. I therefore ask the Minister to see whether, by the provision of extra staff, this hardship could be obviated. It is a hardship from the point of view, say, of commercial travellers who are obliged to leave home fairly early in the morning and have to wait for their post in order to see what journey they should undertake, or what calls they should make. I know of specific instances where men who would normally leave home between 9 and 9.30 a.m. were obliged to remain until almost 12 o'clock in order to collect the post.

The Minister was recently asked a question about the dressing of telegraph poles in the Cork area. Heretofore, these poles were imported into Cork in a very raw state and the dressing and creosoting was done by a staff of men working under the Post Office engineering department in Cork. Some time ago a few cargoes of completely dressed poles were imported into the Cork area, with the result that there was a threat of disemployment of many of these men. The answer which the Minister gave was that, with the extension of the work under the engineering department, the importation of completely dressed poles was necessary in order not to slow up the work. I suggest to the Minister that there are many men signing on in the Cork Employment Exchange and if these were provided with work, even of a temporary nature, they would be able to provide the poles in reasonably quick time and that would obviate the necessity for importing completely dressed poles. In many cases, the poles are being dressed and creosoted in Dublin and then sent all over the country. I take it that the dressing of the poles is not a very skilled operation. If the Minister wanted to have it done, he would find men in any part of the country where poles are necessary who would be able to dress them as well as they are being done in Dublin.

I heard of a case where poles were required in Bantry and other areas of West Cork and they were sent there all the way from Dublin. I suggest to the Minister that, if they could not be dressed in Bantry, they could at least be dressed in Cork, thereby giving employment in areas where the poles were required. There is a need for extra employment in other parts of the country as well as in Dublin.

The Minister some time ago—I do not think he mentioned it in his opening statement to-day—indicated that a sum of £300,000 or £400,000 was being brought into his Department as a result of the increased postal charges imposed last year. There is one aspect of those increased charges which has met with serious objection in certain quarters. The ordinary person does not object to pay 2½d. on his closed stamped letter, but there are some organisations, some poor organisations, such as clubs which find these increased postal charges a burden. During the Budget debate there was a good deal said about those clubs which depend for their existence on the running of dances. The secretaries to these clubs have to send out notices to their members—athletic, hurling, football, rugby and other clubs. The sources of revenue of these clubs and their actual cash in hands are very limited indeed. When summonses have to be sent out to members to train for a match, the increased postal charge on an ordinary card represents a considerable item in the annual accounts of a club. I think the Minister should consider that.

In conclusion, I want to refer to the new automatic exchange in Cork. All over Cork, at present, there are obsolete telephones with boxes attached which are only capable of taking pennies. I do not know whether, if one had sufficient pennies, one could make a call from one of these boxes to Dublin or London. I suggest to the Minister that now is the time to get rid of these obsolete boxes. The only call that one can make from them is a local call. I think this would be the time to install boxes which could be used for all purposes. I would ask him to give an instruction to his engineering staff now that the installation of the automatic exchange in Cork is going ahead.

One of the few matters that is bound to meet with disapproval generally is the announcement made to the Minister that, as a result of abuses in the postage free facilities now available when writing to Departments, he is now going to abolish those facilities. I suggest to him that that is absolutely unnecessary. The Minister is justifying his action by his experience in his own Department in which, he says, it has been ascertained that many of the letters reaching it should never have come postage free. I want to suggest to him that the number of these abuses must be relatively few in comparison with the number of genuine letters sent by the public generally, from all over the country to Departments of State. This may seem a trivial matter, but I suggest to the Minister that it will be a serious one for the ordinary poor farmer or the ordinary poor unemployed man who wants to make a complaint about his unemployment assistance benefit, and for the old age pensioner or widow. The Minister's proposal will, I suggest, inflict a serious hardship on them. If he is not prepared to give a general amnesty in regard to this new imposition, he should, at least, try to meet cases where a genuine hardship will be caused.

Mr. Hickey

Were it not for the fact that I know alterations are taking place at the General Post Office in Cork, I would be very critical of the Minister's slowness in giving a decent telephone service in Cork City. I, like Deputy Lynch, trust that, when the work is finished in the General Post Office, the suburban areas of Cork will be attended to immediately. I remember pointing out to the Minister, in the suburban areas of Cork, places where, in my opinion, kiosks were required. I was surprised to hear later that he had received reports from someone responsible in Cork that these areas could be served by a certain kiosk. It, however, was very far away from the areas in which I had suggested kiosks should be provided. I suggest to the Minister that he should be critical of the reports that he gets from people about the areas that I am referring to. These are working-class areas extending out from Cork City.

The point that was raised by Deputy Lynch was raised by me with the Minister for Social Welfare when his Estimate was before the House. I raised it because the unemployed came in for a good deal of criticism. It was alleged that they were work-shy. I want to impress on the Minister that this is not so much a question of temporary men as against permanent men but rather a question of the area in which men employed by the Post Office have to work. I mentioned before that the Cork area is even smaller than the urban area of Macroom. If men are employed from the labour exchange to lay lines from Cork City, and if they have to go outside the city boundary, their rate of wages is the country rate, which is more or less the rate for agricultural workers. That is a matter which, I suggest to the Minister, will have to be dealt with by him and by the Government. The same problem arises in the case of men who are employed through the labour exchange by the Electricity Supply Board. If they have to work outside the city boundary they are paid the country rate, so that their wages are reduced by £2 a week. The same applies in the case of these Post Office workers.

I will probably be told by the Minister that this matter is governed by regulations, and that he has no control over it. I suggest to him that he will have to deal with it because it is unfair to those men who are employed through the Labour Exchange. When they are working in the city their wages are £5 8s. 0d. a week, and if they are taken to work outside the city boundary that wage is reduced by £2. I suggest that is very hard on an unemployed man who is engaged to work for a fortnight or three weeks within the city area. His wages then are £5 8s. 0d. a week, but as I say, if he goes outside the city boundary he loses £2 a week. If he refuses to work at that wage he is knocked off at the Labour Exchange. That is not fair treatment for the unemployed. The Minister may say that he is not responsible or his Department, but I suggest that the matter will have to be dealt with by the Government. In Cork City we have a certain rate for builders' labourers working within the city area and outside of it. I suggest to him that he should pay the same rate to the workers in his Department when they have to work outside the city. If that were done it would help to ease the present difficulty. I think the Minister should take this up with the Government with a view to having it rectified. Otherwise, he is bound to have trouble about it.

I gathered from the Minister's statement that, during the past year, 51 part-time postmen had been put on the established list, and 13 temporary postmen in Dublin, none of them with less than ten years' service. I think it is a scandalous state of affairs that a man with ten years' service, in any concern, should not be on the established list. I think the Minister should not stand for that. It is rather strange to find that such a thing as that should operate in a State occupation, whereas in an ordinary private industrial concern, if a man is continued in his employment he is looked upon as an established man and receives all the benefits guaranteed to such men under an agreement between a trade union and that concern.

I had a rather interesting experience some time ago when a man, seeking appointment as a permanent postman, came to me looking for a recommendation. I was amazed to find that he had 43 years' service in the Post Office and that he had been doing a permanent postman's work for over eight months although he was receiving £1 a week less than the postman who retired. All he was asking was to be put on the permanent staff. I was astonished to find that it was not possible to do so. He entered the service at the age of 15 and he had then 43 years' service and he was not at that time an established employee. I suggest to the Minister that that is a scandalous state of affairs.

Deputy Martin O'Sullivan referred to the question of increments for Post Office clerks. I would like to know how the position continued for a number of years that a man's increments were spread over 22 years' service. I realise that traditions died hard. We heard Deputy Little to-day talking about all the things that are necessary to be done. I suggest to the Minister that he should see to it that this state of affairs is ended as soon as possible.

I do not think it is necessary to take up the time of the House in repeating what has been said by other Deputies. I agree with what has been said by Deputies O'Gorman, Brennan and Briscoe, that the public are entitled to a telephone service and I quite admit that the Minister will do everything he possibly can to increase that service everywhere.

It is rather interesting to see this great commercial concern being run as it is by the staff of the Post Office. Everybody should take note that the workers can run an industry if they get a chance to do so. As some Deputies have said, the service of the Post Office is well done and the civility and courtesy of the staff could not be excelled. It is interesting that this commercial undertaking can be carried on with such efficiency without any of the trappings we have in some of the big industrial concerns.

I hope that the suggestions that have been put to the Minister will not be forgotten. These are very important matters. I would recommend to him specially the question of the unemployed. I have been approached by unemployed men who asked why should they be asked to work for £2 a week less than the men working side by side with them. It is no good saying that it is an Order of the Government. The Minister and everybody in this House will have to realise that the mentality of the working people has completely changed within the past eight to ten years. What was good enough in 1938-39 will not meet the requirements of to-day. I need say no more on that matter.

I would appeal to the Minister to see to it that the practice of temporary staff being kept on for years on a temporary basis is ended. Postmen have very responsible work to do. If we expect them to be trustworthy and reliable, we must show some appreciation by making their conditions and wages equal to the job.

Mr. Corry

There are a few points in the Minister's statement that I would like to deal with first. According to the statement, it has been decided that letters addressed to Government Departments must be fully prepaid by the senders in future. The right to send letters free to a Department is a right that has been enjoyed by the public since before my childhood days at any rate and I would like to know how the Minister is going to carry out that decision. It seems to me that the new Ministers are getting very lazy very quickly. There is this horror that we heard about the other day in court of the letters that are coming into their Departments. They are getting a handy way of lightening the burden by making everybody who writes to a Department in future stamp the letter. That is a new way of lightening the burden of work and I wish to state that I will oppose it by every means in my power. I consider it a retrograde step. If we are to believe the falsehood uttered here by the Minister for Agriculture, when he came into his Department he found 22,000 unopened letters there.

Mr. O'Leary

That is correct.

Mr. Corry

All the farmers who have to write to Departments will have to stamp their letters. The poor fellow who finds he is not getting justice from the labour exchange in regard to unemployment and writes to the Minister in the long run, has out of the nothing that he has, to find the 2½d. for a stamp. The man who writes a letter and wants to know what has become of it and writes to the Minister's Department to know what happened to the letter has to buy a stamp. All the letters that have to be sent by the agricultural community looking for leaflets from the Department of Agriculture in regard to one thing or another will in future have to be stamped. Everybody writing to the Board of Works in connection with small drainage schemes and everybody writing to the Minister for Agriculture in connection with his big drainage scheme will now have to stamp their letters. The right of free letters to Departments has existed in this country as long as I remember. This is a new step and, in my opinion, a wrong step and it should be opposed.

I am not worrying too much about Deputies because they have a telephone service. As far as this House is concerned, they can phone to Departments as often as they like. The Dublin Deputies will have that advantage. It is different for the country Deputy. If he wants to write to the Department on an urgent matter he will have to stamp his letter and, if he puts through a phone call, he has to pay for it. The Dublin Deputies will have that advantage in addition to all the advantages they have had up to the present. I certainly think it is a retrograde step and, in my opinion, the Minister should withdraw that statement of that intention of his. I think it is a wrong one, and I am very much surprised at that proposal coming from the Minister, unless, of course, the whole family over there have got lazy and they want to reduce the numbers of letters they have to open every day. A fellow writing to the Minister now will be inclined to say: "Is he worth the twopence halfpenny?"

With regard to this differential that I hear all the talk about, I would like to know how far it is worked. If the man in Cork City gets £5 odd and the fellow in Cobh gets £3, what is the difference in the cost of living as between the man living in a town like Cobh or Midleton or Youghal or any other of those towns, and the city of Cork? I do not believe the difference in the cost of living between one town and the other is as high as £2 8s. 0d., the differential that has been referred to.

As regards the telegraph poles that are being dressed in Dublin and that were being dressed in Cork, it would pay the Minister to send those down to the cheaper places where he has cheap labour to dress them. He could save £2 a week on each man dressing poles in Midleton as compared with Dublin. I do not see where the Minister's economy comes in by dressing those poles in Dublin and then sending them by rail to Bantry, or sending them by road to Bantry—in a lorry from Dublin—as he did recently. I do not see much economy in that. Perhaps it is just in order to be able to say that the number of unemployed in the employment exchanges in Dublin has been largely reduced.

Ministers of all parties, whenever they become Ministers over there, get this idea of Dublinitis. It is about time that Dublinitis was ended. I hoped when I saw men drafted in here as new Ministers from different parts of the country that they would not get this idea of Dublinitis so quickly, but I never saw anyone who has assimilated it so quickly as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. Instead of getting the telegraph poles dressed and creosoted in Cork, he has them sent to Dublin to get it done there and then they are sent back to Bantry. That is a rather long stretch and I cannot understand why he does it unless it is that he wants to help out Córas Iompair Éireann. These are two of the things that I consider wrong.

There is another little matter I would like to deal with and I wrote to the Minister about it. It is in connection with the postal service at Watergrasshill. I live six miles from Watergrasshill and if I post a letter to Watergrasshill it first goes to Cork. It then goes from Cork to Mallow, from Mallow to Fermoy, from Fermoy to Bartlemy and from Bartlemy on to the Hill. It would seem that it has to cover that journey for fun or maybe it is in order that I may get the full value for the 2½d. The fact remains that it will not reach Watergrasshill for three days after I have posted it. I consider that antediluvian methods of that description should be ended. I thought that all I should do was to call the Ministers' attention to this anomaly in order to get it ended. Surely the distribution centre for a place 11 or 12 miles from Cork City should be Cork and not Mallow? Anything more ridiculous than that I do not know. I was amazed when I heard of it.

I happened to attend a Muintir na Tire meeting one night and I was astonished when I traced the journey covered by a letter I wrote telling them that I would attend. I did attend two nights after I wrote and the letter had not arrived by the time I got there. I found that that letter had to go from Glounthane to Cork and then to the distribution centre in Mallow. It then went to Fermoy and was conveyed from Fermoy on a bicycle to Bartlemy and then on a bicycle to Watergrasshill. That is definitely an antediluvian method and it should be ended immediately.

There is a matter which I have raised here annually for many years viz.: the rural areas are surely entitled to a daily postal delivery. There was a time when we wished it would be only once a fortnight, because usually there were only bills coming. I suggest that the time has arrived when this thing of catering for the big cities should end and the rural community should get some consideration. The money collected from the unfortunate rural community is all being spent in the big cities between telegraph and telephone services. The least the rural community can expect is that they will get a delivery every day and that when the distance between the post office at which the letter is posted and the office at which it is delivered is not more than seven miles, the letter will not have to travel 55 miles.

I wish the Minister would give a little more attention to this matter before he makes this extraordinary change that, according to his own statement, he has been contemplating. It is very little the ordinary individual who pays rates and taxes and incometax gets for his money. The least he is entitled to is that when he writes to a Department of State the letter will be franked. This is an absolutely new idea, a bolt from the blue. No prior notification has been given of it and if there is anything that will make me vote against this Estimate it is that one thing. It is a matter the Minister should give further consideration to.

Mr. Crotty

Deputy Corry had great work trying to find some fault with the Minister. They were very frivolous complaints that he had to make. He said that what will make him vote against the Estimate is having all letters to Government Departments stamped. I think the Minister is quite right in that. If a person has any genuine business to do with a Government Department he will think nothing of putting a stamp on the letter.

Mr. O'Rourke

Whether he has a stamp or not?

Mr. Crotty

He will get the stamp all right. Within the past two months I heard a man on a platform saying: "Write to the Government protesting against so and so and make sure not to stamp the letters." The next time that is tried the Government will not receive their letters, so I think that matter is clear, anyway.

Mr. O'Rourke

It is bunkum.

Mr. Crotty

It is not bunkum; it is all right. I appreciate Deputy Hickey's case for a differential in the rate of wages. I appreciate the argument he put up. As regards Deputy Corry, if the Minister gave a man temporary work outside Deputy Corry's ditch at £5 8s. 0d. a week, I am sure the following week Deputy Corry would tell the Minister: "I cannot get an agricultural worker because you are paying a temporary man £5 8s. 0d. a week." That would be Deputy Corry's cry—that the cost to the farmer has gone up again. I advise the Deputy to be honest and straight in his ways and not try to twist.

Mr. Corry

Why should there be a difference of £2 8s. 0d. between Cobh and Cork?

Mr. Crotty

If the Minister paid a man £5 8s. 0d. there would be plenty of questions asked in the Dáil. I was glad to hear Deputy Corry say that up to the change of Government he received only bills in the post and a delivery once a fortnight was quite enough. Now, since the new Minister came in, he receives cheques by post and he would like a delivery every day. I am very glad that he is looking for a daily delivery.

Mr. O'Rourke

When did he say that?

Mr. Crotty

He said it a few minutes ago.

Mr. O'Rourke

That is a falsehood. He did not say any such thing.

Mr. Crotty

He said that up to some time ago he was only getting bills.

Mr. Corry

On a point of order. That is not the statement I made.

An Ceann Comhairle

And that is not a point of order.

Mr. Crotty

The Ceann Comhairle heard him say it just as well as I did. Up to some time ago——

An Ceann Comhairle

Let the Deputy proceed calmly. The Ceann Comhairle will not be drawn into the discussion on one side or the other. There is no need for all this heat.

Mr. Little

On a point of explanation. Is one not entitled to make a personal explanation?

An Ceann Comhairle

Yes, but I was not told that it was a personal explanation.

Mr. Crotty

I was very pleased to see that the Minister has practically overcome the telephone shortage, but I would draw his attention——

Mr. Corry

On a point of explanation. I did not make the statement attributed to me by the Deputy. I shall not go further than that. I know what I said.

Mr. Crotty

On several occasions I have approached the Minister with regard to providing telephone facilities in several small villages in my constituency. He told me that it would be quite a time before that could be done. I wondered whether the Minister was providing telephone facilities in Wicklow but, having listened to Deputy Brennan, I know that that charge cannot be levelled against him because the position there seems to be as bad as elsewhere. People in the rural areas have to travel three and four miles to find a telephone. People in the City of Dublin have kiosks in practically all the public thoroughfares. I think the people in the rural areas should have these amenities provided for them in order to encourage them to remain in the country. The Minister has done a good job in the past 12 months. I have no doubt that in the coming 12 months he will make rapid progress in installing telephones in every village. Whether it is an economic proposition or not, I do not think he should be too exacting. It may not appear to be an economic proposition but, if the telephone is installed, it will rapidly become economic.

Another matter to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention is the late delivery of letters in a town in my constituency. The post is not delivered there until 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock in the day. This is a reasonably sized business town and the people deserve more consideration than that. In a small country district served by a bus within three or four miles there is a daily delivery at 8 o'clock each morning. I do not think it is right that people should have to wait until noon for their letters. The Minister has tackled the work of his Department in a business-like way. He has not left it to his officials to run his Department. I am sure he will make the improvements for which I ask.

Mr. A.P. Byrne

Whilst agreeing that the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is a model of good service and efficiency, there is one point I would like the Minister to note. I would like him to visit the Parcels Office in Amiens Street and discover for himself what is wrong there. Many people have complained to me about delays in dealing with dutiable parcels. Apparently there is no co-operation between the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and the Customs officials. People who go there are referred from one to the other, and back again. Each disclaims responsibility.

This is only a small point but I make no apology for raising it; when the Minister sends out telephone accounts, will he consider giving the name of the exchange to which trunk calls are made? The present procedure is simply to set out the date. It would help business people to check their trunk calls if they were reminded of the particular exchange.

Another point to which I would draw his attention to is the resale of telephone calls by private holders to the public at a charge of 3d. per call, when the actual call costs only 1¼d. I know that 5 per cent has to go on to that again, plus the quarterly or annual rental. Even so the fraction involved is a very small one. It could not be more than 1½d. Actually 3d. is charged. I think 2d. is a reasonable sum. Perhaps the Minister would consider making it illegal to resell 'phone calls at a profit of over 100 per cent.

Mr. O'Rourke

I did not intend to speak on this Estimate, but it came as a bombshell to me to-day to find that the Minister proposes doing away with a facility which has been available to the poorer people in the country for generations past. Perhaps the Minister thinks it a small matter. Perhaps Deputy Crotty is of that opinion, too. I think it is an outrage. I refer to the fact that the Minister has seen fit to do away with the regulation under which an individual could write to a department of State without liability for stamping. We have at the moment a Works Bill. We have the land reclamation project. The Department of Agriculture caters for a large number of people. Hitherto, if a person wanted the leaflets published by the Department of Agriculture he had merely to drop a note into the nearest letter box. Now he must pay 2½d. I know country people very rarely have stamps on hands. They may have to travel miles to buy a stamp. I think that this will impose a great hardship on these people and, even if I were in a minority of one, I would vote against the Minister's Estimate. This may easily have the effect of holding up the work of the various Departments. I was reared in a poor district and I have lived amongst poor people. They had this facility all their lives. Now it is being taken away from them.

This regulation is being introduced in the middle of the financial year. A similar trick was played last year. I am told that something in the region of £250,000 was extorted by means of the extra cost of postage stamps. Is the same game being played this year? That is not an honest way of getting money. It was wrong last year. Taxation should be imposed in the Budget. That was not done the last year and it is not going to be done this year. This is worse. It is taking away a facility that was there long before I was born. I do not think it holds in England or in any other country that letters addressed to Departments have to be stamped in this way. So far as I am concerned—I do not know what my Party is going to do—I am going to vote against this. I am sorry to say it is the first time that I saw anything very contentious in the Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. No matter what some Deputies on those benches say, it is going to have far-reaching effects and I would advise the Minister to withdraw it.

Mr. Rooney

How many letters does the ordinary person write to Departments?

Mr. O'Rourke

The Department of Agriculture has a list of leaflets numbering some hundreds on every conceivable topic and a poor person in the country could write for any one of these leaflets.

Mr. Rooney

Does he write?

Mr. O'Rourke

Of course he does.

Mr. Corry

The Deputy is not long here. If that is the way he thinks he will not be long here.

Mr. O'Rourke

In County Roscommon, as in other agricultural counties, an annual report is issued by the committee of agriculture. That report is widely circulated. It gets into the homes of most people. It contains a list of the leaflets available in the Department of Agriculture and people are not such fools that they do not apply for the leaflets if they want them. I think this is a very serious matter. I think the Minister for Agriculture will find it will hamper the utility of his Department very much. Taxation may be levied in various ways but this is one way in which it should not be levied.

Mr. Corry

It is a policy of laziness. There will be less letters to be answered.

Mr. O'Rourke

I support other Deputies who have asked for an extension of the telephone service to various outlying districts and villages where there are post offices. I do not want to be unreasonable about this. I am quite sure the Minister is willing to do his best but I think, before adding anything further to the facilities provided in big towns, he should consider the needs of country places. After all they are in a very backward condition and they need these facilities. I also wish to point out that there appears to be no reason why there should not be a daily delivery of letters in all parts of the country. I happen, by a certain manipulation if you like, to get a daily delivery myself but in my townland, which is adjoining a big town, there is only a three-day delivery per week. There does not seem to be any reason why, at this stage in our history, we should not have a daily delivery in every townland. I do not grudge the facilities which towns and cities enjoy at the moment but before going further in the direction of extending these facilities, I think the Department should aim at giving a better service to the country districts.

I do not know whether there is any use in speaking about giving better pay to rural postmen and about regularising the position of many of those who have been practically all their lives in the postal service. No doubt I shall be told that when Fianna Fáil were in power they did not do it. That, to my mind, is not very much of an excuse. The present Minister, at all events, was in the Labour movement all his life and I hope he will try to regularise the position of many of these people, some of whom are in a bad way. There is no use in talking about their entering into competition in farm work. Most of them do not do any really serious farm work. They have been in these jobs all their lives. They are not suited for farm work and, as they have spent their whole lives as postmen, they should have their positions stabilised and made pensionable. I am not speaking of those who may be employed for a short time on relief work but of those who spent practically their whole lives in the services of the Department as rural postmen. I want to make a final appeal to the Minister to withdraw the proposed charge on people who have to correspond directly with Government Departments.

Mr. Childers

I am not going to occupy the time of the House more than a few seconds. I agree with Deputies who have spoken on the question of stamping letters addressed to various Departments but I make this suggestion to the Minister. If they are going to collect extra revenue from these stamps, they should try an experiment that has been carried out with great success in a number of European countries. They should use the money to appoint public relation officers in the Departments who will visit various localities and explain the various Government regulations that are made from time to time to the people of these localities. I suggest that officers of the Department, who are naturally of a sympathetic nature should be appointed to visit these various districts and to assist in overcoming the difficulties of people who do not understand Government regulations or forms and who for their own reason do not wish to go to the local Deputy. Anyhow, the local Deputy has far too much work of that kind and of other descriptions. People could contact these officers and tell them their troubles. The officers should be the kind of people who would listen patiently to people who feel puzzled by these matters. I suggest to the Minister that he should try this experiment and spend the revenue from the extra 2½d. stamps on it. If he will do that I shall half forgive him for having imposed this extra tax on the community.

Mr. Lahiffe

I do not wish to delay the House at any great length but there are one or two points which I should like to bring before the Minister. One is that in the southern portion of my constituency there are numerous complaints about telephone calls to Dublin. Very often callers have to wait four, five or six hours to get through to Dublin. I understand the delay is due to the fact that calls from the southern portion of my constituency have to go through Limerick or Ennis exchanges and that delays there are attributable to the fact that the Shannon Airport is cutting in on these exchanges and choking up the lines. I suggest to the Minister that it might solve the problem if he had an exchange established in Ballinasloe. There would then be not so much overcrowding of 'phone calls from these districts.

There is another matter which I would prefer not to mention in this House but it is a matter of bread for a man's wife and his three young children. In the small sub-post office in Oranmore there were, up to November, 1948, two part-time postmen employed. Then an established postman was sent down to take up permanent duty. The result was that the part-time men had to be regraded. The senior man of the two was moved down from No. 1 position to No. 3. He is a married man with three young children, while the junior is a single man. The result of such regrading was that the wages of the married man were reduced from £4 9s. 3d. to £2 5s. 0d., while the single man still enjoys the same wage as he had. This man and labour organisations in the town tried to find out why this was done, but they have not succeeded in getting any satisfaction. This man tried to get satisfaction through the Postal Workers Union of which he is a member and only got a formal acknowledgment from the secretary of that body. Finally, I took the matter up myself with the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and I have just got an acknowledgment. To make matters worse, the position now is that if a second established postman is employed in that post office, which is due to happen, this senior man will have to go out altogether. I ask the Minister where is the justice in that. Who is responsible for appointing the junior man over the senior man?

Mr. Rooney

The regulations.

Mr. Lahiffe

Where is the regulation which is responsible for appointing a junior man over a senior man who is married and has three children? Will Deputy Rooney stand over that?

Mr. Rooney

The regulations.

Mr. Lahiffe

It is unjust and should not be permitted.

Mr. Rooney

Your Party made them.

Mr. Lahiffe

I submit that there is no regulation by which a junior should be appointed over a senior man. This man has been in that position for the last ten years and now he is faced with starvation for his wife and children on account of his wages being reduced from £4 9s. 3d. to 45/-. I would prefer not to have to raise this matter because I might have to bring personalities into it. I have, however, tried to keep them out of it. I would however, be failing in my duty as a representative of that area if I did not raise the matter because we have failed to get justice done in the case. I would also be failing in my duty if I did not demand from the Minister that a thorough investigation should be made immediately into the circumstances arising out of the appointment of a junior man over a senior man who is married and has three young children. I ask the Minister to remedy the injustice which has been done.

Mr. Bartley

I want to support Deputy Lahiffe in the appeal he has made on behalf of this postman. I know the particulars of that case also. Every Deputy from Galway, no matter what constituency he represents, has been approached in regard to it. I want to assure the Minister that it is a genuine case of hardship. He should look into the matter, and if he can restore this man to his former position, I think he ought to do it. He is a married man with a family and he has no other means of livelihood.

As I am on the question of postmen, I should like to say that in my constituency, a man was brought from 200 miles away to take up a job as postman in the Fior-Ghaeltacht of Connemara. Apart altogether from the question of qualification in Irish, I think it is entirely unnecessary that a man who has his home elsewhere should be brought such a long distance into an area which could very well be served by a local man. The Minister ought to check that practice if it is in any way prevalent in the Department.

I put a question to the Minister recently asking him to see that the post car that comes out from Claremorris through Clonbur to Cornamona should make a detour through Cloughbrack. It would only mean a detour of two or three miles and it would facilitate the delivery of the post very much in the district of Cloughbrack. What happens at present is that the postman in that area has to go five miles to Clonbur, get the parcels and letters there, cycle back to Cloughbrack and then start on his circuit. It would not be any great inconvenience if the van were to detour by Cloughbrack and drop the post for that district in the post office there and let the postman start off immediately.

With regard to the telephone service, I think the service has improved somewhat between Galway and Dublin. I do not, however, agree with Deputy Lahiffe that the delay between Dublin and Galway is due to the fact that it has to go through Ennis and Limerick and that the business at Rineanna holds it up. Of course that may apply to his area. I want to tell the Minister that on the direct route between Dublin and Galway the service has been very bad. Not so long ago, before leaving Dublin I sent a telegram to Galway. I travelled down there by car and I collected the telegram myself at my own door on arrival. That will indicate how expeditious the service is between Dublin and Galway.

I want to enter an emphatic protest against the denial of the free postal service which the people have had in connection with their communications to Government Departments. This will hit the poorer areas far harder than other parts of the county. The correspondence in these areas is very largely with Government Departments. As these people are poor, they have to keep in constant contact with various Government offices, principally the local office of the Department of Social Welfare. It seems to me an imposition on these people that, every time they write to the local labour exchange about unemployment assistance, they must stamp the letter. That kind of correspondence is considerable and it will impose on these people a very serious burden. I would say that the greater part of the correspondence of the average poor people in my constituency is with Government Departments of various kinds. The Minister should not put this extra imposition on them without going into the matter much further than he seems to have done. I do not know what the purpose of this new arrangement is. It may be that Ministers have decided that the volume of correspondence coming to their Departments is too heavy. If that is the case, and this is being done as a means of checking it, I think that what the Minister will succeed in doing is diverting the correspondence to Deputies. What are the Deputies to do? If a Deputy writes to a Department, it will not be a very heavy extra burden on him. In any event, he will not cavil at it. If as a result of this device a Deputy is going to have his correspondence very seriously increased, I do not think that, under Standing Orders, there is anything to prevent him from putting these questions on the Order Paper and of having them dealt with in that way. If that be the result of the new dispensation, the Minister will lose more heavily in the other direction than he is going to lose in this one.

This facility has been available to the public since, I think, the institution of the postal service. The Minister has not given any good reason as to why it should be withdrawn from the public. Already he has increased postal charges. I do not know what is the amount of increased revenue which they produce but, whatever the amount is, I think the Minister should be satisfied with it, and not seek further to enhance the postal revenue by a device that will be looked upon by the ordinary citizen as a mean one in the extreme. I do not think the Minister is a mean man. I think that he is as anxious as anyone in this House to help the poor, but this new arrangement will hit the poor very hard. Therefore I appeal strongly to him to reconsider it.

Mr. Killilea

Two years ago the Fianna Fáil Minister who was sitting at the opposite side gave the House an assurance that the telephone services all over the country were being overhauled and that it was expected an improvement would be made in the very near future. The present Minister gave a similar assurance last year. Yet there are general complaints, at least in every town that I have any association with. I think there should be a little more speed in getting ahead with the work that it was then indicated would be carried out. We were also assured that the sub-post offices throughout the country would be equipped with a telephone service and, incidentally, I suppose with a telegraph service. I now gather from the Minister that that is not the case. If so, I would strongly press him to go ahead with the installation of telegraph services in country districts. I know many areas that are seven and eight miles away from a post office. When a person in one of those districts gets a telegram it means an extra charge to him of 3/- or 3/6 compared to what a person in a town has to pay. That occurs in such areas as Newbridge, Ballinamore, Abbeyknockmoy, Clonberne, Glinsk and Derreen. Some of these districts are six miles from the nearest post office and others of them ten and 11 miles. It is very hard on the people living in them that there is neither a telegraph nor a telephone service within easy reach of them. The Minister should take up that matter immediately and see that facilities are provided for the people in these areas.

Complaints have been made regarding the position of auxiliary postmen. I want to urge the Minister strongly to make those men pensionable. Many of them have 25, 30 and 35 years' service. At the end of their service they have nothing to look forward to except, perhaps, the old age pension. I hope the Minister will do something for them as soon as possible.

There is also the case of sub-postmasters. The remuneration of those unfortunate people is something less than £20 a year. The Minister seems to dissent from that. That, I know, has been the position unless their conditions have been changed recently. I think that the Deputy sitting beside the Minister can assure him that what I have said is correct.

Mr. Donnellan

We agree for once in our lives.

Mr. Killilea

As I say, I do not think their remuneration exceeds £20 a year. One would not get the smallest room any place in the country for that sum, not to speak at all of the constant service which these people give throughout the year. Their position should be remedied. These sub-postmasters have a genuine grievance. We have been promised a White Paper about social services, but what about the conditions under which these sub-postmasters work? Their work may not be very hard, but they are on duty for long hours. If they were reported for not being in attendance in their offices they would soon be put on the mat. They should get some consideration as far as salary is concerned.

I, like other Deputies, want to protest as strongly as I possibly can against the proposed interference with the sending of letters, postage free, to State Departments. I suppose that if letters are sent unstamped the receiver will have to pay 4d. in excess duty. In my opinion, nobody writes to a State Department without having good reason for doing so. People are entitled to bring their grievances to the notice of a Department, and hence they should have the right to free postage. They have enjoyed that right all their lives, even in the days when the British were here. I think it would be a mean departure if the Government were to insist that a letter going to a State Department should carry a 2½d. stamp. People do not write to Departments unless they have some grievance to ventilate or unless there has been some neglect in the case of a Department.

A good deal has been said regarding the courtesy of post office officials. As far as my personal experience goes, most of the officials and workers are most satisfactory. I have, however, a case in mind which I intend to raise with the Minister, but not in the House. I have never objected in my life to people heckling me at a public meeting. The one who helps me most at a public meeting is a good heckler. I had not the experience of any post office worker acting as a heckler at a meeting until last Saturday night. A case did occur then which I am going to take up personally with the Minister. I am sure that he will insist, as every Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the past has insisted, that post office people will abstain from that particular type of rowdyism and so keep the post office service clean and efficient as it has always been. After all, one black sheep can destroy any flock. I intend to put my finger on one black sheep, and I hope the Minister will do the rest. I sincerely hope that the Minister will try to give effect to the recommendation I am making regarding the establishment of telephone and telegraph offices in isolated districts throughout the country.

Mr. O'Grady

There are a couple of matters to which I wish to refer. Like Deputy Killilea, I would appeal to the Minister to see to it that postal facilities are provided in remote areas. One particular part of my constituency, the parish of Carne, is seven miles from the nearest post office. I hope that the Minister will provide a post office and telephone facilities there, which are obviously very badly needed.

Another matter that I would like to draw the Minister's attention to is the erection of the new office in Kilrush, which has been for some considerable time under consideration but in connection with which no progress seems to have been made.

The principal matter that I wish to take up with the Minister is a matter that arose on a question on the Order Paper to-day concerning the appointment which the Minister has recently made of an auxiliary postman in the town of Kilrush. My information is that the man who was acting there in a temporary capacity has been so employed for considerable periods. The last occasion that this man was employed was just before the permanent appointment was made, when he had been employed for nine months. The usual practice, when a vacancy like that occurs, is that the matter is sent to the labour exchange and the person who has the most responsibilities and who is entitled to the highest unemployment assistance is sent forward for appointment.

When it came to the making of a permanent appointment in this case, the man who had been acting as temporary postman was pushed aside and the appointment to the permanent position was made of a man who had fewer responsibilities and less national service than the man who was displaced. The only qualification which the new appointee had and which the other man lacked was that he had been making himself particularly prominent at collections for the Fine Gael Party. He is one of the three who usually stand at the chapel gates to make their collections. That is one outstanding qualification the new appointee had and which the other man had not. The other man was unidentified with any political Party. If anything, he would have been a supporter of the Labour Party but, in the new situation which seems to have arisen, that seems to be no qualification and certainly in this man's case has proved to be a detriment to his getting the position to which he was entitled apart from any political considerations whatever. On merit alone, the man who had already been acting in a temporary capacity was entitled to the permanent appointment. He was most deserving of it because he had greater responsibilities and had been acting for considerable periods in that position. I do hope that this is not the commencement of a series of such appointments by the Minister.

Mr. Rooney

Fianna Fáil regulations.

Mr. O'Grady

Fianna Fáil regulations had nothing to do with this and Deputy Rooney had better keep out of it because the Leader of his Party was down in Clare recently and he made a statement to the effect that Fianna Fáil had more or less blighted the public life of this country. It is very easy to make wild charges but let his Leader, Deputy Rooney, or anybody else make a specific charge and then we will know where we are. I am making a specific charge here and now against the Minister. The charge is nothing less than naked and open corruption. Being the first, I hope it will be the last I will have to deal with.

Mr. O'Leary

There has been a great deal of talk about stamping letters addressed to Government Departments. On reading the Estimate, I find that where official envelopes are supplied postage will be free. May I take that as correct, that Deputies will be supplied with official envelopes for Departments?

Mr. Little

They are already.

Mr. O'Leary

I should not wonder if something did happen seeing that when we took over there were thousands of envelopes in the office of the ex-Minister for Posts and Telegraphs unopened.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing the ex-Minister. We are discussing the present Minister.

Mr. Little

That is not true.

Mr. Killilea

That is not true, like most of the Deputy's statements.

Mr. O'Leary

Everything we say is not true.

Mr. Little

Sometimes.

Mr. O'Leary

Everything Fianna Fáil says is true.

Mr. Little

Has the Deputy the authority of the Minister of the Department for making the statement he did make?

Mr. O'Leary

What statement?

Mr. Little

That there were letters left unopened?

Mr. O'Leary

It was stated in this House.

Mr. Little

It was not stated.

Mr. O'Leary

It surely was.

Mr. Little

The Deputy should withdraw that statement. He is making an accusation that he should withdraw.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is an official accusation. No personal charge has been made against Deputy Little.

Mr. Little

It is really against the Deputy.

Mr. Killilea

Deputy O'Leary has made a direct charge.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is an official charge and everybody has to stand up to these. I am sure Deputy Little recognises that.

Mr. Little

Not only that, but to repudiate it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is no charge against Deputy Little's personal character.

Mr. O'Leary

I know there are plenty of people who applied for a telephone during Deputy Little's time and they never got an answer.

Mr. Killilea

And to-day.

Mr. O'Leary

More 'phones have been provided for the service of the public since last February 12 months than were provided by Fianna Fáil over 16 years. We all know that. There was a rearrangement of postal deliveries in my constituency. That may be all right for early deliveries in towns but in the rural areas they go by old time. Our postman leaves the town at 7.30 a.m. new time, which is really 6.30 a.m. The people are not up. Then the post comes early in the evening. At the same time there is a mail lying in the post office until the next day. I have a letter here from people who sent a memorial to the Minister a few weeks ago and who are very dissatisfied that he has not restored the old system in rural areas. The new arrangement will be a great hardship in winter for postmen who have to go to the rural areas. I have no objection to it in the towns. It is the rural areas that are adversely affected, because of old time and new time operating. I would ask the Minister seriously to consider restoring the old system in rural areas where the people want it because the present system is not satisfactory.

With regard to rural and temporary postmen, I cannot see why the Government cannot provide uniforms for these men. A man who has to carry the postbag should not be handed a bit of a band to go on his arm. We ought to be in a position to supply uniforms for all the men whether they are temporary or permanent. It would look much more business-like. I am told that because a man has not worked a certain number of hours, he cannot get the uniform. It would add to the dignity of the Post Office service if all postmen, temporary, auxiliary and permanent, had uniforms. Moreover, they should be brought in under a pension scheme. These men have been in the service of the Post Office for years, and they are doing work in the rural areas. Against them you have the men who work in the towns and who have full trade union rates of wages. The man working in the rural area is getting only a quarter of what is paid to the others. He has to deliver the contents of the mail bags when they reach the rural offices. These people should get more consideration; they are the men who do all that work. There should be an improvement there, and it is long overdue. Of course, we cannot do things overnight, but if we remain in office as long as the last Government there will be a great improvement and the people will get better services.

We were told that owing to the war many things could not be done here. The war did not start until 1939 and Fianna Fáil was in power years before. The record of the ex-Minister sitting over there during his years of office was not anything one could boast of. There were peace times as well as war times from 1932 onwards and the services provided by the Government then were not so satisfactory. There were many complaints everywhere you went. Everyone must give the credit to the present Minister because he has done his job well. He has increased the pay of the postmen and the civil servants, and there was nothing of that sort done by the ex-Minister.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

What about the cost of postage?

Mr. O'Leary

You did not think of the cost to the people of various things when you voted for the Budget. They put you out in due course. You did not think of the people who like a smoke or like to go to the pictures. Not many will grouse about a halfpenny. If that is the only sneer that Deputy O Briain or any other member of the Fianna Fáil Party can have—that we increased postage by a halfpenny—they have not much to worry about.

There is one grievance in the area I represent and it is conveyed in a letter that I have received from the Enniscorthy area. The letter reads:

"Re memorial sent to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs by all the people on the Enniscorthy-Clonroche road about the change of postal delivery, will you kindly let me know is the Minister going to take any action or notice of this memorial? If not, will you kindly ask a question in the Dáil about same? As the memorial stresses, the present hour of delivery is most unsatisfactory to all concerned and the public who are paying in taxes etc., for this service are the ones to be considered."

I ask the Minister to give his serious attention to this matter. We are the people to air these grievances in this House. I have no complaint to make against the Minister or any of the officials in his Department.

Mr. Allen

Last year when I was speaking on this Estimate I had a complaint to make to the effect that the post was delivered in a certain area not far from where Deputy O'Leary was speaking about, at 10 o'clock at night. The Minister has so stepped-up deliveries that they now start early in the morning and the grievance is in a different direction. It was too late in some areas and now it is too early. It is really hard to know what to do and I believe the Minister will always have a difficulty. I doubt if any system that can be devised will, from the point of view of rural dwellers, be the perfect system.

There is a point about rural postmen leaving the local towns at an early hour. By doing so they miss the post that comes on the mail train, say at 9 o'clock or 9.30. People to whom daily papers are posted in the city will not get them until the following day. There are many problems, but if it is at all possible the rural dwellers should get sympathetic consideration. I cannot see any reason why, in connection with rural areas, motor vans could not be utilised. These vans could leave with all the post after the trains arrive from the city and the same vans could bring back the rural post in time for the mail train to the city in the evening. I realise it is difficult to get the perfect system or to give the people in the rural areas the same type of service as is given people in the towns.

There may be objections to the post leaving local towns too early. Farmers and others have no post-boxes such as the people in the towns have. They must get up to take in the post. There is no easy solution. If they have a delivery too early in the morning many rural dwellers will be a day behind in deliveries. The Minister on one occasion said he proposed to put on motor vans where now there are bicycle deliveries over long distances from local towns. What progress has been made in organising that system of motor delivery 12 or 15 miles from towns? That is a very necessary service. There should be an adequate daily service for dwellers in the purely rural districts. No doubt it would mean great organisation and probably more expense.

I had a complaint during the past week from two postmen who consider that leaving the town at 6.30 in the morning for the rural areas is too early. In the winter time they get up very much in the dark and they have to start out on their deliveries at 6.30. They complain that it is unfair to ask them to leave so early. They admitted they had not to work longer hours and that they had the day's work finished within the proper hours, but they felt the day was very long. I know local postmasters have a certain liberty to organise their areas so as to operate to the best advantage of the dwellers in the areas concerned and they can also consider what will best serve the interests of the staffs. I see no reason why, if there are difficulties, the local organisation could not rectify them.

I should like to ask the Minister if the preference for ex-servicemen still exists in the matter of temporary employment. Are sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses aware that that is still the policy? It is of importance that the Minister should state, for the information of those people, that it is the policy of the Government, other things being equal, to give preference to men who had service with the Forces during the emergency.

Mr. O'Leary

Your Minister did not do that.

Mr. Allen

I am asking the Minister to state definitely for the information of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses throughout the country whether or not that is in operation. Complaint was made to me recently that that was not so and that they were not called in that specific order for temporary employment as holiday reliefs and so on.

There is one other matter to which I want to draw the Minister's attention. The Minister made a revolutionary announcement this evening in the matter of free postage to Government Departments. That will have repercussions in many directions from the point of view of the public. It is an extraordinary way of bringing that change before the House by simply announcing it on the Minister's Estimate. The same thing was done last year in relation to the increased cost of postage. That was never done heretofore. I remember the first Government making special provision in the Budget, or somewhere else, for increased postage on at least one occasion. I know the Minister has power to increase the postage, but this is not the most desirable way of doing it. This is actually an increased tax.

No doubt the Minister is aware that many humble citizens address communications to the Department of Agriculture, for instance, asking for circulars and leaflets. There is bound to be correspondence under the land rehabilitation scheme. In the ordinary course thousands of communications would go into the Department in relation to this scheme. I think that the Minister's step in doing away with free postage to Government Departments is very unfair. Many communications go in to the Minister for Local Government. Recently a man told me that he had written 16 different letters to the Minister for Local Government in relation to a housing grant. Up to the time of speaking to him he had not received any satisfaction. He was a poor man. The Minister can see what this may mean to the poorer sections of the community. Hitherto they did not have to stamp these letters and they knew that they would reach the Departments to which they were addressed. The tendency in the future will be not to write to Government Departments at all. If it is the intention of the Government to reduce the correspondence going into these Departments this is a good way of doing it. I prophesy that the correspondence will drop by 50 per cent. inside three months if this regulation is enforced.

What will happen if letters are addressed to a Department and are not stamped? Will the Department refuse to accept them? Will they be readdressed to the sender? Will the post office carry them? When they go back to the sender will the sender have to pay double postage on them? This is a serious matter. I believe that in most countries in the world there is free postage to Government Departments. This is a mere bagatelle as far as revenue is concerned taken in comparison with a Budget of £70,000,000 to £72,000,000. I would appeal to the Minister to withdraw this threat. We live in days when people are looking for more State services. Now the Minister proposes to take a service from them. The Minister may say that his Department is costing more because of increased wages or the increased cost of materials. Every other Government Department is costing more. Every family is costing more. But families have no means of increasing their revenue in order to meet the increased cost of living. I do not think the Minister is wise in taking this step. This should be brought in as a Supplementary Estimate to enable a full discussion to take place on the repercussions it may have throughout the country. This will cause injury to the community in many ways. The people will get less information. They will not write in for leaflets to the Department of Agriculture. They will not write in for grants for houses. They will do nothing about the thousand and one matters on which they now communicate with Government Departments.

I am sure the Minister can make a good case for any kind of taxation he proposes to levy. I am sure he could make a good case for increasing the ordinary postage from 2½d. to 5d. I am sure he could make a good case for increasing the costs of telegrams and telephones. I suggest it would be no harm to increase the cost of telephones in the cities. Telephone calls in a city or town only cost 2d. each. The rural dweller has to pay anything from 1/- to 2/-. A person living in the city can call to any Government Department. That is why the people in the rural areas were exempt from paying postage on communications to Government Departments in order to balance up with those living in Dublin. If the Minister puts another ½d. or 1d. on local telephone calls in the cities and towns he will reap quite a substantial revenue. Since it is only a question of a few thousands he can earn it that way. Give the man in the backwoods a chance. He has to pay more for his telegrams. If he lives more than a mile from the post office he must pay 6d.; if he lives more than five miles he must pay 2/6 to have a telegram delivered. Roughly, one-third of the country has only a three-day postage. People living in the rural areas do not get a fair crack of the whip as compared with those living in the bigger centres of population, and especially those living in Dublin where the Government Departments are situated. A strong case can be made against this imposition. I hope that wiser counsels will prevail. I hope the Minister will see the defects attaching to his present proposal and the damage he may quite unintentionally do to the rural community. Before he concludes on this Estimate, I hope he will reconsider this matter and decide not to impose this additional tax on the rural community or take away from them a service they enjoyed even before our own Government came into existence. That was there before the Minister's time. It was there before the State was set up and there is no reason why people in rural areas should not get that service in the future as they did in the past.

Captain Cowan

I have only a few points to mention on this Estimate. I wish to join with Deputies who have referred to the rates of pay of lower paid officials, particularly postmen, in the postal service. I want to make a special appeal to the Minister to increase the pay of postmen. Postmen, particularly in Dublin City, have long hours, heavy duties and heavy responsibilities. It is my personal opinion that they are not adequately paid for the amount of work they do. That point in regard to wages has cropped up time after time in the courts when servants of the post office, generally people who are insufficiently paid, have been brought before courts on charges of larceny or taking letters in the course of transmission. I am afraid that in some of the cases the temptation to tamper with mails was due to the inadequacy of the pay. I would appeal to the Minister to look into the pay of these postmen and try to bring it up to such a level as will guarantee a decent living to the officials concerned.

In that matter I want also to make a special appeal for Irish Army exservice men who are employed in a temporary capacity in the Post Office. There are a considerable number of them employed in the parcels office in Amiens Street. I am sure the Minister will agree that they are giving excellent service. Some of them are men who have rendered more than 20 years' service to the State in the Army. They are engaged in onerous and exacting duties for long hours and their pay is approximately £4 10s. 0d. per week. For a married man, with a family of three or four children living in Dublin, that pay is entirely inadequate. I want on behalf of these men to appeal to the Minister to increase the pay of these officials and if possible to give them some guarantee of permanency, for a period at least. I understand they are engaged on an almost day-to-day basis. They do not know when their services may be terminated and that insecurity, added to their inadequate pay, makes their conditions pretty bad.

Quite a lot has been said this evening about the decision of the Government to stop the transmission of letters to Departments of State unless those letters are stamped. I think that is an unwise decision because in the running of a modern State, the Government is compelled to get more and more information from the general public. We can see that the various Acts of Parliament that have been passed for the past 25 years, and the various measures that have been introduced for the benefit of the community, necessitate communication between individuals in the State and Government Departments. In actual fact, I think in accordance with law, many individuals in the State are compelled to make certain returns, to submit certain forms and to supply certain information to the State. I think that considerable trouble will be caused if this proposal is persisted in because if an individual in any part of the country is compelled by law to submit a return to a State Department and if he does not submit that return and is prosecuted in the court for not doing so, I think that individual could come in and say: "Yes, I am compelled to do it but I am certainly not compelled to pay postage to convey that information to the Minister". I think that would be a reasonable attitude for the individual to take up.

The Minister may say, as he said in his statement this evening, that official envelopes may be supplied by the Government Department for the purpose of communicating that type of information, but is not that going to create more trouble and to cost more money than the continuance of the service we have at the moment? I think it is an interference with progress, an interference with the orderly management of the State on modern lines, that the people supplying that information, which is useful not only for themselves but for the community as a whole, should be compelled to pay postage on these letters. It may be that there have been abuses. It may be that people have posted letters that should have been stamped and were not. I am quite sure that a few announcements over the radio, in the Press and in the local post offices would draw attention to the kind of letter that may be sent, free of postage stamps. Looking at it in the broad general way, I think it is in the interests of the community that information that should be supplied by individuals should be forthcoming and that no obstacle should be placed in the way of that information being communicated. In regard to old age pensions, children's allowances, petrol coupons, agricultural grants and the hundred and one other matters dealt with by Government Departments, requests and information should be encouraged rather than having a barrier put in their way.

There has been some reference to the fact that Deputies may have to pay for their communications to Government Departments. I do not know whether that is so or not. Some Deputies pay postage on the letters they send to Government Departments, but I understand that others do not. I am quite certain, however, that it would not be beyond the ingenuity of a Deputy to obtain in a perfectly honest way official paid envelopes for the purpose of communicating official matters to the various Departments. Once the loophole is there and the official paid envelopes can be got, they can be used.

I am not concerned with that, however, as it is only a small matter. The main problem is that of putting obstacles in the way of the State getting information that it ought to get in the interests of the community from the people generally. I ask the Minister, therefore, to reconsider this matter and, if it is a Government decision, as I presume it is, to press on the Government the inadvisability of continuing the course indicated in his speech. From the point of view of revenue, the amount that will be obtained by the sale of stamps for these communications will be relatively negligible, but the damage that it will do will be relatively great. I ask the Minister to use his good offices in advising the Government not to pursue the line which he suggested in his speech.

Having dealt with these few items, I want to join with other Deputies in paying tribute to the Minister and his officials for their courtesy during the year. I think every Deputy will agree that the Minister is the most approachable Minister in the Government. Not only that, he is a Minister who goes out of his way to try to do what he possibly can for any person, Deputy or otherwise, who brings a grievance to his attention. The tributes paid to the Minister and to the officials of the Post Office from all sides of the House must hearten the Minister. Having worked as hard as he has done since he became Minister, I am quite sure that he must feel very satisfied that his efforts on behalf of the community have received such a welcome reception from all sides of the House.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

I want to mention a few matters in connection with this Estimate. First of all, I want to protest against the delay in providing a telephone service in the post offices all over the country that are at present without it. It was the intention, as soon as material and equipment became available, that the provision of public telephones in all the post offices in the country would be the first priority on whatever equipment became available. But, when the Minister took up office, he seems to have departed from that line of policy. That departure was an injustice to the people in remote parts of the country and parts of the country not so remote which have been deprived of this service up to now. Owing to the way in which modern methods of communication have developed and the necessity for a telephone service which has grown up in recent years, there is a crying need for the installation of that service as soon as possible in all post offices, and even in some places where there are no post offices, for the benefit of the community who have to live there so that the same quick means of communication will be available to people in remote rural districts as are available to people in towns and cities. These people have the same right to these amenities as their more fortunate brethren in the towns and cities. I hope that before long that amenity will be made available all over the country for the community in general. It is regrettable that there has been such delay in providing it, now that the supply of the equipment and materials necessary has become more plentiful.

Another matter I want to refer to is daily postal deliveries in areas all over the country where these are not available at present. Recently, in response to a question, the Minister told us that there were 529 areas in the country with a four-day postal delivery and 170 with only a three-day postal delivery. The people in these areas who have to put up with a three-day and a four-day delivery have the same rights as the people in the 3,700 districts which have a six-day postal delivery. It is a question of reorganising this system so as to provide a daily delivery. If there is a danger of a loss in one area, surely it should be possible to offset that loss by the profit made on the deliveries in the more populous areas. In any case, this is a public service and the same public service should be made available to all sections of the community no matter where they may live. Whatever may be the difficulties, they are not insurmountable.

I want to add my voice also to the protest made against the proposal which the Minister mentioned this evening to do away with a privilege which has been available as far back as I can remember—the privilege of free postage for people in all parts of the country who want to write to a Government Department. My memory of that goes back very far. When I was a youngster, I was sent to post letters for my father and I noticed, when I came to the post office, that one was without a stamp. I thought a mistake had been made and I took it home again. I was sent back immediately with the letter so that I would catch the post. It was a letter to a British Government Department and would be delivered free. That was the first time my attention was brought to the fact that certain letters could be sent without stamps. That free service was available 40 or 50 years ago.

Now a Labour Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has taken the reactionary decision to do away with a privilege which was available to all sections of the community down through the years. The section of the community that will be hit most by this is the section which the Minister professes to represent— the workers and the poorer sections of the community for whom it is necessary to have more contact with Government Departments—his own Department, the Department of Social Welfare, the Department of Local Government, the Department of Agriculture and other Departments—than any other section of the community. That is a very reactionary decision. It should be resisted by the Dáil. The Minister should reconsider it and not go ahead with it. Particularly on behalf of the rural community and people living in remote districts, I want to protest against that proposal and to express my hope that it will not be proceeded with.

Mr. Kyne

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the necessity for facilitating people who have to make a living by giving them preference in the installation of telephones. I have in mind, particularly, such people as hackney car owners and small business people. I understand there is a regulation in the Department that applicants who employ seven or more people will get a preference. I suggest to the Minister that hackney car owners, small business people in country towns such as undertakers as well as nurses and others who perform essential services for the community, whether they employ anybody or not, should get a first preference. The classes of people I have mentioned supply a want in the life of the community, and it is the duty of the State to help them carry out their essential services.

I would also suggest that no village and no small town should be without a telephone kiosk. In my own town, with a population of about 5,000, we have a number of telephones installed but they are usually in hotels and in other places which close at 10.30 under the licensing laws. If, after that hour, a person desires to make a phone call, it may be to get a priest or a doctor, he has the utmost difficulty in doing so unless a kiosk is available. Some have been installed. I suggest it would be worth the Minister's while to pay particular attention to that aspect of rural life which is hard enough as it is. All the facilities that are possible should be given to the people who live in rural Ireland. They should have some of the comforts that are at the doors of city dwellers.

In the course of my duties as a Dáil Deputy I have had, on numerous occasions to call Dublin which is 130 miles from where I live. It has often taken me from two to four hours to make a call. When I made a protest at the local office the excuse given was that the switchboard was obsolete and out-of-date. That has happened in the town of Dungarvan. I feel that, in 1949, there should not be grounds for such an excuse as that. Surely, it should be possible to get modern equipment for an office in a town of that size where people have to make their living and very often, need to get in touch with the capital of the country. The Minister should pay some attention to that.

With the Deputies on the Opposition side as well as those on my own side, I wish to protest against the suggestion that letters going to Government Departments should be stamped. Unlike Deputy Cowan, I take grave exception to the fact that it is going to affect my letters. If I as a Dáil Deputy living in a rural area, am to give service to the people, I must write at least 100 letters a week to Government offices. I do not feel that I should be required to put a 2½d. stamp on each letter. I do know that, if this suggestion should come into force, the number of letters which I write as a Deputy will have to be curtailed. I am just a labourer, and I have no financial aid or backing except the Dáil allowance I receive. If my postage, which is now in the neighbourhood of 30/- a week, is to be almost doubled, I shall have to practise economy somewhere. The only economy that I see open to me is to delay sending my requests to Government Departments until I have six, eight, ten or 12, and then put the lot in one envelope. That will curtail the service which I would like to give to my constituents. I would appeal to the Minister to withdraw that proposal because I do not think it is in the interests of the country. As one who has consistently supported the Government, I want to draw attention to the fact that I will find it very difficult to vote for any such proposal.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I want to know from the Minister why the 24-hour service, which had been operating in the Killsallaghan district, has been cut off. The present position is that people can only use the 'phone between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The same thing applies in various other parts of my constituency. I cannot see why the people of rural Ireland should not have a 24-hour telephone service. It is very hard on the people that they cannot make a telephone call, even in urgent cases, after 8 o'clock at night. On numerous occasions I have made requests to the Minister for a telephone kiosk at Palmerston, Rush, Lusk, Donabate and other areas of my constituency where the people require such service. I have received urgent demands for it from the people.

There is another matter that I want to speak about. We have a post office at Santry. The postmistress there has to go out, stop the bus on the road and put the mails on it in the evening. I think we should have advanced beyond that kind of thing. I would point out that there has been a lot of building in that area. We also have a few factories there. Whether it is raining or snowing, that lady has to do what I have stated and I would ask the Minister to see that such a thing is remedied. I know of course that when the post office was started there the business was not very heavy, but the position is now quite different.

I also want to refer to the position of rural part-time postmen. This is a rather hackneyed subject with me. I have referred to it on numerous occasions. These men are the victims of a very bad system. Their pay is small, they are temporary, and at the end of their service they are put on the scrap heap and regarded as good for nothing. It is sometimes put up by the Department that these men have other occupations. I can definitely state that they have not, and that the time is now ripe when the Department should give a lead in looking after them. It should evolve some scheme to give them compensation when they come to 65 years of age or else make them permanent. I understand there is a rule in the Department which debars them from competing for better positions. They are excellent men and they do their job well. The Minister should take up their case seriously.

With other Deputies I want to protest against the withdrawal of the facilities that have obtained of free postage for letters to Government Departments. I do not see any of the Clann Deputies here, but this is a rather novel way of carrying out the promises they made to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent. Ever since they got in, taxation has gone up on the people, especially on those living in the rural parts. We were in the habit, as a result of years of usage and tradition, of being able to send letters unstamped to Government Departments. It will be very hard indeed if that is to be done away with now. Apparently, it is the policy of this inter-Party Government to do so, and contrary to their promises on the election platforms, to increase the cost of living. There are other taxes which they imposed during their time, on amusements and other things. Now, the people cannot write a letter to a Department without putting a stamp on it. I know a man who had to send at least 12 letters to a Department to try and get an answer to a question. Is that the way the people in rural Ireland are to be treated, that it will cost 2/6d. to get an answer from a Department on a matter concerning services voted by this Dáil? The people of rural Ireland are the people who will suffer most by this policy of the Minister's. I am very much surprised that this blow should be struck by a Labour Minister against the poor people of rural Ireland.

Mr. Beegan

The first point that I wish to make on this Estimate is in regard to the reorganisation of postal deliveries and collections which is at present being carried out in County Galway and which has been carried out all over the country. As far as the general public are concerned, to a great many people, myself included, it is a very fine convenience. I now get postal delivery at 9.30 a.m. where previously I got it at 12.30. But there are quite a number of people whom the arrangement has affected adversely because of the fact that in arranging the areas such changes have been made that certain townlands have been assigned to other postmen and, instead of getting delivery at 10 a.m. or 10.30 a.m., these people have to wait until 2 p.m. I suppose such things happen in all such rearrangements but I think that with a little further examination of the position that could be got over.

In addition, the districts have been very greatly enlarged in some places, and there is a time limit fixed for delivery. I know a few postmen in my area whose delivery area has been at least doubled and the time allowed to carry out the delivery is so short that it would be almost impossible for them, even on a motor-bike, to do it within the time laid down by regulation. Cases of that kind should be again examined with a view to seeing that the postmen would not be affected in that way.

I have said that the districts have been enlarged. One of the things that I would like to learn from the Minister is the number of temporary part-time men who have been disemployed as a result of the rearrangement. I know the Minister can reply that the number is not so great because of the fact that he has employed a considerable number of new hands on the vans that deliver the letters from the principal district post office to the various sub-post offices. That may be so. Nevertheless I am informed that in the district post office of Ballinasloe at least five men have been disemployed as a result of this rearrangement. I do not think that that is good policy even though it may be an economy as far as the Post Office and the general tax-payer are concerned. It is throwing those people on the unemployment insurance or the unemployment assistance list.

As far as the retention of men in the temporary service is concerned. I believe that there should be three qualifications and perhaps a fourth— Army service, service during the emergency period, and family circumstances. I know that if I write to the Minister or his Department I will be told that if the name comes forward from the labour exchange the man's case will be considered for retention or appointment as the case may be but, on the Vote for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, it was argued very strongly from the Government benches as well as from these benches that registration at the employment exchange should not always be taken into consideration, that there were overriding considerations. I think the same is true as regards employment as temporary postmen also and that the qualifications that I have mentioned should be taken into consideration and that furthermore, if a man happened to be in temporary employment a short time previous to a vacancy occurring in the position of relief postman or some position of that kind, in that case family circumstances and Army and L.D.F. service should be taken into consideration.

I have in mind at least one man who had 18 years' service in the Army. He gave the full period in the Emergency Forces. He has a wife and eight in family. That man is now disemployed and a man who was not by any means in as needy circumstances as this man is has been employed. I am not alleging in any way that there is anything political in it but, of course, it so happened that the other man was registered at the employment exchange and the man whose circumstances and qualifications I have mentioned happened to have a temporary job for a short time and was not on the employment register.

I wish to endorse the views of other Deputies regarding the stamping of letters addressed to Departments. I congratulate Deputy Kyne for being so outspoken from a Deputy's point of view. I am also one of those—and I am sure every Deputy could say the same—who write a considerable number of letters to Departments. I do not mind that as it affects myself but I do mind it as far as it affects the people in the country and I mind it very much as far as the farming community are concerned. The farming community have been advised by the Minister for Agriculture and his Department to avail of leaflets published by the Department of Agriculture. Every matter appertaining to agriculture and to diseases in animals and also anything in the way of crops and crop cultivation is dealt with in Departmental leaflets. Even during the time that we were governed by an alien Government all the people had to do was to write a letter to the secretary of the Department of Agriculture and they got replies.

Now, there are other people that I have in mind far more than Deputies, or even much more than the individual who writes a letter once a year. I have in mind what I might term the indispensable person in the locality who is regarded as a good scribe and to whom a number of people go to write letters on their behalf. Such persons are very beneficial, not merely to the people on whose behalf they write, but because of the detailed manner in which they state the case on behalf of the individual. They are also very helpful to a Government Department. They are just as indispensable, in fact, if not more so, to a certain area around them and to the people living in it as would be any Deputy. They have written letters to the Department and they have not had to stamp them, but now they will find it very difficult to say to those people who come along to them "Well I have to pay 2½d. now for a stamp for this letter," because they have not been accustomed to do any such thing. People like that who are doing work of great public utility should not be called upon to bear a burden of this kind. I ask the Minister, in view of the fact that it will only bring in a very small amount of revenue, to reconsider this matter and leave things as they were. It is an old saying in Irish: "Ná déan nós, ná bris nós"—do not make a custom, do not break a custom.

So far as the telephone service is concerned, I believe the Minister should go all out to see that remote country districts are served. I am sure he realises why that appeal has been made to him by Deputies on all sides. In remote country areas people find themselves out of touch with towns and they are perhaps far removed from a Garda Barracks. Very often they have occasion to telephone for a doctor or perhaps for an ambulance. I know in the southern part of my county, from Loughrea to Woodford, the area is very badly served. In some cases a phone message from Tynagh has to go to Limerick and through Maryboro' before it gets to the city of Galway. The Minister should see to it that priority will be given in a case like that.

During the emergency and in later years there was the excuse that wire and other equipment was not available. I do not know what the position is now regarding these materials, but I expect there is a very big improvement. In these circumstances I suggest that remote county areas should have first claim on telephone installations.

There is also this question of a Sunday service. In most parts of the country if a person wants to telephone, say the Central Hospital in Galway, for an ambulance or a doctor, there is no chance of getting a telephone message through. In urgent cases people have to cycle several miles to a Garda station to telephone. There should be certain hours, if not a continuous service, in nearly every rural area in the sub-post offices where we have telephones; there should be a service from 10 to 2 or whatever hours the Department might think most convenient to enable people to send telephone messages on a Sunday. As it is, they are completely cut off on Sunday, and that is not a good service.

I agree with the point mentioned by Deputy Burke regarding auxiliary postmen. They give long service in many cases. They are retired at 65, but in the intervening period until they reach 70 they are not entitled to a pension. The Department should consider making pensions available to those people. I hope the Minister will give that matter his serious consideration and press it strongly on the Government.

Mr. McGrath

Like other Deputies, I would like to protest against the increase in postage brought in during the year. The stamps on ordinary letters have been increased from 2d. to 2½d. One would think that would be sufficient of a burden on the people without this latest imposition that we have had to-day. It looks to me as if the Government are out to grab every halfpenny they can. They try every means to get the money in. I was listening to Deputy Burke and I can bear him out, that people write several letters to Departments without getting a reply. If they have to put 2½d. on every letter they write to the Department it will mean a lot of money. I know of several cases where people got no reply until a Deputy wrote for them. The Minister should be a little generous in paying out some of the money he is getting.

Like other Cork Deputies I have been approached to ask the Minister to deal a little more liberally with temporary labourers who work around the City of Cork. I brought this matter up on the debate on Social Welfare and I pointed out where men living in the City of Cork under city conditions have to take buses to work in places outside the city and they have to pay the increased fares in doing so. They go to work outside the borough and they are asked to accept £3 3s. a week, while men working alongside them, permanent labourers, get £5 8s. The people who refused to work under those conditions were knocked off the dole. That is a very bad policy, especially for a Labour Minister. It is no use the Minister telling me that those conditions existed before. The Minister increased postage and everything else and I am sure he cannot stand by, either publicly or privately, and blame the Minister for Finance.

If I remember correctly, last year Deputy Davin stated that the Labour Party accepted responsibility for appointing the present Minister for Finance because he was a man who knew the value of the £. The Labour Party, therefore, must accept responsibility for any economies practised by the Minister for Finance. I think it is entirely wrong—I do not care whether the Minister has or has not a sneering smile on his face—to expect men from the City of Cork to go out and work side by side with the permanent labourers of the Post Office and expect them to work for a couple of guineas a week less.

Last June 12 months I put down a question to the Minister about making the Cork Post Office a Class I office. He said that the type of work down there, and other matters, would not permit him to do that under the regulations. If you can break one regulation you can break another. Outside of Dublin, Cork Post Office is the biggest post office in the country. There is a tremendous volume of work done there. There is a 24-hour service. All the transatlantic mails are dealt with there. The postmaster is paid as a Class I postmaster. I think this office is entitled to rank as a Class I office.

A little over two years ago the contractors started building the new telephone exchange in Cork. They materially altered the whole structure. I think it is opportune now to make still more improvements. The general office and the parcels office are a disgrace to a city like Cork. There is only one entrance to the General Post Office. It is about time these defects were remedied. There is plenty of space available to carry out the necessary improvements.

It is extraordinary that one cannot send a telegram from the post office in Brian Boru Street. Next to the General Post Office, it is the most important post office in Cork. Yet one cannot send a telegram from there. If one is in that part of the city one must go down to the railway station in order to send a telegram.

There is urgent need for more kiosks in the suburbs. Questions were put down here during the year about these kiosks. We were told that they had been approved by the officials of the Department in consultation with a sub-committee of the corporation. We got that reply month after month. Ultimately, it was discovered that the officials had not met the sub-committee of the corporation since 1936. They only met them once then.

During the past 12 months about four kiosks have been erected in Patrick Street; and in the neighbourhood of the Grand Parade, the General Post Office and the South Mall there are 11 kiosks within 100 yards of each other. People in the suburbs who need kiosks have none at all. I suppose it is considered a good advertisement for the Government to put them all in the principal streets where everyone can see them. I think they would be appreciated much more if they were erected in the suburbs where they could be availed of for calling doctors, nurses, ambulances, or the fire brigade. We had a very serious outbreak of fire in Cork a couple of years ago in which some people were burned to death. No telephone was available. I think the Minister should put these kiosks where they are really needed and he should shift some of those in Patrick Street out into the suburbs. I believe the city manager and the town planning committee were never consulted when these kiosks were erected on the footpaths in the principal thoroughfares.

I think, too, we should have more stamp machines in some of the sub-post offices. We have them in the General Post Office. If the sub-post offices are closed the people must go into the centre of the city in order to get a 2d. and a ½d. stamp. Surely, it ought to be possible to supply more of these machines now.

I put down a question to the Minister earlier this year about importing poles which were already dressed. He told me that they had been unable to get undressed poles at that time. Since then more dressed poles have come in with the result that men have been done out of employment. Hitherto, these poles came in with the bark on and men were employed dressing them. I think the Minister should discontinue the present practice.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I think Deputy McGrath made a very sensible suggestion in regard to the erection of telephone kiosks. We have cause for complaint in Dublin. There are telephone kiosks in all the principal streets. Not alone that, but quite close to them one will see notices on shops: "You may telephone from here." When one goes to the working-class districts, such as Cabra, there are no kiosks. There are no private phones and no shops displaying notices. I think the Minister should pay serious attention to the recommendation made to him. Kiosks should be erected in the working-class districts. If one journeys from O'Connell Street, to North Dublin one will find kiosks every half-mile, or so, on the way out to Cabra. These kiosks should be erected for those people who have not access to shops from which one may telephone or who have no private phones available to them. It would be very serious for the people in West Cabra if there was a fire, a robbery or a murder and they had to go down as far as Cabra Road in order to phone for assistance. If one wants to use the kiosk at Cabra Road during the day one has to queue up. I would recommend to the Minister that he should erect two kiosks instead of one. I do not think the expenditure would be excessive. I think that it would save expense, and it would relieve somebody else who might turn up to make an urgent call and who has to wait outside if there is another person in the kiosk. I know that there is a five minutes time limit but that limit can be beaten. It is just like every other regulation. Somebody is always able to find a way out of all the great laws that an Assembly like this enacts. A person who goes into a telephone kiosk, if he wishes to carry on a conversation beyond the time limit, need only ask the person with whom he is carrying on the conversation, to ring him back, after the time limit has expired and, in this way, the conversation can be renewed indefinitely. There is no way of getting out of that but I suggest to the Minister that he should try to provide further facilities by erecting a second kiosk in the same district. In my view, no kiosk should be erected in future except in working-class districts.

There is one other Department under the control of the Minister about which we have heard a good deal recently, and that is Radio Éireann. People pay to listen in, and in the general sense, one would be inclined to think that when they pay, they propose to listen to their own station but if you happen to pass a house where there is a good radio set, you find that instead of listening to Radio Éireann, they are listening in to an American or English station.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is a separate Vote. Wireless broadcasting is not being discussed on this Vote and has not been discussed so far. It will be taken later.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

In that event I shall not delay the House further. I again appeal to the Minister that in erecting telephone kiosks, he should pay special attention to working-class districts where they are very badly needed.

Mr. Sheridan

There are just two matters to which I should like to refer before the Minister replies. One is what I might call the innovation, with which we have been made acquainted this evening in the Minister's statement when he announced that he would insist that all letters going to Departments should in future be stamped. I think that is ridiculous, particularly coming from a Labour Minister. I think it is ridiculous in this respect too, that most people who write to Departments do so because it is a cheap method of having something investigated, and for the investigation of which they are not able to pay. I think that the State should be prepared to grant them at least this one privilege.

Another matter, to which I should like to refer, is the question of public telephones in sub-offices. We were promised many years ago that no sub-office would be left without a telephone. There are many sub-offices in my constituency which are still without telephones. As a matter of fact, I am living adjacent to a sub-post office and, yet, if I want to make a telephone call, I have to travel a distance of about six miles, notwithstanding the fact that a line of communication, with which a connection could be made to that sub-office, is only about half a mile distant from that sub-office. I think the public are entitled to a much better service in the matter of telephones than they have been getting from the Department. To my mind telephone equipment must be much more plentiful to-day than it was during the period of the emergency and I think it is now up to the Department to redeem at least some of their promises with regard to making telephones available for everyone, even the poorest in the community.

Mr. Everett

I appreciate very much the very kind remarks made in regard to my Department, the officials and myself in connection with the administration in the last 12 months. I am very pleased to see such interest displayed by all Parties in this House in what I consider one of the largest business concerns in the State. I think it very important, from the taxpayers' point of view, that the representatives of the taxpayers, who are here as Deputies, should submit their criticisms which I welcome when they are constructive. I shall see that the many suggestions Deputies have made will receive the careful consideration of the Department.

Deputy Little has asked for my views in connection with the building programme. He must know that I am at least as keen on that programme as he was himself. But he was faced with difficulties and I am faced with similar difficulties. Although we are a Government Department, the Minister for Industry and Commerce ties us down to the same regulations as a private individual. A Government Department cannot secure any extra allowances for the erection of post offices or other buildings in excess of the ration allowed, if such schemes would interfere with the general progress of housing or hospital schemes. If the Deputy would mention any particular office he has in mind, I should be only too anxious to supply him with any information in my possession. We have some large schemes in progress, repairs are being carried out and plans are being prepared.

The Deputy mentioned Pearse Street. I can assure him that developments in the postal services have been such that even after all the work that has been going on there, the Pearse Street office may not be suitable for the purpose for which it was intended. The preliminary plans were prepared on a certain basis but it is now clear that with the development that has taken place in postal services in recent years, a sorting office there would be inadequate to meet the position, so the plans have had to be altered. Consultations are going on regularly. I might delay the House unduly were I to go into detail in regard to the plans that have been prepared for 1949-50. Board of Works' architects devote a large amount of time to the Post Office in the preparation of plans for repair and reconstruction of offices, the securing of new sites and the planning for works on these sites when the work can proceed. I can promise the Deputy that I shall give his suggestions in connection with Appendix C of the Estimates careful consideration. He knows there is some difficulty in connection with that matter.

Mr. Lemass

That is some information for Deputy O'Leary.

Mr. Everett

We shall try to deal with Deputy Little first. He has asked me a question about the Telephone Capital position. Up to the present we have spent about £5,200,000, and there is a balance available of £4,320,000. The completion of the contract for Cork cable alone will reduce the balance by about £2,000,000. So far as I am concerned, I lose no opportunity for spending money on the development of the Post Office service in order to give business people and the ordinary public what they are entitled to, having three things in my mind (1) the employees, for whom I am trying to do what I can; (2) the service to the public; and (3) the ability of the taxpayers to meet my demands. I believe that we can give a better and more economical service than we have given before. That is why I welcome suggestions from all Parties in the House. I look upon the Post Office as a business concern and I hope a large number of business people will follow the example of that service. In this case we have the workers, the people who have knowledge of the service, from the telegraph boy upwards. All of them have practical experience. These are the best men to run any business. We have Deputies as the custodians of the taxpayers' interest to criticise and make suggestions as to how improvements can be made in the development of the concern. For that reason, I am very glad to see the interest which was taken in this Estimate to-day.

Deputy Briscoe criticised the whole Department. He complained that we were not providing telephone call offices in rural areas. I mentioned that 7,000 telephones had been installed in the last 15 months, but these were not all confined to Dublin. Of these up to 4,000 were installed in the rural areas. Deputy Briscoe asked was it because it cost more to install telephones in the rural areas that we were not developing that service. If he had consulted my predecessor, Deputy Little, he would have been assured that the rental is the same in rural areas for people within three miles of an exchange, no matter how many poles have to be erected. There is no charge made for installation. In that respect, the terms are more favourable, I think, than those of the Electricity Supply Board. Priority is given in cases where a large amount of employment is given. In the case of any industry employing seven or eight or more people, we endeavour to facilitate the employer by installing a telephone, whether he lives in a rural or a city area.

Deputy Briscoe asked if it was necessary to mark letters going to Europe by air mail "Via air mail." We have made a public announcement in connection with that. These letters need not have any direction on them to that effect. The Deputy also referred to the air mail service to England. Since the 1st February last air mail correspondence for Great Britain is dispatched six times daily to London, Liverpool, Crewe and Glasgow. These dispatches are arranged in collaboration with the British Post Office and since then no complaint regarding the service has been made.

Deputy O'Sullivan inquired about the incremental scale for post office workers. The Deputy is aware that arbitration has been promised to civil servants. The Post Office Workers Union will be able to put up their case before the arbitrator and the incremental scale and other matters can be discussed.

Deputy O'Gorman, Deputy Lynch, Deputy McGrath and other Deputies referred to the urgent necessity for improving the delivery service in the Cork area. I announced some time ago that by the end of the year, under the reorganisation scheme, there would be a six-day delivery in districts outside Cork City and in Cork City area by the 1st September. The places that Deputy O'Gorman and Deputy Lynch referred to will have their letters delivered on six days per week.

Deputy Corry accused me of having a city mentality. I do not think I can be accused of that, considering that I want to develop the postal service in the rural areas. I agree with him and other Deputies that the same amenities must be provided for the people in the rural areas as in the towns and cities. In a few years time I hope, by the development of the telephone service, that a farmer, instead of wasting his time going into a city or town to order seeds, will be able to telephone to the seed merchant and have his seeds delivered by lorry on the same day. I hope that the farmer will have the same facilities as business people, because he is entitled to them. Probably inside three years many of the rural areas will be connected with the telephone service, as well as having a six-day postal delivery.

One complaint made was that deliveries started too early in the morning because the postmen were going by new time. Deputies forget that postmen have to travel a long distance on their routes, Probably, if Deputy Corry were at the end of a postman's route, he would complain that the letters were being delivered too late. However, we are endeavouring to facilitate the people in every way. The people in the rural areas who are depending on markets will have their daily deliveries and all these other facilities. I can assure Deputies that, the reorganisation scheme will not cost the taxpayer more money.

I shall consider sympathetically Deputy O'Gorman's point about introducing continuous attendance at the larger exchanges. With regard to Mitchelstown, we shall see if we can remove the grievance which he referred to.

Deputy Briscoe and other Deputies asked what was the additional revenue from the increased postage charges. In connection with that increase, we were faced with an increase in salaries and wages which cost £340,000 or £350,000. The extra revenue due to the increase in the postage rates is, I think, about £300,000. We had estimated for £200,000.

Deputy Ó Briain referred to the installation of a telephone in an area in his constituency. Like other Deputies, he complained about not having call offices in all the sub-post offices throughout the country. I agree with those Deputies who suggested that it is necessary to have a phone in call offices. By September we hope that our engineers will be in a position to consider the order of a priority in that matter. We have over 800 suboffices still without telephones. At the present time we cannot single out which particular area will get a preference. We can deal only with the most urgent cases on the priority list. I ask Deputies to realise that during the war we had a shortage of engineers. Even at the present time we are short of engineers and of skilled workmen so that it will take some time before we will be able to meet the wishes of all Deputies.

I appreciate, of course, that every Deputy is anxious to put forward the claim of his own district. I can assure Deputies that our consideration of these applications will not be based on Party lines but rather on the priority claims of an area. If our men are working in an area, and a person there is looking for a telephone, it will be put in. I hope that, when the phone is put into call offices, clergymen and doctors will also get the phone into their houses so that, when people go to the post office to make a call, there will be a phone in the house to which they want to make the call.

Deputy McQuillan said that we had a city mentality in the Department and were giving greater facilities to city people than to those in the rural areas. I hope I have convinced him that that is not the case. I want to tell him that, with the number of men at our disposal, we are giving greater consideration to the people in the rural areas than to the city people. No priority is being given to the people of Dublin. Naturally, big business people, factories and concerns of that sort are in great need of a telephone service. Our plan is that when a gang is working in an area we finish there and then go on to another one. I want to tell Deputies that, since 1947, we have a large number of applicants from the Ballsbridge and other Dublin areas waiting for phones. We will be unable to grant their applications until the automatic exchange at Ballsbridge is completed. You have people in these areas who are as badly in need of a phone as people in many of the rural areas. They see their neighbours in adjoining areas with a phone and yet they cannot get one in. The reason is that the exchange has not been completed. There is a great amount of work to be done in the Post Office; there is a reorganisation scheme to be carried out and, as I have said, with the shortage of skilled men, it is not possible to do, within a short period, all the things that we realise require to be done.

Deputy Hickey, Deputy Lynch and Deputy McGrath referred to the wages paid to casual labourers in the Cork areas. The normal arrangement is that we pay the same wage as that paid by other contractors in the area or by the county manager. I do appreciate that the Cork City area is small and that men who reside in the city, when they go to work outside the city boundary, have a grievance. We are examining that position. I can assure the Deputies that their representations will receive every consideration. I hope that we will be able to remove or to reduce some of the grievances which those men have at the present time.

Deputy Allen and Deputy Cowan asked some questions in connection with the employment of ex-servicemen. In the course of my statement to-day, I pointed out that during last year 116 ex-members of the Defence Forces were appointed as established postmen. I can assure Deputy Allen that no sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress has the right to employ a postman. They must send the names to the head postmaster, and he acts according to the instructions contained in the circular sent to men in his position. As far as we are concerned, we give a preference, all things being equal, to men who have served in the National Army.

Deputy Bartley referred to an established postman coming into an area and displacing a local man. These displacements are unfortunately taking place. I heard other Deputies ask that boys who pass examinations should be established. When they do pass examinations they are entitled to get a post when it becomes available. I have no alternative but to appoint them. There must be opportunities given to auxiliary postmen and temporary postmen. If they succeed in passing an examination, they are placed over and above those in a temporary capacity who fail to enter for an examination which is not a very severe test.

There were some points made in connection with the Cork Exchange. An appeal was made by all the Cork Deputies on behalf of the telephonists engaged in Cork on a temporary basis, that we should try and provide employment for them. Their cases will certainly be considered. We are not out to inflict hardship on girls who have been employed in a temporary capacity by bringing them to Dublin or elsewhere, especially if they have fathers and mothers who are solely dependent on them. We will try and find work for them in other places. We guarantee not to displace them, but will do our best to find other employment for them.

Deputy O'Leary raised a question about uniforms. The existing regulations dealing with that are rather complicated and I do not propose to go through them now. I understand that the question was raised recently by the Post Office Workers' Union and the matter is under consideration. At this stage I am not able to say what the decision is likely to be. The Deputy's remarks will, of course, be borne in mind.

There were many other points raised by Deputies. If I do not reply to them now I can assure the Deputies that their recommendations or suggestions will be considered and that if necessary we shall communicate with them. As regards the free postage of letters the proposal I am making is nothing new. I am a member of this House for the last 27 years and during all that time I never got a free postage stamp. I always had to pay postage on my letters unless I put them in the tray in the Dáil library for delivery. The Department has never given free postage to the public. I remember being at a committee one time and the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs pointed out that if you gave Deputies 20 or 30 franked letters, what would you do with a Deputy who never replied to any letter?

It is not a new thing. It is to deal with an abuse that is going on at the present time. I will state the case in connection with my own Department. It is not the poor people; they put their 2½d. stamp on any letter they post to a Minister or Deputy. If a farmer is going to receive a grant, he will make sure that he will put a 2½d. stamp on the letter. What happened in my Department was that it was the wealthy people, asking for a particular record to be put on or protesting against a particular record and wanting a particular singer in a record the following week. Who did not stamp their letters. Sixty-five per cent. of the letters which came in from people well able to pay, and which were not on State business but merely asking for certain concessions, were not stamped. I am sure Deputies will realise that Deputies themselves could have their letters delivered.

If a farmer writes to the Minister for Agriculture he will get an envelope sent back to him if a reply is necessary. The same will apply in the case of letters addressed to any other Minister. Do Deputies suggest that I should accept all these letters free asking me, as I have pointed out, to put on a particular record for the following week or abusing or asking why was not Bing Crosby put on instead of somebody else? I am sure that Deputy Corry does not agree that that sort of thing should go on. For 27 years many Deputies in this House have been writing to Minister and have stamped their letters. As I pointed out, there are people who have got into the habit now of using the Post Office, not on business but for other purposes. It is not confined to any one Department. I am not trying to save Ministers or Departments or to prevent Deputies from writing to Departments. I am only putting the case fairly to the Deputies and I am sure they will agree with me that it was never intended that we should be delivering letters free which are not on State business merely because the envelopes are not stamped.

Mr. Corry

If the Minister will allow me. Our case is not a case of Deputies. Our case is the case of the ordinary man down the country who has a right of free access to Government Departments. That is the right of any citizen and I am warning the Minister that he will find himself in more hot water over it.

Mr. Killilea

I would like to point out to the Minister——

An Ceann Comhairle

Does the Deputy want to ask a question?

Mr. Killilea

Yes. I just want to ask the Minister does he definitely state that he is not starting a new departure? Is he trying to put across this House that this has been in operation for years? I have been 22 years in this House. I know of nobody who ever had to put a stamp on a letter to a Department. I had not to do it. It is not for ourselves we are making the case. It is for the people throughout the country. It is a disgrace.

Mr. Sheridan

May I ask one question? Is it not a fact that, prior to the passing of the Constitution in 1937, letters going to Departments were marked "S.E."? Since the passing of the Constitution, letters going to Departments were marked "Éire". Was there not a general rule all over the country to that effect?

Mr. Killilea

And it required no stamp.

Mr. Sheridan

I would like an answer to that question.

Mr. Everett

We are not changing any law that has been in existence.

Mr. O'Rourke

You are imposing taxation.

Mr. Everett

How is it increasing taxation? If you are writing on State business——

Mr. O'Rourke

You are imposing taxation.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister did not interrupt the Deputies.

Mr. O'Rourke

But he is not going to put across things that are not true.

Mr. Hilliard

Did not the Minister for Agriculture advise people to write to him and not to put a stamp on the letter?

An Ceann Comhairle

That has nothing to do with this. The Minister.

Mr. Everett

If you read my statement you will see that this was originally arranged to apply only to correspondence on the business of the State. If you are writing on personal business, putting "Eire" on the envelope, you expect to pay for that. If you are writing in, as I said, for a change of record or for something else, you expect to pay for that.

Mr. O'Rourke

Who bothers about these things? Nobody bothers, as you know.

Mr. Everett

Deputy O'Rourke may not know about it living in Roscommon but, if you were in the Department, you would know.

Mr. O'Rourke

That is only one Department. What about all the other Departments of State?

Mr. Everett

Do you object, when writing to get a grant of £100, to put a 2½d. stamp on your letter?

Mr. O'Rourke

Why should we when we had the privilege?

Mr. Everett

Why should you do it, That is the mentality we are getting in the country.

Mr. O'Rourke

The Minister is not putting across this House—

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister should not be interrupted.

Mr. O'Rourke

He certainly will be if he is putting across falsehoods.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may not get the opportunity.

Mr. Everett

It is not for the sake of revenue we are doing it. Can Deputies give me any other way of putting a stop to abuse? We are not interfering with Deputies' rights. I am too long here. I appreciate and try to protect Deputies' rights.

Mr. O'Rourke

We do not mind about the Deputies.

Mr. Everett

If Deputy O'Rourke has such objection to it, I am prepared to reconsider it. I do not want to interfere with anybody. I only ask for the co-operation of Deputies to put a stop to the abuse existing in all Departments. I am sure I can count on your co-operation.

Captain Cowan

That is reasonable.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Is it true that at the moment every farmer has free access through the post to every Department? Is the Minister going to take that free access from him?

Mr. S. Flynn

He always had it, even under the British Government.

Mr. Everett

I will consider and help Deputies. I know their trouble and their difficulties. I know what they have to contend with but then I cannot give way to the public. If it is to meet Deputies I am prepared to meet them and discuss the matter and give them every facility.

Mr. Corry

We do not want to be met.

Mr. P.J. Burke

It is the public we are concerned with.

Mr. Everett

I am sure we are concerned with the public but you cannot expect me to let the public away with this licence.

Mr. O'Rourke

You are only asked to leave what is there, there.

Mr. Everett

It has not been there. The custom has grown up in the last few years.

Mr. O'Rourke

That is the first I ever heard of that.

Mr. Little

There is a system, which remains, by which Deputies can get printed envelopes and post them to the Departments. Is not that so?

Mr. Everett

Yes.

Mr. Little

That is not what we are concerned with at all. What we are really concerned with is the people of the country who are writing to the Department of Social Welfare and such like Departments. That is what we are concerned with.

Mr. Killilea

There may be abuses but not that much, anyhow.

Mr. Everett

I did put a case years ago that Deputies should get franked envelopes.

Mr. Killilea

Leave Deputies out altogether.

Mr. Everett

I am prepared to consider any reasonable proposal.

Mr. Little

It is really a matter for the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and the Department of Finance; we are not concerned with that.

Mr. Everett

I insist that the public must pay when they are writing on private matters to Government Departments.

Mr. Killilea

This is something new.

Mr. Everett

It is not, and if you consult my predecessor, Deputy Little, he will explain the law on the point and I am sure he will agree.

Mr. Killilea

But it was the practice.

Mr. Everett

It has been abused for the past few years.

Mr. Killilea

Every law is abused to some small extent.

Mr. Beegan

Is it not a fact that often Departments write to individuals and send them a franked envelope for the reply? Will the State in future put a stamp on such envelopes?

Captain Cowan

The Minister has said so.

Mr. Everett

If an individual writes to the Department about a grant the Department will enclose an envelope to be returned in due course. That is on business of the State, but, when it is private and personal business it is a different matter; you have to separate that from the business of the State. Where it is the business of the State, there will be no change.

The debate was carried on in a friendly atmosphere, Deputies of every Party trying to help. They made some valuable suggestions, which will be duly considered. I am merely trying to put my case before the House and I ask Deputies to take a reasonable view of it. My predecessor knows the trouble. The whole case is made on behalf of the person in the country who writes to a Government Department for a grant. That person will not be interfered with because if he writes to the Department, he will be sent a form and a franked envelope and it will not cost that person anything because it is on State business.

Mr. Killilea

But the first letter will cost something.

Mr. Everett

If a man is looking for a grant of £200, he will not object to putting a stamp on the first letter. I ask Deputies as reasonable men to help me in this matter and to put a stop to abuses.

Mr. Killilea

They are very small.

Mr. Everett

I am not changing the law. I brought this matter forward in a democratic way and I gave Deputies a right to express their views. Now Deputies on the Opposition Benches are putting up every obstacle. If I had made an Order doing this—and as a Minister I would have power to make an Order without acquainting Deputies —it would be a different story. If Deputies are prepared to submit suggestions, these suggestions will be considered. I shall endeavour to meet the wishes of the House in every way.

Mr. A.P. Byrne

The Minister referred to franked envelopes being used by people in certain circumstances. Will he arrange for a supply of such franked envelopes in every post office or at every Garda station, so that any person who wishes to write to a Government Department will be able to get that type of envelope?

Captain Cowan

I could make a better suggestion to the Minister. Where a person wants to transact State business, he could write to the Department and ask them to send him down a franked envelope.

Question put: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."

The Committee divided:—Tá, 62; Níl, 59.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal T.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Dan.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Brennan, Thomas.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Butler, Bernard.
• Carter, Thomas.
• Childers, Erskine H.
• Colley, Harry.
• Collins, James J.
• Corry, Martin J.
• McGrath, Patrick.
• Moran, Michael.
• Moylan, Seán.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Ormonde, John.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• Rice, Bridget M.
• Crowley, Honor Mary.
• Davern, Michael J.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• De Valera, Vivion.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Friel, John.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Gorry, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kilroy, James.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• Lahiffe, Robert.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick J.
• Lydon, Michael F.
• Lynch, John.
• McCann, John.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Ruttledge, Patrick J.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Mary B.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Walsh, Thomas.

Níl

• Beirne, John.
• Belton, John.
• Blowick, Joseph.
• Browne, Noel C.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Byrne, Alfred.
• Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
• Coburn, James.
• Cogan, Patrick.
• Connolly, Roderick J.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Costello, John A.
• Cowan, Peadar.
• Crotty, Patrick J.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Maurice E.
• Donnellan, Michael.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Esmonde, Sir John L.
• Everett, James.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Finucane, Patrick.
• Fitzpatrick, Michael.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Flynn, John.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Halliden, Patrick J.
• Hickey, James.
• Hogan, Patrick.
• Hughes, Joseph.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Kinane, Patrick.
• Kyne, Thomas A.
• Lehane, Con.
• Lehane, Patrick D.
• McAuliffe, Patrick.
• MacBride, Seán.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• McQuillan, John.
• Madden, David J.
• Mongan, Joseph W.
• Murphy, Wm. J.
• O'Gorman, Patrick J.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Leary, John.
• Palmer, Patrick W.
• Pattison, James P.
• Redmond, Bridget M.
• Reidy, James.
• Reynolds, Mary.
• Roddy, Joseph.
• Rooney, Eamonn.
• Spring, Daniel.
• Sweetman, Gerard.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy; Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Kyne.

Question declared carried.

The Taoiseach

In those circumstances I suggest that we adjourn until to-morrow morning to enable us to consider the position.

Progress reported.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.35 p.m., until 10.30 a.m., on Friday, 8th July, 1949.