Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 26 Oct 1949

Vol. 118 No. 1

Transport Bill, 1949—Second Stage.

I move that the Bill be read a Second Time. Before asking the House to accept the principle of this measure I propose to outline, as briefly as I can, the sequence of events which have led to its introduction. Shortly after taking up office I was informed by the chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann that the company had incurred a loss of over £800,000 in 1947 and that he then estimated that the loss for 1948 would be £1,250,000. In fact, this estimate proved to be somewhat too low, as the deficit actually incurred on the year's working was £1,400,000.

The measures which the company considered necessary to remedy the position included:—

(1) Dismissal of 2,500 men by reductions in maintenance;

(2) closing down of branch lines, involving further disemployment, possibly amounting to 1,000 men;

(3) increasing fares to road and rail passengers and raising freight charges on road and rail;

(4) restriction on privately operated road transport.

These proposals were so drastic that they could not be accepted by any Minister without the fullest investigation.

At the same time the following list of capital commitments had been entered into or were about to be incurred by the company:—

Railways

£

Locomotives

6,000,000

Wagons

2,225,000

Coaches

3,000,000

Central Passenger

Terminal

750,000

Spring Shop, with plant

106,000

Tool Shop, with plant

62,000

Development at North Wall (L.M.S.)

70,000

Waterford Wharfand Store

80,000

Limerick Wagon Shop

280,000

Running Shed, North Wall

80,000

Kingsbridge Goods

40,000

Track alterations, etc.

500,000

Train lighting

40,000

Suburban Services

560,000

13,793,000

Omnibus Section

Store Street Station

338,000

Broadstone Shops

900,000

Garages

500,000

Chassis Shop, with plant

356,800

Buses

905,000

2,999,800

Road Freight Section

Lorries

300,000

Containers

63,000

Trailers

40,000

Furniture Repository

40,000

443,000

TOTAL

17,235,800

I was not satisfied that this programme of huge expenditure was necessary, nor was it shown to my satisfaction that if it were carried out it would put the company on a self-supporting basis.

After the Minister for Finance and I had discussed the situation with the chairman and directors of the company, I made a full report to the Government who gave very anxious consideration to the whole matter and came to the conclusion that the affairs of the company should be investigated by the most competent person available for the purpose. We were extremely fortunate in securing the services of one of the greatest experts in road and rail transport administration. Sir James Milne is an Irishman who in a career of high achievement had attained the position of general manager of the Great Western Railway in England in 1929 and had held that position until the railway was nationalised. He was also chairman of Pickfords, Ltd., the road transport company. He has, in the course of years, carried out many transport inquiries and has been consulted by Governments in other countries on transport problems. When requested, he readily undertook the onerous task of examining and reviewing the position of rail, road and canal transport and reporting on the steps it might be necessary or desirable to take to secure:—

(a) the greatest measure of coordination of rail, road and canal transport;

(b) the restoration of the financial position of the public transport companies; and

(c) the most efficient and economical transport system.

To collaborate with him in his task he brought together a team of experts possessing experience and qualifications in transport so wide and varied that I doubt if such a concentration of knowledge and ability was ever before brought to bear on the transport problems of any country in the world. These consisted of a former vice-president, London, Midland and Scottish Railway, who had been a past president of the Institute of Transport; a former chief accountant, London and Northern Eastern Railway; a former general manager and at that time director of Hay's Wharf Cartage Group (including Pickfords, Limited, and Carter Paterson and Company, Limited); a chief engineer, western region, British Railways, who was a vice-president of the Institute of Civil Engineers; a chief mechanical engineer, southern region, British Railways, who was a past president of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers; and an assistant to the chief accountant, western region, British Railways. Let me place on record again the Government's appreciation of the work of these men and of the speed with which they submitted such a comprehensive report.

In view of the importance of completing the inquiry at the earliest possible date it was announced in the Press that it would not be possible to hold public sittings to hear evidence, but that written submissions from interested parties would be considered, and representations were made by the following 23 bodies:—

Clara-Banagher Branch Railway Committee. Cork Chamber of Commerce. Dublin Carriers' Association (1938). Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Engineers' Association. Messrs. Arthur Guinness, Son and Company Limited. Irish Engineering and Foundry Union. Irish Farmers' Federation. Irish Licensed Haulage Contractors' Association. Irish Lorry Owners' Association. Irish Railwaymen's Union. Irish Transport Stockholders' Association. Labour Party. Limerick Chamber of Commerce. Limerick Harbour Commissioners. Merchant Lorry Owners' Association. National Executive of the Irish Live Stock Trade. National Union of Railwaymen. Railway Clerks' Union Tramore Development Association. Waterford Chamber of Commerce. Waterford Harbour Commissioners. Wicklow Urban District Council.

Numerous comments and suggestions were also sent in by individuals and these too were given consideration.

As a preliminary to the inquiry, questionnaires were sent to the principal public transport undertakings as to the scope and activities of their organisations, and the information thus obtained formed the basis for subsequent discussions with the representatives of these undertakings. Sir James and his colleagues have expressed their appreciation of the full and informative replies received in response to the questionnaires and to all subsequent inquiries. In particular, the chairman, general manager and other officers of Córas Iompair Éireann afforded them every assistance in a detailed investigation of the company's affairs and made available for inspection all relevant books and records of the company.

I think it cannot be gainsaid that every opportunity, consistent with the necessity for completing the inquiry quickly, was afforded to all interests concerned.

After an inquiry that was conducted with a speed which must be regarded as unique in matters of this kind, the report was submitted to me in December, 1948, and made public immediately.

I do not propose to take up the time of the House by outlining in detail the recommendations of the inquiry. In order, however, that Deputies may be enabled to appreciate fully the issues involved, and the reasons underlying the approach to the problem, embodied in this measure, it is necessary that I should give as briefly as I can an account of the main conclusions arrived at by Sir James Milne and his colleagues.

The experts considered that the services provided by Córas Iompair Éireann are the backbone of the present public services and that these services form the natural foundation for future development. They felt that it was wrong in principle that the affairs of such a large undertaking should devolve almost entirely on the shoulders of one individual, the chairman; they recommended that two additional Government nominees should be appointed and that the board as a whole should be made responsible for the administration of the company's affairs, reserving only to the Government directors the right to veto capital expenditure.

The report examined in detail the functions and operations of the various departments in the company and made recommendations as to changes which the experts considered would improve services to the public and iead to more efficient and more economic results in working. They suggested certain improvements in the headquarters organisation of the company and in the organisation of the various districts handling the traffic, both road and rail. They examined in detail the work and organisation of the civil engineering and mechanical engineering departments; their recommendations for the better working of these departments, as indeed of all other sections of the company's activities, will be a guide and directive to the technical staffs of the company for many years to come. They have dealt also with the company's whole financial position and have made many recommendations.

They have made specific recommendations:—

(1) for the setting up of a central highways authority, the main purpose of which would be the equalising of the basis of track costs on the operators of road, rail and canal transport;

(2) for the future of the Great Northern Railway and other cross-Border undertakings;

(3) for the operations of the Grand Canal Company which they considered should be absorbed into Córas Iompair Éireann;

(4) for modifying the system and basis of licensing of road vehicles.

I will refer later to the recommendations made in the report on these particular items.

The report was severely critical of the policy of the board of Córas Iompair Éireann and the control it exercised, particularly in the matter of capital expenditure, and the findings confirmed the doubts present in the minds of the Minister for Finance and myself as regards the wisdom or necessity of undertaking the projected capital developments. The opening words of the report on this matter are:—

"Capital expenditure amounting to £5,325,000 has been authorised by the board between 1st January, 1945, and 31st August, 1948. In submitting capital schemes for the approval of the board, no formal reports are made and no information appears to have been furnished in regard to the probable effect on net revenue or to show that schemes undertaken in the national interest were essential to an efficient and economical transport system."

In the literature relating to the affairs of this State and its public utilities, this paragraph will surely rank as a masterpiece of understatement. When one reads the detailed examination of the huge unnecessary capital commitments entered into by the board, in the absence in nearly every case of reports and advice from the various technical officers of the company, one cannot but be struck by the restraint which has tempered the objectivity of Sir James Milne and his colleagues.

Take, for instance, what is known as the central bus station at Store Street. The need for a central bus station in Dublin is unquestioned, but the central bus station at Store Street would occupy only the ground floor of the building. Above it have been erected five storeys of new offices for the staff of the company. The cost of the bus station might be anything from £100,000 to £150,000, but the cost of this new building now in progress (including the new offices for the company) is estimated at £850,000; and with furnishings, etc. the final cost may be nearer to the £1,000,000 mark. I might mention that expenditure to date is £320,000.

I feel that the offices at present occupied by the company's staffs, and indeed I am so advised, are reasonably adequate and satisfactory for their purpose. The decision to provide these new offices involved the company in £750,000 of capital which, even if it were available, could be better spent on the provision of better carriages and wagons on the railway system and to put more omnibuses on the streets of our cities.

In addition to this, it involves the company in an expenditure of £40,000 per annum to meet interest and rates over and above the cost to the company of its present office accommodation. The former chairman in his reply to the Milne Report stated:

"It is estimated that the annual charge for interest on the capital cost of the new building—rents, rates and taxes—will be less than the present charge and there can be no doubt that the centralisation proposed will produce much greater administrative efficiency."

From the figures supplied by the accountant to the company, I find that the estimated rents, rates, etc. for the new building would be £45,000 per annum, while the estimated saving by removing the offices from their present building would be £3,000 to £4,000 a year.

Let me quote the portion of the report dealing with the Store Street omnibus station and central offices:

"It is considered doubtful whether the provision at Store Street, Dublin, of a terminus for long distance omnibuses or the centralisation of headquarters offices there can be regarded as sufficiently important to have justified the company in embarking upon such an ambitious project, when capital resources are limited and large expenditure is required for the rehabilitation and improvement of railway facilities."

So much for this illustration of the cold, unimpassioned reasoning which characterises the report.

The experts stated with reference to the proposed introduction of diesel electric locomotives that in their opinion

"the use of large main line dieselelectric engines in Ireland is unwarranted, and in view of the high cost and untried performance of these engines, the design of which is still in process of development, it is recommended that endeavour be made to cancel the order placed for six large passenger engines, which appear likely to cost about £80,000 each."

I understand that the company is in negotiation with the suppliers of these engines for the sale of the engines when completed to some other transport undertaking. The expenditure incurred to date on this project is £192,000.

The report recommended the cancellation of an order placed for 94 boilers costing £280,000 because the experts considered that the existing output of new boilers in the company's workshops should be sufficient for replacement purposes having regard to the fact that the stock of locomotives was considerably in excess of requirements. This order has been cancelled and a claim for £25,000 compensation has been made on the company by the manufacturers.

Dealing with the company's proposals for new chassis maintenance and body-building shops at Broadstone at an estimated cost of £927,000, the report states:—

"A modified scheme for extension and rearrangement of chassis maintenance and body-building facilities should be prepared, making use of existing buildings on the lines suggested, entailing an expenditure of not more than £100,000."

This project had reached the stage where tenders were received for the work. The company, on my instructions and against their wishes, did not go on with the project. They had, however, incurred an expenditure of £32,000 on fees to architects, engineers, etc.

Dealing with the company's proposal to build a new factory at Inchicore to make motor chassis for the company, the report said:—

"The scheme to erect a new factory at Inchicore to manufacture motor chassis for the company's use and for sale cannot be regarded as an essential adjunct to an efficient transport system. The agreement entered into with Leylands in connection with this project places onerous restrictions on the company's powers to purchase, manufacture and market vehicles. If it is decided, in the national interest, to proceed with the project, it is recommended that the work should be entrusted to a separate undertaking. If the scheme is abandoned, chassis required for the company's own use could be assembled without any extension of existing facilities".

The programme for the proposed chassis manufacturing factory envisaged the production of ten chassis per week, this being the minimum economic production for a factory of that kind. The company's requirements for chassis for both omnibuses and lorries was estimated to be four to five a week, of which two would be allocated to lorries. The balance of the factory's output would have to be sold within the country as lorries to the company's competitors. The company would, therefore, be providing nearly three times as many lorries for its competitors as for itself. I accept the statement contained in the report that the scheme cannot be regarded as an essential adjunct to an efficient transport system. Nearly £300,000 has been expended on the project. This factory is nearing completion and if it is not utilised for the manufacture of chassis it can be used by the company for other purposes or disposed of to a suitable purchaser.

Similar critical reference has also been made in the report to the proposed expenditure of £190,000 for the reconstruction of Limerick Junction where a modified and less costly scheme would meet requirements; to the proposal to provide a new spring shop at Inchicore at a cost of £56,000, the experts being of opinion that the existing spring shop should be adequate for all purposes; and to the new wharf constructed at Waterford at a cost of £89,000 which the experts consider does not meet the urgent need of providing proper facilities for dealing with the existing traffic.

These various items are included in the list of contemplated works estimated to cost over £17,000,000 to which I referred earlier. In addition, there was a further project of which Sir James Milne was not aware, a project for the construction of a six-storey luxury hotel at Glengarriff. Land had been acquired and tenders for the building of the hotel invited. The lowest tender for the shell of the building was £507,000, and this was accepted by the company. It was estimated that the hotel, when completed, would cost approximately £1,000,000. The board, however, decided before the Milne investigation, to abandon the project, but not before an expenditure of £35,000 had been incurred, of which £24,000 consisted of fees for architects, engineers, etc., the balance being paid for the purchase of Roche's Hotel which was entirely demolished.

The condemnation of this huge programme for capital expenditure created the gravest doubts in the minds of the Government as to the feasibility of permitting the board as then constituted to continue to control the company's activities, and consequently it was decided to change the Government's representative on the board. This was done on the 18th February last. The retiring chairman was compensated in accordance with the terms of a contract he had made with the company.

At the same time it was announced that the Government proposed to introduce legislation to provide for:

(1) the acquisition of the public transport systems other than the Great Northern Railway Company;

(2) the appointment by the Government of a transport board;

(3) the provision of compensation for stockholders; and

(4) the making of arrangements to ensure that dismissals of staff on grounds of redundancy would not take place.

The present Bill is to give effect to this decision. The main purpose of the Bill is to bring under public ownership the undertakings of Córas Iompair Éireann and the Grand Canal Company, for the control of which a new board to be called Córas Iompair Éireann will be set up.

The amalgamation of Córas Iompair Éireann and the Grand Canal Company constitutes a further step in the process of unification which began with the amalgamations effected by the Railways Act, 1924. This measure is the logical outcome of the developments in transport in this country since the foundation of the State. When the Transport Act, 1944, was introduced, its sponsors claimed that it would lead to economical and efficient transport services. It is now generally accepted that the combination of private ownership and semi-State control have not achieved these results. The division of ownership and effectual control could be satisfactory neither to the nominal owners of the undertaking nor to the Government, whose responsibility it was to ensure that the public interest was served.

Transport is a vital public service, of concern to every individual in the State and intimately affecting every phase of the economic life of the country. We all know that the task of providing a national transport system in this country under modern conditions has proved to be beyond the scope of private enterprise, and also that the compromise between State ownership and private enterprise has not been successful. It is the Government's duty to ensure that such an important service is carried on as effectively and as efficiently as possible. We have come to the conclusion that the discharge of that duty demands State ownership of public transport. That conclusion has already been reached in many other countries. We have the example of countries such as France, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. In Britain also a solution of the transport problem is being sought through the medium of a Government-appointed Transport Commission.

Of the company's created capital of £18,000,000 some £14,500,000 debenture stock is guaranteed by the Government as to principal and interest, while the common stock amounts to £3,500,000. For the protection of its interests in the company the previous Government gave to the chairman in the 1944 Act special powers, but, as will have been seen, the results have not been satisfactory. Sir James Milne has recommended that two additional Government representatives should be added to the board and that the only additional power given to Government directors should be a veto on capital expenditure. This would still leave the Government representatives in a minority on the board, despite the preponderance of Government participation in the finances of the undertaking. This position would not be a satisfactory one from the point of view of the taxpayer or the Government.

There has been considerable speculation on the part of the public as to whether the future of the Great Northern Railway Company and the other cross-Border concerns would be dealt with in this Bill. A possible basis for an arrangement for the future ownership and operation of the undertaking was suggested in the Milne report.

I have had a number of meetings with the directors of the Great Northern Railway Company who have explained their financial position very fully to me. It was not possible to give them the subsidy or the financial guarantee which they were seeking, but I undertook to do all in my power to expedite the discussions regarding the future of the company. The chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann has been nominated by the Government to carry on preliminary talks with the chairman of the Ulster Transport Authority and their discussions are proceeding. It is still too early to anticipate the outcome, but it is hoped that an agreed scheme will emerge for decision by the two Governments. There are complex legal and other problems involved and despite the powers proposed to be taken in this Bill, I for one will not be surprised if further legislation is necessary before the matter can be implemented on any permanent basis.

The Government are fully alive to the anxiety which has been caused by the worsening financial position of the Great Northern Company, and to the uncertainty which prevails as to the future of the system. I have had a number of discussions with representatives of the unions in the matter. I can assure the House that so far as the Government are concerned, every effort will be made to find a speedy solution of the problem facing the company and its employees.

The Bill provides for the establishment of a board consisting of a chairman and five other members to be appointed by the Government. It is proposed that appointments will be for a period not exceeding five years, but that members will be eligible for reappointment. The terms and conditions of office and the remuneration of the members will be fixed by the Government. It is also proposed that the board shall be empowered to co-opt the general manager to be a member of the board. This will afford a useful link between the board and the management and is an arrangement for which there is a number of precedents in the railway world.

It is the view of the Government that a small board is more likely to yield the best prospects of efficient organisation. For this reason they have decided on a maximum of seven, the same number as the Electricity Supply Board. The over-riding powers of the chairman under the 1944 Act are abolished. A member of the board may be removed from office on stated grounds. In such cases the Bill requires that a statement shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas, giving the grounds for removal. It is proposed that the members of the board may not also be members of either House of the Oireachtas. The superannuation provisions for the board are similar to those for members of the Electricity Supply Board, but provision is made to enable the present chairman, if he is appointed chairman of the new board, to reckon his service with the State and with local authorities for pension purposes as is provided for in the case of a civil servant transferring to a local authority.

The Government have decided that the existing name Córas Iompair Éireann should be retained. The fact that Córas Iompair Éireann denotes the Irish transport system is only becoming fully appreciated abroad. The name has not been in use for very long and a change would tend to create confusion. There is the further consideration that a change would involve considerable expenditure in printing, altering signs and names on vehicles, and in other ways. In all the circumstances, and having considered various alternatives, the Government decided that they would not be justified in making a change. For convenience, the existing company is referred to as Córas Iompair Éireann (1945) throughout the Bill.

The duties of the new board are set out in Section 14 of the Bill as follows:—

"To provide or secure or promote the provision of an efficient, economical, convenient and properly integrated system of public transport for passengers and merchandise by rail, road and water, with due regard to safety of operation ... and for that purpose to improve in such manner as it considers necessary transport facilities so as to provide for the needs of the public, agriculture, commerce and industry."

It will be the aim of the board to provide the highest degree of service at the lowest charges compatible with meeting costs. There is a good deal of loose talk about "cheap transport" and a tendency to ignore the fact that transport charges must depend, to a great degree, on the extent to which the services are supported and to the cost of providing them. Fixed expenses constitute a large proportion of railway costs, and a fall in the traffic means a rise in the average unit of cost for the conveyance of the remainder. I anticipate that the new board will find many ways of achieving economies. We know that there is scope for achieving a greater degree of technical standardisation, and for the introduction of more efficient methods. Duplicate services can be eliminated; and there are good prospects for the development of touring services, for which there is a popular demand, not only by our own people, but by tourists, with consequential intake of foreign currency. These measures can only mature slowly and they will call for the greatest organising, managerial and technical skill; for the whole-hearted co-operation of the staff, and for the active encouragement and goodwill of the public.

The powers of the board are contained in Section 12. These have been set out in detail and at some length, as we are anxious that the board will not be impeded in their operations by legal or technical difficulties. The powers given to the board are wide, as they are bound to be, having regard to the extent of the tasks they are called upon to undertake. In the present transitional period and particularly having regard to the negotiations concerning the future of the cross-Border companies it is difficult to foresee all contingencies. For this reason a special provision is included under which additional powers may be conferred on the board by Ministerial Order. Such Order would require to be confirmed by resolution of each House.

I now come to the terms of compensation proposed for shareholders and stockholders of the acquired companies. As the House is aware, these were announced last May. It is proposed that compensation shall be effected by the issue of transport stock which will be guaranteed by the State as to principal and interest. Transport stock will be a gilt-edged investment combining security of capital with an assured income. The Government gave the fullest consideration to the question of compensation and at their request dealings in transport stocks of the companies concerned were suspended to avoid possible speculation. In settling the terms of exchange the Government had regard to the claims of the stockholders on the one hand and to the rights of the community on the other. It will be no surprise to me if the proposals in the Bill are criticised in some quarters as being too niggardly, and in others as being over generous.

The capital of Córas Iompair Éireann comprises approximately £14,500,000 guaranteed debenture stock and £3,500,000 common stock. Of the debenture stock, an amount of £1,550,000 is due for redemption on the 23rd January, 1950. In view of the proximity of the redemption date to the establishment date proposed in the Bill it was not considered necessary to provide for the conversion of stock due for redemption in January into transport stock. The liability to redeem those £1,550,000 debentures on the 23rd January devolves on the board by virtue of sub-section (4) (a) of Section 21 of the Bill. The balance of the debenture stock, amounting to £12,889,000, will be exchanged for the same nominal amount of guaranteed transport stock at the same rates of interest and redeemable in the same periods as the debenture stock for which it is substituted. The details are set out in the White Paper which has been circulated to Deputies. The debenture holders will, therefore, be in exactly the same position as regards capital security and income as they are at present. In dealing with the debenture stock the Government is doing no more and no less than honouring the guarantees given to the debenture holders under existing legislation.

It is proposed that the common stock of Córas Iompair Éireann will be converted on the basis of £80 of 3 per cent. guaranteed transport stock for every £100 of common stock. The common stockholders will thus receive a guaranteed income equivalent to about 2½ per cent. on their present holdings at their nominal value and they will have the assurance of being able to redeem their holdings of transport stock in full in 1975-85. This rate of compensation is based on the average of the highest and lowest of the stock exchange quotations in each month in the three years 1945-1947.

The capital of the Grand Canal Company comprises £36,000 of 3 per cent. irredeemable debenture stock; £332,950 of 3 per cent. non-cumulative preference shares and £332,950 worth of ordinary shares. The Bill proposes to convert all these holdings totalling £702,500, into 3 per cent. guaranteed transport stock on a £1 for £1 basis. As far as the debenture stock is concerned, no one will, I think, question the Government's decision. Debenture stock is in a class apart from share capital. It is really a loan, and the holders of debenture stock are creditors with a first charge on all the assets of the undertaking. Conversion at par merely preserves the existing loan at its nominal value. The interest on this debenture stock has always been paid in full by the Grand Canal Company.

As there are very few dealings in Grand Canal Company shares, the stock exchange quotations could not be regarded as a reasonable basis of acquisition. We found that the general level of market quotations for the three years 1945-47 was actually higher for the ordinary than for the preference shares.

The dividend of 3 per cent. on the preference shares has been paid each year since before 1922, while the dividend on the ordinary shares has averaged almost 3 per cent. over the last ten years. The company is in a relatively sound financial position. In addition to its canal it owns valuable property. Apart altogether from revenue from the carrying trade, the company derives a substantial income from rents. The company contended that even if they discontinued transport services they could earn dividends as a property-holding concern. The fact remains that the Grand Canal Company is a solvent undertaking with an excellent dividend record extending over many years. To offer the preference and ordinary shareholders of that concern compensation at less than par would, in my view, be unreasonable. I do not believe, on the other hand, that the shareholders have any ground for complaint. Their income will be assured and their capital position fully protected.

The Bill provides that the existing statutory controls on charging powers will not apply to the board. Control of railway charging powers by the State or by State-appointed tribunals dates from the last century. When railway systems began to expand about 100 years ago, it was deemed necessary to impose restraints in regard to rates and fares. These were designed to secure fair play for all transport users and to ensure that the interests of the community were not prejudiced by-excessive charging designed to produce exorbitant profits. In this connection it must be remembered that at that time railways enjoyed an effective monopoly in the transport field. Conditions to-day are different. The large-scale development of road transport has destroyed forever the monopoly position of railway undertakings and has turned profits into losses. The case for these restrictive controls is, therefore, no longer so strong as it was formerly.

Prior to 1922 the maximum railway charges in this country were fixed by the British Board of Trade and confirmed by statute. Legislation was enacted during the first world war empowering the appropriate Ministry to authorise from time to time increases in railway charges. That position remained until the passage of the Railways Act, 1924. The Railways Act, 1924, established the Railway Tribunal whose functions included the settlement of rates and charges—both maxima and minima—and the hearing of applications for alterations of rates. The Railway Tribunal was abolished by the Transport Act, 1944, which invested the Minister for Industry and Commerce with power to fix maximum rates and charges. This power was never exercised in regard to road merchandise rates. Railway companies were free to vary their charges within the statutory maxima approved by the Minister under the Act. It is the view of the Government that the most direct and business-like course is to leave this complex matter in the hands of the members of the board who, with the detailed knowledge that will be available to them and the technical advice that they can command, will be the best qualified to determine the level of charges from time to time. My belief is that a State-owned corporation of the kind we propose in this Bill, charged with the duty of providing an essential public service, should be invested with the greatest possible degree of autonomy, both commercial and financial, to enable it to carry on its business economically and successfully and without interference in its day-to-day management.

It will be the board's duty to fix its rates and charges equitably over the various classes of traffics. It will have to direct its energies towards a solution of that most complex of all charging problems, the determination of the relationship between rail and road rates so as to attract towards each form of transport the maximum volume of traffic of the kind for which the form is best suited and equipped. In that way only can the full benefits of a policy of co-ordination be attained. The powers of the board in regard to charges will be conditioned and governed by factors which, in my view, are a much more potent deterrent to excessive charging than any Ministerial controls such as have existed in the past. In the first place there will be the powerful influence of public opinion to which a State board will naturally give full attention; in the second place, there is the competition from licensed hauliers and from traders carrying their own goods which will also provide an effective independent check on the charging policies of the new undertaking. Thirdly, there is the sensitivity of traffics to alterations in rates. In transport operations as in other activities the point is quickly reached at which increased charges result in loss of business which can rarely, if ever, be recaptured. Finally, there is the legislative provision which will still remain which requires the undertaking to afford all reasonable facilities for traffic, and prohibits any undue preference for any person or any particular class of traffic. This does not preclude the company from quoting special rates where there is a substantial new traffic and in fact they have co-operated in this way with a number of our new industries.

Elaborate provisions were made in the 1944 Act for the setting up of a Transport Advisory Committee, the chief function of which was to advise the Minister for Industry and Commerce on any matters relating to rates and fares and conditions of carriage which he might refer to it. The committee seemed a good idea in theory. In practice it never functioned and, as the members of the new board will be competent to discharge any duties which might have been assigned to this committee, it is proposed to revoke the provision which established it.

The question of branch railway lines constitutes one of the most thorny of all transport problems in this country, and the difficulties are accentuated by the intense controversy which the mere mention of the problem invariably provokes. On this occasion I trust that Deputies, with the experience of transport developments over the last 25 years, will approach the problem dispassionately and consider whether the course proposed in the Bill is not the best in all the circumstances.

First, let us consider what has been the position in the past. Before the passage of the Railways Act, 1933, railway companies were perfectly free to close down branch lines except in those cases in which the legislation under which a particular line had been constructed provided otherwise. Between 1922 and 1933 services were discontinued in whole or in part on nine branch lines, of which eight belonged to the Great Southern Railways Company. The Acts under which these lines were constructed did not require that they should be kept open for traffic, and the company, accordingly, exercised its right to close them down. The Railways Act, 1933, provided that no line could be closed down except under the authority of an Order made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, alternative road services to be provided, and any staff displaced to be compensated. Fourteen such Orders were made by my predecessor between 1933 and 1945, of which eight relate to lines now owned by Córas Iompair Éireann. In 1944 an emergency powers Order was made which authorised the temporary discontinuance of rail services in view of the fuel scarcity then prevailing. This Order has not yet been revoked pending the enactment of the legislation which is now before the House. Services on many branch lines were suspended at varying periods during the emergency and in the spring of 1947, during the acute fuel crisis, services on many branch lines were temporarily discontinued. The services on a number of lines were subsequently restored but there are still a good many lines which are only open for live-stock fairs or for heavy seasonal traffic. That, then, is the general position in regard to branch lines up to the present.

The Bill provides that the board may, by order, terminate train services on any section of line, subject to certain conditions which are expressly laid down in the Bill. At least one month's notice must be given to the public; adequate road services must be provided in the areas previously served by rail; and employees whose conditions of service are worsened or who may lose their positions following on the termination of services must be compensated. These, in brief, are the provisions of the Bill relating to branch lines. There is nothing very startling or revolutionary in these proposals. The only departure from existing legislation now proposed is that the responsibility for an order for the closing of a branch line will lie with the board instead of with the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

The question of the retention or otherwise of a branch line must be judged in the first instance by reference to the public interest, and must also take account of economic factors. Looking at the problem dispassionately, Deputies will see that on the one hand heavy expenditure would be involved in the restoration of some of the branch line services; that the volume of potential traffic in some areas is small and is incapable of supporting both rail and road services; that in some cases railway stations are inconveniently situated, far from the towns; and that there is an increasing demand for new bus services. On the other hand, the value of the railway for heavy traffic such as beet and live stock is fully apparent to those of us who are in close touch with the agricultural community. The railways are also in a strong position to provide a cheap form of transport for heavy passenger traffic such as summer seaside services, excursions and pilgrimages.

The financial provisions relating to the board are dealt with in Part V of the Bill. The board is authorised to issue transport stock for the purpose of providing money for carrying out permanent works, for the redemption of transport stock, for the acquisition of any other transport undertaking, and for the other purposes for which capital moneys are properly applicable. The aggregate stock which may be issued for any purpose of capital works and for other purposes, excluding the redemption of transport stock and the acquisition of other undertakings is £7,000,000. This is the figure which was suggested in the Milne Report as the further capital which would be necessary for development purposes. The Bill provides for the guarantee by the State of all transport stock as to principal and interest. Issues of stock, except the substituted stock, will require the consent of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, given with the approval of the Minister for Finance. The terms and conditions as regards interest and redemption of such issues are subject to the approval of the Minister for Finance, and it is required that annual statements of stock issues shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. The Bill also makes provision for the establishment of a fund for the redemption of transport stock. The board will be required to keep all proper and usual accounts, and to furnish any further accounts or information which may be required. The audited accounts and the auditor's report will be presented to the Oireachtas. The appointment of the auditor is subject to the approval of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

The Government decision of February last regarding redundancy is implemented in Part VI. The Bill provides that the services of permanent employees, or of temporary employees with not less than four years' continuous service shall not be dispensed with on grounds of redundancy. Any redundancy which may exist will be met through normal wastage. Some cases may arise where no suitable alternative employment can be found for redundant workers, in which case provision is made for the payment of compensation. These provisions cover the case of any employee whose office may be abolished due to the amalgamation of the companies, and also provide for compensation for worsening of conditions on certain transfers. The existing superannuation schemes are being continued in the Bill and there is power to make new schemes or to revise existing ones. The House will appreciate that the staff provisions in the Bill are quite exceptional. I think it can be safely said that never in the reorganisation of any industry have the workers received more consideration than they are receiving under this Bill. Córas Iompair Éireann is being given a new lease of life, and an opportunity of adjusting its affairs in such a way that it can be run in the future on a sound economic basis.

We are confident that the workers, given this unprecedented measure of security, will co-operate wholeheartedly in the attainment of our common objective. The success of this nationalised undertaking is in their own interests; it also lies largely in their own hands.

Labour unrest and unofficial action by workers in withdrawing their services constituted one of the greatest menaces to the success of the undertaking. Every employee of the company is a member of one or other of the many trades unions that cater for the workers in the various branches of the transport industry. All of these unions are strong and well organised, under the leadership of men with wide experience in the trade union movement. These trade union leaders and their officials are fully capable at all times of conducting negotiations with the board by means of the machinery which, with their agreement, has been devised for the settling of all types of industrial disputes, and which if it proves inadequate or imperfect in operation can be amended after further consultation with them.

Unofficial strikes will have most damaging effects, because not only do they disrupt the services to the community, but if persisted in will inevitably lead to the downfall of the unions themselves. Such action strikes at the very foundation of collective bargaining and puts in jeopardy those rights which trades unionists in this country enjoy to-day as a result of the struggles and sacrifices of their forebears. I cannot, therefore, conceive any circumstances in which a lightning or unofficial strike in this undertaking can be justified. I will go further and say to the House, with all the responsibility of my office, that I am convinced that lightning and unofficial strikes in any public utility where satisfactory arrangements for conciliation and negotiation exist, can never be defended.

Before leaving the question of the provision which this measure is making for the workers, it might not be out of place to point out that the problems of all other categories directly concerned, viz., the stockholders, the staffs of the companies, the directors, have all been dealt with in a generous manner in the Bill. Each is being accorded the most liberal possible treatment consistent with the interest of the public, on whose behalf we are proposing to acquire these undertakings. I submit to the House that all are getting the greatest measure of fair play that we can ask the community to give them.

The remaining provisions of the Bill are, in the main, re-enactments of existing legislation which is applied in whole or in part to the board. If there are any particular matters which Deputies may wish to raise in regard to these sections, they can, I suggest, be discussed on the Committee Stage of the Bill. There is only one provision to which I would like to make special reference and that is Section 25 of the Bill, which empowers the Government by Order to transfer the Shannon navigation to the board. This navigation has been maintained by the Commissioners of Public Works, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce has certain statutory functions in regard to it. The Grand Canal Company is the principal user of the navigation and it is felt that it is a logical development to take power to transfer the responsibility for the navigation to the board.

There are recommendations in the Milne Report which are not provided for in this Bill. These are principally the proposal for the establishment of a central highways authority, the revision of the licensing arrangements for road vehicles, the problems of the Great Northern Railway and other cross-Border railway services. These matters, as well as those of the recommendations for the better administration of the affairs of Córas Iompair Éireann as have not yet been implemented, will be dealt with by the new board which will make recommendations to the Government regarding any further legislation which may be necessary.

I would like to emphasise as strongly as I can that I am fully alive to the importance of public transport to the agricultural and industrial community and, indeed, to every single individual in the State. With this in mind I circulated copies of the Bill, with a request for views and observations, to a number of bodies who have in the past shown themselves interested in transport matters. The response to my request was most heartening and I appreciate the keen interest and the helpful suggestions made.

In recommending this Bill to the House, I should like again to explain that it does not in itself purport to provide an immediate solution for the transport difficulties with which we have been beset for so many years. I recommend it, however, as an appreciable advance on the road towards a final solution. The Bill establishes the machinery and the organisation which, in capable hands and properly used, should bring efficiency and prosperity to our transport system.

It will not be denied that there is an unsolved transport problem here. The Minister presents his Bill to the House, not as a solution of that problem, but as a step towards a solution. Whether it is, as he described it, a step towards a solution or a further complication of the problem, is the question we are now going to discuss. My criticism of the Minister's speech in introducing this Bill was that he gave the Dáil very little help in answering that question. We had what, I think, was an unfair synopsis of proposals which the Minister says were made to him by the stockholder directors of Córas Iompair Éireann. We had an uncritical review of the observations made by Sir James Milne on the administration and plans of Córas Iompair Éireann. We had, for what it is worth, a promise from the Minister to make every effort to find a solution of the Great Northern Railway difficulty and an outline of the provisions of the Bill, not dissimilar to that contained in the White Paper which was circulated with it.

The Minister did not attempt to define the nature of our transport problem or to relate it to the proposals in this Bill in any clear way. I think the House is aware—at least those Deputies who were present when previous transport legislation was under discussion—that our problem arises almost entirely in connection with railway operation and it is concerned with the difficulty of keeping the revenue secured from the sale of rail transport services in relation to railway operating costs. It is, I think, desirable that that central point of the transport problem should be appreciated by the House if Deputies are to understand and to appraise properly the proposals in the measure which we are now discussing. It was the inability to solve that problem of keeping railway costs in relation to railway revenue, or railway revenue in relation to railway costs, which caused the financial problem of the old Great Southern Railways Company and I think it is correct to say that it has not been solved by Córas Iompair Éireann.

It is, however, unfair to those who were charged with the management of Córas Iompair Éireann to leave that bald statement unamplified. Córas Iompair Éireann was established in 1945 when the war was still on. It was established as part of a general scheme to bring into existence organisations which would have responsibility for post-war reconstruction measures, long before the war was ended, recognising that while the war was in progress or while the difficulties caused by the war continued to exist, they could do very little to fulfil their main functions. In fact, Córas Iompair Éireann never had a chance, because of the interruption of supplies and other difficulties caused by the war, of carrying through the organisation and re-equipment of transport services for which it was established. As the House knows, the acute emergency difficulties continued to exist until the end of 1947. They began to ease only in 1948 and by that time the management of Córas Iompair Éireann had begun to run into new difficulties.

The railway problem, which is the kernel of our transport problem, began with the development of the motor car. As the Minister said in his speech, before the advent of the motor car, each railway undertaking had an effective monopoly in the area in which it served and, consequently, was not merely assured of the traffic available but was in a position to charge rates for transportation, subject to certain statutory controls, which were economic, and covered operating costs and interest on invested capital. After the development of the motor vehicle, when omnibuses and motor lorries began to appear in numbers on our highways, the railways began to lose the high-grade traffic and came up against the dilemma, which they have been facing ever since, that if they charged economic rates for rail transportation, they lost traffic and if they tried to retain the traffic they had to cut the rates frequently to uneconomic levels.

I am not going, any more than the Minister, to review the aims and purposes of previous Transport Acts. All the transport legislation passed by this House from the Cumann na nGaedheal Act of 1924 to the Act of 1944 was aimed at remedying that situation which I have described, either by seeking economies, through amalgamations or otherwise, to reduce railway operating costs or else by controlling and limiting other transport operators to increase the volume of traffic available to the railway companies.

The 1944 Act went further than that. It amalgamated the G.S.R. Company, which then existed, with the Dublin United Transport Company, and it did so not solely for the purpose of securing economies through amalgamation. In fact, while there was greater flexibility and efficiency secured in the operation of the omnibus services, the actual economy resulting from that amalgamation was slight, because each of the companies operated as self-contained systems in exclusive areas. But the amalgamation did bring to the support of the national transport system the revenue secured from omnibus operation in Dublin.

There were other provisions in that Act, some of them important in so far as they were designed to strengthen the Road Transport Act of 1933 and to prevent, if possible, the numerous evasions of the provisions of that Act which had developed. But its main provisions were those which related to financial matters. It had been reported to the Government that the G.S.R. Company would not carry out any capital reorganisation. Even the ordinary maintenance of its system was impracticable because the company could not borrow the money. Its financial condition had deteriorated and other circumstances also operated to make it impossible for that company to borrow money. Nobody would lend any money to it, and it was quite obvious that if there was to be put into the national transport undertaking the new capital which was required, then certain changes would have to be made.

What the Act provided for was the putting behind the company of State credit. The existing debenture holders were given the assurance of a State guarantee of their interest, subject to their accepting a reduction of the interest rate, to which they agreed. It was made possible for Córas Iompair Éireann to raise money freely and cheaply by reason of that State guarantee, money which it was then considered would be required to finance the post-war capital reconstruction which was contemplated. Because of the utilisation of the State credit, because of the wider monopoly powers given to that undertaking, because of the general nature of the transport position as it then existed and was likely to develop after the war, the Act also provided that effective control of transport policy, so as to keep it in line with national economic aims, would be secured through the appointment of a chairman by the Government, a chairman with certain veto powers which would prevent the company acting contrary to the public interest as determined by the Government. It was also provided—and I want Deputies to note this point particularly—that because these powers were given to the company, because it exercised a monopoly position in transport, certain safeguards would be maintained which were regarded as essential to the public interest.

I have stated that the capital reorganisation, the re-equipment of the system which was planned and intended, could not be proceeded with until normal conditions of supply had been restored. That was recognised when the Act was being passed in 1944 and when the company was established in 1945. We had hoped, however, that the company's financial position would not deteriorate between its establishment and the restoration of normal conditions through the operation of emergency circumstances, and that it would emerge from the war period strong enough to ensure a rapid development afterwards. That hope was not fully realised, and in order to understand the position it is necessary to refer to it briefly.

It is true that, operating under emergency conditions, Córas Iompair Éireann made profits, even substantial profits, in 1945 and 1946. But 1947 was a very difficult year for the company. The Minister has referred to the acute coal shortage which developed. He might also have referred to the very abnormal weather which prevailed in the early part of the year and which curtailed railway operation and other transport services as well. Perhaps the best figure to give the House as indicating the extent to which the company was affected by these conditions is to mention the fact that the productive mileage operated, that is to say, miles run by revenue-earning trains, fell in 1947 to 5,289,000, as compared with 6,316,000 in 1946, and 1946, as the House knows, was an emergency year in which very restricted rail services only were possible.

Despite the fact that the company was authorised to effect a 20 per cent. increase in rates and fares in April, 1947, its gross revenue declined. Not merely had the company to face that contraction of earning power, but it also had to face enormous increases in its expenditure. Wage rates had been raised in 1946. In 1946 many of us were optimistic that the general level of wages and prices would settle down after the war to some 30 to 40 per cent. above pre-war. In fact, long before the repeal of the Standstill Order the management of Córas Iompair Éireann had made an agreement with the railway unions, an agreement which was to come into operation with the repeal of the Standstill Order, providing for an increase of roughly that size. In fact, as the House now knows, the rise in prices, which appeared to have ceased in 1946, accelerated in 1947, and we find from the latest report published that the level of wages is nearer 70 per cent. above pre-war than the figure we had in mind when the war was in progress. In 1947, therefore, Córas Iompair Éireann had to concede substantial increases in wages to all grades of transport workers and its total wage bill for that year exceeded the bill for 1946 by £668,000. Furthermore, fuel costs, instead of falling from the high war-time level, increased, and, even though the mileage operated by the company was substantially less in 1947 than in 1946, nevertheless its fuel bill was £161,000 more. Railway receipts in 1947 fell short of the expenditure on the railway by £996,000.

Then the company entered into 1948. Now, in 1948 the fuel crisis had passed and supplies had become more freely available. It looked as if it would become possible to proceed not merely back to normal peace-time transport working but even to some extent with the fulfilment of the reorganisation plans which had been made by the company in 1948, knowing and expecting that the abnormal factors which had limited its revenue from railway working in 1947 would not reappear, but knowing also that the increase in costs which had become effective in 1947 would continue in 1948, particularly the increase in wages. There may have been some hope of a reduction in fuel costs, but it was obvious that the increase in wage costs was permanent. In fact, the company reported at the end of that year that so far as railway working was concerned, the wages paid to workers represented 60 per cent. of its total expenditure and absorbed 72 per cent. of its total revenue.

The financial difficulties in which the company found itself at the end of 1947 were aggravated by the action of the present Government. I am not going now to discuss the motives which induced the present Government to take the line which it did at the beginning of last year, but there is no point in denying the fact that that line aggravated the company's financial position very seriously. The company were refused permission to raise their freight rates and passenger charges even in relation to the actual increase in costs resulting from the higher wages being paid, and not merely were they so refused the opportunity of expanding revenue but they were also told that they could take no action to effect a reduction in costs.

Who authorised the previous reduction in bus fares?

I authorised it in 1946 and the increase in 1947 on the grounds that the finances of the company appeared to justify those courses.

You could not see them?

If the Deputy wants me to concede that in 1946 I did not anticipate the financial crisis of 1947 I admit it. I stand in the same pillory as Sir Stafford Cripps and everyone else in the world in answering that charge. Now, why the Government took that line in the beginning of 1948 I do not know. The excuse given was that they had come into office, that they had been confronted with this situation and that they wanted time to examine it before coming to a decision, although it was quite obvious to them, from the information given to them by Córas Iompair Éireann, that the postponement of a decision was a decision in itself because it meant that the losses accruing to the company were going to be accentuated, and that the possibility of recovering these losses in the future was minimised. The Minister knew in March, 1948, because it was so reported to him by the chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann in a letter which has been published in the newspapers, that unless he could concede an increase in charges, an increase related to the increase in the company's costs, at the end of 1948 the company would have lost another £1,250,000. It may be that the Minister's attitude was to some extent influenced by prejudice. I think that is not unlikely. We can, all of us, remember the hectic debates in this House on the Transport Act of 1944. We remember that there was a general election fought on it. We know that the Parties now comprising the Coalition suffered a defeat on that issue; and it is not at all unnatural that they should feel a certain animosity against Córas Iompair Éireann, an organisation which was created as a result of that Act.

Was that an issue made by you in the country?

There was a railway shares tribunal also proceeding and, possibly, prejudice arose from the recollection of the humiliation which certain members of the present Government suffered before that tribunal. That, I think, was the main issue discussed by the Deputy.

In the country.

Deputy Lemass should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

A far more likely explanation is that they were influenced solely by political considerations because every member of the present Government and every Deputy supporting them came into this House after the election of 1948 bedecked with promises that they were going to reduce transport charges, to increase transport facilities, to increase transport employment and reopen every branch line and effect every other change in transport that the country required, even to restoring freedom of operation to private lorry owners. There was a group of contradictory promises, and the Minister no doubt realised early that he could not even attempt to carry out any of them, and so he postponed making any decision until the happy thought occurred to him of framing this Bill and of shifting the responsibility for the non-fulfilment of these election promises from the shoulders of the Government to the shoulders of a board yet to be established.

The transport problem to which I have referred and the financial difficulties created for Córas Iompair Éireann by the abnormal conditions in 1947 were aggravated into an unnecessary crisis because it was only by doing so that the Minister could hope to conceal from the public the failure of his Government to fulfil the promises made on its behalf by Ministers and Deputies. Córas Iompair Éireann reported to the Minister in March 1948 according to a published document— whatever the Minister may say they said in private——

What date in March?

March 13—that the company's financial difficulties were due solely to losses on railway operation, that the railway position which had resulted from these losses was due to the fact that revenue had not increased in proportion to expenditure and that if it were to attempt, with the Minister's approval, to increase its railway charges in relation to the increase in costs it would lose traffic and the position would not be improved. They expressed the view that, given sufficient traffic, railway transport was cheaper than road transport, even on a door to door basis, and on 1947 costs, that the country could be served without railways but at higher costs and with less security. Then they went on to say that if the railway was to be properly maintained, assistance which they called "outside" assistance was necessary.

They set out in their communication to the Minister three means by which outside assistance could be made available. The first was nationalisation. It is obvious that the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann were not speaking of nationalisation for the purpose of suggesting what appears in this Bill. They thought of nationalisation as, I think, most Labour Deputies intended—judging from hearing them speak here—as meaning the operation of transport services under a Government Department, under a Minister responsible to this House, with estimates presented to the House of annual expenditures and receipts coming in as appropriations-in-aid, the underlying theory being that transport facilities should be made available to meet the public need and that the financial consequences of their operation were less important than their adequacy.

The second course they suggested was subsidisation, and they pointed out, as I think most people who have considered out transport problems have already concluded, that subsidisation did not solve the problem of declining traffic and that, if adopted, would merely mean that transport facilities would involve a higher national cost. It does not make much difference to the community whether they pay for transport facilities through transport charges or through taxation. If they have to pay more under one or other or both headings then transport facilities are dearer and the effect upon economic development is the same.

The third course they recommended was restriction on other forms of transport. The Minister took no action upon their report to him.

Upon "their report"?

Upon the report of the chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann. Shortly afterwards he announced that he was going to establish an inquiry into Córas Iompair Éireann affairs and later in the year Sir James Milne was appointed to conduct it. I do not desire to discuss that report in any detail. I am not sure what value is to be attached to a report criticising the administration of the railway system by the Córas Iompair Éireann Board prepared by a person who never met that board, who never met the trade unions catering for railway workers, who was obviously wrong in many of the facts upon which he based his recommendations and who brought to the preparation of his report the mind of a British railway manager, retired no doubt, but undoubtedly influenced by the experience gained in the operation of a British railway company, a British railway company that was so efficient that the British Government nationalised it.

But he had railway experience.

I do not want to discuss that report, because in so far as he made recommendations bearing upon transport policy, they have each and everyone of them been rejected by the Government. At least I assume that the fact that none of them has been acted upon means that they have been rejected. I will deal later on with certain of the detailed criticisms of Córas Iompair Éireann administration, which Sir James Milne expressed in his report, but in so far as he made recommendations bearing upon policy, they have all been rejected by the Government with one exception and that is the acquisition of the Grand Canal Company, to which I will also refer later.

Sir James Milne did, however, get an occasional glimpse of the nature of our transport problem, which is fundamentally different from the transport problems of Great Britain. We never could have an efficiently run railway system copied from the British model. I am not at all sure that the whole error in railway organisation in this country, right from the beginning, has been the employment of British railway managers to operate Irish railway undertakings or companies. We have not got, and never can have, a density of traffic such as they have in Great Britain. We have not a similar industrial organisation, so that when Sir James Milne says it is not appropriate to a railway company to manufacture its own chassis, his viewpoint is clearly based on the experience that he gained as the manager of a company in Great Britain.

The absurdity of manufacturing for your competitors!

If competitors can buy the chassis in Great Britain, no doubt Sir James Milne will think it is a contribution to British prosperity. He did say this—and this raises a cardinal issue on transport policy upon which the Minister must declare himself:—

"The interest of individual traders should be subordinated to the interest of the majority, who have to rely on the services provided by public undertakings."

He made certain proposals in that regard, but I am not going to discuss these proposals. I think the essential problem with which this Dáil has always been faced when considering transport legislation was the extent to which we are going to subordinate the interests of individual traders to the interests of the majority who have to rely upon services provided by public undertakings. When we passed the Road Transport Act and imposed restrictions upon the operation of private lorry owners operating for hire we were not adopting a course that was politically popular. We had to recognise then that these restrictions upon private lorry owners operating for hire, in rural areas, were regarded unfavourably, particularly by the agricultural community.

It is still, I would say, a debatable point whether we should maintain, extend, or modify these restrictions, having regard to our experience of their operation, but there can be no doubt whatever that if we are to preserve the interests of the majority who must rely upon public transport services we will have to take action here or there which will be contrary to the interests of individual traders and consequently unpopular with them, and my charge against the Minister is that he framed this Bill, every section of it, with one idea in his mind, that he was going to do nothing which would be unpopular with any section. I have mentioned these earlier Transport Acts, the principles which underlay them, the aims they were intended to serve so that Deputies will understand the background against which these proposals have to be seen. It is necessary to have a grasp of that background and of the nature of our transport problem and the measure of success which attended other efforts to cope with it if we are to understand properly the proposals of the Bill and judge their adequacy and relevancy in relation to our present situation.

I have referred only to the railway problem of Córas Iompair Éireann. I think Deputies know that the road freight services of that company, their omnibus and other services, although they are all capable of improvement and capable of improvement both in regard to adequacy and efficiency as well as their revenue-earning capacity, do not constitute and are not likely to constitute in the early future any acute problem. There are certain proposals in this Bill and Deputies who like to read newspaper headlines may think that the important proposals are those which relate to changes in the constitution of Córas Iompair Éireann. They are of no importance whatever. The important proposals in this Bill, the only proposals in the Bill which have any bearing on the solution of the Córas Iompair Éireann railway problem are those which are intended to secure the removal of all the safeguards hitherto regarded as essential in the public interest against the possible abuse of the monopoly powers conferred upon Córas Iompair Éireann. That is not merely a change in legislation but it is a very considerable change in the attitude and policy of the Minister and his Party.

When I brought the 1944 Transport Act to this House as a Bill, for three days I listened to the Minister and his colleagues and Deputies of other Parties in these benches fulminating against the principle of monopoly. When the defeat of that Bill by the arrival of Deputy Cole, who was hastily brought to the House for that purpose and never appeared here again, resulted in a general election, again it was the monopoly aspect of the Bill that was mainly used as an argument by its opponents in the country. I did not attempt to deny that the purpose of the Bill was to create over a large part of the country a public transport monopoly or, rather, to attempt to recreate the monopoly which had passed with the development of the motor lorry. But I did assert here that we would so frame the measure as to maintain in the hands of a public authority all the safeguards over the working of that monopoly which were required for the protection of the public interest. When we were discussing the Bill after the election, the aim of the Fine Gael Party, now members of the Government, was not to remove these safeguards but to strengthen them. They, in fact, proposed amendment after amendment designed to so elaborate these safeguards against possible abuse of the monopoly powers of the company as almost to make it impossible to manage the company at all. Now, and this is the solution being offered in this Bill for the Córas Iompair Éireann transport problem, all these safeguards are being swept away. Although the Bill proposes to extend the area of the transport monopoly which Córas Iompair Éireann will control, every single safeguard, with possibly one exception, which I stated in 1944 I regarded as essential, is being removed. That is what this Bill is designed to do and that is the important part of the Bill and not the sections which deal with the change in the constitution of Córas Iompair Éireann.

Let me read another paragraph from Sir James Milne's report which the Minister did not read:—

"Public undertakings are under obligation to provide adequate services to meet the reasonable demands of those living in the area served by the undertaking and, in the case of railways, to charge uniform rates, which must be applied without discrimination."

Heretofore, and up to to-day, the Minister for Industry and Commerce has the power to control the maximum charges which Córas Iompair Éireann could maintain for any of its transport services or facilities, the classification of goods to which such charges relate, the standard terms and conditions under which traffic is carried, and the High Court has power to protect persons, including harbour authorities, from discriminatory treatment to their detriment. All these safeguards are being removed, and Deputies who support this Bill are supporting the removal of these safeguards. I do not think the Minister made that very clear in his introductory speech.

When I was introducing the 1944 Act I said that there were in my view four safeguards which were essential in the public interest, no matter what system of public transport we set up. I said that whether our legislation provided for full nationalisation or for State ownership of the kind now proposed in this Bill, or for the less extensive form of State control which the 1944 Act established, or for the older type of privately owned statutory companies, there were four safeguards which the public interest required and which were common to all forms of control and ownership. They were, firstly, to ensure that policy would be directed to serving national economic aims; secondly, to confer upon some accepted public authority power to control the charges levied for transport services; thirdly, to confer upon that public authority power to require the provision of adequate transport facilities; and, fourthly, to provide protection against discriminatory treatment of special interests.

As regards the first of these aims, the safeguarding of national economic policy against the board operating the transport monopoly, the Minister may, no doubt, argue that the power which he has taken here to nominate all the directors of the transport board adequately ensures that. That may be so. I am prepared to discuss certain weaknesses and disadvantages attaching to that board in the Committee Stage. But if there is an attempt in this Bill to offer a solution of any transport problem, it is contained solely in the provisions relating to the removal of the other safeguards. I hope the significance of these proposals is grasped by those Deputies who are asked to support the Bill. The abolition of the safeguards applies to all forms of transport, whether transport by rail or by road and, presumably, in the future by canal. Take first this question of the abolition of maximum charges. Power was conferred on the Minister by the Act of 1944 to prescribe maximum charges for all transport services and facilities. Is it unfair to remind Deputies on the Government Benches of their pre-election promises to reduce transport charges and their pre-election assertions that, in their view, transport charges were too high and that they were too high because of the inefficiency of the transport organisation, and that they could and would reduce them if they got into power? Is there any Deputy on the Government Benches now who did not speak along those lines to his constituents during the general election?

I am one who did not speak on those lines.

The Deputy may have had a special reason for that.

Not likely.

When the Chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann went to the Minister in March, 1948, and reported to him the considerable increases in Córas Iompair Éireann expenses arising from the higher wages payable in that year and asked to be allowed to increase charges in order to offset in some measure the effect of these higher wages, the Minister refused permission to increase the charges on grounds of public policy. The Minister did not elaborate that explanation, but that was the explanation he gave. He said that there were considerations of public policy why he should refuse Córas Iompair Éireann, even in its financial difficulty, the power to increase its charges.

Where did you get that?

I got that from a statement issued by the Córas Iompair Éireann Shareholders' Association.

A "Memorandum to each Holder of Common stock," was issued by the Shareholders' Directors of Córas Iompair Éireann. In future, and I want Deputies opposite to appreciate this, not merely will Córas Iompair Éireann be able to charge what they like but what they charge cannot be questioned in this House. Up to now, until this Bill becomes law, the Minister for Industry and Commerce is answerable here for the Orders he makes authorising or altering the maximum charges of Córas Iompair Éireann. He can be questioned here in this House concerning these Orders. The policy behind them can be discussed here in this House. But he is taking, in this Bill, an unassailable position. He is handing over to the new Córas Iompair Éireann Board full control of their charges and he will have no responsibility for them. If any Deputy seeks, by way of Dáil question or in debate, to inquire about some increases in transport charges, about which his constituents have complained, the Minister will reply that, by Statute, it is now a function of Córas Iompair Éireann Board and that he has nothing to do with the matter. Not merely that, but no attempt was made by the Minister to offer to the House any explanation of the policy behind this removal of power to control charges. He said that in so far as competition had limited the company's power to earn revenue, the power was not now so important. He, however, compared this new Córas Iompair Éireann Board with the Electricity Supply Board. Might I remind him that those who framed the Electricity Supply Board Act of 1927, which established the Electricity Supply Board, placed upon that board certain statutory obligations regarding its charges—which, no doubt, the Minister considered putting in this Bill and decided against? Under the 1927 Act, the Electricity Supply Board is required so to arrange its charges that the revenue resulting from them will be sufficient—and only sufficient— to meet all outgoings, including interest on advances, sinking fund and depreciation payments.

Would the Deputy agree with that, if I put it in the Bill?

I want to get some indication of the Minister's policy. I assumed, when the Minister compared this new organisation with the Electricity Supply Board, and found that in this Bill there was no similar provision, that that was an indication that the Minister had no intention of imposing upon Córas Iompair Éireann any obligation to so fix its charges as had been imposed upon the Electricity Supply Board. Neither has there been, in the course of the Minister's speech here or in any section of the Bill, any indication given of an intention to provide a subsidy to Córas Iompair Éireann. The implied policy there is that Córas Iompair Éireann will charge what the traffic will bear. That has been the principle upon which transport companies have operated. May I say that it is difficult to see how they could operate on any other principle? In so far as I can read their obligations under this Bill, they are obliged to restrict the facilities which they grant to the public to the limit of the revenue secured by charges which the traffic will bear. The Minister shakes his head. I am not interested in that. The shake of the Minister's head will not appear in this Bill. If he has any other idea in mind I hope he will amend the Bill in Committee to express that idea in some more emphatic way.

I am not concerned with the Deputy's interpretation.

I appeal to the Minister to amplify the explanation of the policy behind the Bill he gave in introducing it. If there is a policy behind this decision to remove the power which the Minister now has to control maximum charges—to leave the company completely free of all statutory controls in the matter of charges; to have no clear obligation or an indication of policy given in the Bill—then perhaps the Minister will explain what it is? I do not see what policy is expressed in these proposals. Is Córas Iompair Éireann required to relate its charges to its obligation to pay interest upon the transport stock? Is it so expected to run its undertaking that it will recover from the sale of transport services not merely the cost of providing them but the interest on the stock, or does the Government intend that the interest on the stock will be paid by the taxpayer? In one section of the Bill it is implied that Córas Iompair Éireann will meet out of their revenue the interest obligations on the stock, but I think there should be a clear obligation placed on it to run their undertaking in such a way that they will recover not merely their operating costs and overhead expenses but also the increased amount of interest which they will now have to pay upon their capital. So far as I can make out, not merely will the company be under no control as to its charges but it will not be even under any obligation to publish these charges or alterations in them. It is clearly released from all the obligations which it had under Part IV of the 1944 Act —obligations relating to the publication of classifications of merchandise to which the charges will apply; obligations to maintain publicly known standard terms and conditions of carriage; obligations to maintain publicly known restrictions on the carriage of dangerous goods and the publication of details of agreed charges, a matter to which the Dáil attached considerable importance when the 1944 Act was being discussed.

The Minister tells us that Sir James Milne is the greatest transport expert in the world—whose report he tells us, was prepared in collaboration with a collection of other experts only one shade less important than himself—and he accepted from that report only the parts that he liked. Perhaps the Minister will tell me how he reconciles this policy of control over charges with Sir James Milne's observations on policy: "Services should be available to all members of the public at uniform charges throughout the country."

I come now to the more interesting and lively matter of the control of facilities. The Act of 1944 gave the Minister for Industry and Commerce power to require the company to provide such transport facilities as he thought were reasonable, having regard to local representations made to him. It provided also that the company could not withdraw any facilities —any road services or any branch line services, much less abandon a branch line—until the Minister made an Order sanctioning the withdrawal of that facility. I said that Ministers, and Deputies behind them, came into this House bedecked with promises about the changes they were going to make in transport. If there was one promise reiterated by the members of the opposite benches, not merely before the election but after the election, it was that the closed branch lines were going to be reopened. Is that not so? Individual Deputies from the Government Benches asked questions here during the past 18 months relating to the Pallas East branch line, the Streamstown branch line, the New-market branch line, the Macroom branch line, the Killeshandra branch line, the Cashel branch line, the Castleisland branch line, the Mountmellick branch line—Ho, Mountmellick —the Tullow branch line, the Dingle branch line, the Killaloe branch line, the Shillelagh branch line—all wanted to know when these branches were going to be reopened.

You closed a lot of them.

The Minister's reply was to stall. He said that a decision would be taken as soon as the general position had been examined. The decision has been taken now. These branches are not going to be reopened. Is the House clear about that? When they vote for this Bill, that is what they are voting for. And they are not going to be reopened, in circumstances which will relieve the Minister of all responsibility for the decision. Never again will these Deputies, on behalf of local interests, ask the Minister when the Mountmellick branch line is going to be reopened, the Cashel branch line, and so forth. The Minister will say "I have no statutory function in that matter." You hear the type of reply in future which he has given to-day in reply to other matters.

A Deputy

Why did you not reopen them?

I shall tell you why. The position up to the moment is that Córas Iompair Éireann cannot suspend a service of trains or abandon a branch line except under the authority of an Order made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and I stated that it was my intention that such an Order would not be made where there was evidence of reasonable local opposition or except following a public inquiry. It is quite true that many branch lines were closed during the emergency. There was not enough coal or other materials to operate even a full service on the main lines, and branch line services were closed but I gave an undertaking in this House that the closing of these branch lines by Emergency Orders was not part of any transport policy, that the intention was that these branch lines would reopen after the emergency and that if they were closed, subsequently, it would be in accordance with the procedure laid down in the 1944 Act. In fact, when emergency conditions ceased to exist in 1946 most, though not all, of these branch lines were reopened and the report of the Board of Córas Iompair Éireann in 1947 stated that when they reopened them they lost a lot of money, but the undertaking I gave in this House was fulfilled.

It is true that in the winter of 1946 and early in 1947 a number of branch lines were again closed but again I gave the assurance that it was a temporary closing necessitated by emergency conditions and had nothing to do with any transport policy which was intended to be operated in future. The emergency conditions which necessitated the making of that closing Order passed in the spring of 1948 and if the Minister for Industry and Commerce had been concerned to maintain the pledges given by his predecessor these branch lines would have reopened at that time. Now they are never going to reopen but they would have reopened if I were there. I am not saying—and I do not want to be misunderstood in regard to this matter—that I would not have accepted applications from the company for the closing of certain branch lines, but these applications would not be acted on except in accordance with the procedure laid down in the 1944 Act. There would have been a public inquiry before any branch line was abandoned, if there was substantial local opposition to its abandonment. However, the Minister's excuse when he was questioned in the Dáil was that he was waiting for the Milne report. He got the Milne report in December, 1948 and this is what the Milne report said:

"In all the circumstances it is considered that any proposal to close branch lines solely on the grounds that they are at present unprofitable should be rejected."

The Minister did not read that out of the Milne report. He read only the paragraphs that suited his case.

I have a few more to read for you.

Will the Minister tell us if he accepted that recommendation? We know he has not done so yet. He did not accept it in December, 1948. What he is proposing now is to streamline the procedure for the closing of branch lines. That is what the Deputies who promised to reopen these lines are now going to do by voting for this Bill. It is recommended by Sir James Milne, in another paragraph which the Minister did not quote, that "before any branch line is closed there should be a public inquiry and that the governing consideration should be whether the retention of the branch as part of the company's highway system is necessary or desirable in the public interest". The Government, I take it, has rejected that recommendation. If Deputy Davin wishes to know where I stand I agree with every word of it. The position in future is that Córas Iompair Éireann can, without consulting anybody, without reference to any local agitation or representation, close any branch line, any station, can suspend or contract any transport service and they cannot be questioned about it. The Minister cannot be questioned about it in this Dáil.

May I remind Clann na Poblachta Deputies of the secret plan which they discovered during the general election campaign to close railway branch lines in the West of Ireland? There was a great deal of publicity given to that alleged secret plan which they discovered during the election campaign and many assurances were given by them that if ever they got into a position to control policy, that secret plan would not be carried through. Is this the plan? There is nothing secret about this plan. These railway branch lines are going to be closed and the Minister's only concern about them is that he will not be held responsible. He is shifting the responsibility for the decision to close these lines to the board which he is going to nominate.

There was no secret about your proposal to close the branch lines. It was your intention to close all the branch lines.

We are not discussing my proposal at the moment; we are discussing yours. My proposals are set out in the 1944 Act. I told the Dáil then that I contemplated that some branch lines would be closed but I told them that before making any Order I would, if necessary, undertake to hold a public inquiry. I told the Dáil also that if any branch line was closed I was taking responsibility for it. My criticism of the Minister is that he is trying to dodge responsibility for the same policy.

The undertaking given by Deputies opposite in connection with the branch lines did not stop after the general election. Most of the promises given during the election campaign by these Deputies were promptly forgotten as soon as they changed places in this House but not this one in connection with the branch lines because subsequent to the elevation of some of these Deputies to Ministerial status they kept on making speeches about their intention to reopen the branch lines. None of these branch lines was reopened with the exception of one in West Cork for political reasons but nevertheless the speeches continued to be made. There is only one that I am interested in now and I am interested in it for the reason that it was made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs may not be in a position to influence Government policy but we must assume that when he goes as Minister to a meeting of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, he is going there with authority to express Government policy, and if his speech had any significance it was in relation to the audience to whom he delivered it—the representatives of the organised workers in the transport industry. To these representatives of the transport workers he gave this undertaking on the 7th February, 1949—

As reported?

As reported in the Irish Press, the only reliable source:—

"The Government had decided that all branch lines would be kept open and no dismissals would take place as a result of redundancy. Stockholders would be treated justly."

That second part of the promise has been fulfilled.

"All organisations would have an opportunity of submitting their view and suggestions to the Government on the Milne report for consideration."

What purpose did the Government think they were serving by sending to a meeting of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union a Minister, who admitted that they were alarmed by statements about the Government's intention in regard to Córas Iompair Éireann, to give them an assurance that all branch lines would be reopened, if at that time, they had decided that the legislation they were to bring to the Dáil was one for the closing of branch lines? I want Deputies opposite to play fair in this matter, to play straight, not merely with the Dáil but with the country. They know quite well that the purpose of this Bill is to close all the branch lines. That may be a good policy or a bad policy but they must take responsibility for it. This cowardly device of transferring responsibility from their shoulders to those of a statutory board, putting them in a position that they cannot be questioned in this House in regard to the policy of that board, is unworthy of any Government responsible to this House.

There is to be compensation for staffs. The Minister talked about the fulfilment of the Government pledge. Again, so far as I can make out, there is a great deal of unnecessary hocus-pocus. It is true that Section 32 (2) says that "the services of a person to whom this section applies will not be dispensed with by the board on grounds of redundancy". That seems clear; it seems to guarantee to the staffs of Córas Iompair Éireann that they are not going to be dispensed with by reason of the closing of branch lines. But Section 37 provides that if they are dispensed with, if the company is unable to find other employment for them, then they are to be compensated on the basis provided in the 1933 Act. I submit that all these sections are put into the Bill as window-dressing; that there is no need for them; that the provisions of the 1933 Act are ample to ensure compensation for the workers dismissed by the closing of branch lines and give them exactly the same benefits, and that these sections are put in merely to pretend that something is being done that was not done before.

Of course, the company would not dispense with the services of any worker to whom it had to pay compensation if it had other employment for him and the only effect of these two provisions, as I see it, is to ensure that if a worker is dispensed with the provisions of the 1933 Act will operate. Of course, they would operate any way.

I am not sure to what extent the third safeguard, the safeguard against discriminatory treatment of individuals to their detriment is being removed. It seems to me that it is being removed entirely. However, I shall stick, at the moment, to one matter on which there is no doubt. I want to direct the attention of Deputies to it. One of the sections of the 1944 Act which in future will not apply to Córas Iompair Éireann deals with the protection of ports and it provides that the company shall not, by rates of fares charged, place any one port in the State at an undue disadvantage, as compared with any other port in the State.

Older Deputies will remember that one of the allegations most frequently made against the old Great Southern Railways Company was that they discriminated in favour of Dublin because it paid them to do it, and that the decline of many of our ports was attributable to the discrimination shown by the company in favour of the long haul to Dublin. Therefore, in order to ensure that these allegations would not be made against Córas Iompair Éireann, we put in the 1944 Act that provision which precluded the company from so arranging rates or through rates as to discriminate in favour of one port against another. That provision is being repealed. I hope Deputies will direct the attention of the harbour authorities in their constituencies to its repeal. Henceforth the company will be under no statutory obligation not to discriminate in favour of one port against another and if it decides that its financial interests are predominant, that the long internal haul to Dublin pays it better than the development of Sligo, Limerick, Cork or Waterford, then presumably it will have full liberty to pursue that policy and no Deputy can raise a question about it. The Minister will not be responsible. If a Deputy does question the Minister he will be told that that is a matter for the company under statute with which the Minister is not concerned. It is obvious that the removal of that provision, and, as I interpret the Bill, the removal of other legal provisions against discriminatory treatment could lead to grave abuses.

Apparently the company is even being released from the obligation to publish the annual statistical return, apart from the financial accounts, which all railway companies heretofore published and provided the House with a basis of information on railway matters. Therefore, not merely are we releasing the board from all these statutory controls heretofore regarded as essential, but we are not even to be supplied with information as to the results, otherwise than the profit and loss account and the balance sheet.

The Minister referred to Sir James Milne's recommendations on the capital expenditures contemplated by the Córas Iompair Éireann Board. I think he might in fairness have put at the end of his total of £17,000,000 a note to the effect that the company could not have carried out capital expenditures to that extent not merely without the consent of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance, but without legislation, because the 1944 Act placed a limit upon the amount of new capital which the Minister for Finance could guarantee for the company. I am more anxious to get an elucidation of the Minister's mind upon this matter than anything else because the clear implication of his remarks creates a disturbing picture. Let me be quite clear about this. Córas Iompair Éireann was set up deliberately to undertake capital expenditures of that character. Our idea was to create a national transport organisation charged with serving a national development policy, to effect the re-equipment of the company's transport system, to provide it with the factories and workshops and the organisation which would enable it to give it here as efficient an internal transport service as any country enjoys. I make no apology because the Córas Iompair Éireann Board sat down to discuss plans for the establishment of a chassis factory, a springs shop or a new body-building works or new marshalling yards and railway systems. It was for that purpose that we set it up. My only regret is that in the four years they were in existence they were unable to carry out any part of that reorganisation and re-equipment policy because of supply difficulties.

Sir James Milne stated in his report —again the Minister did not read this part of it—after emphasising that Córas Iompair Éireann were considering plans for capital development:

"Before the company can fully satisfy the needs of the travelling public and give a large number of better services to traders than they could obtain from the use of their vehicles, extensive capital equipment of the undertaking is necessary...."

"The board has clearly recognised this." He said that he did not agree with some of the capital proposals which the company were considering. I do not agree with some of them either. Many were only in the initial stage of examination. I want to make clear that there were some which I did agree with and they were those which the Minister and Sir James Milne recommended should be dropped.

I have said before that if an effort is to be made to establish in this country a general engineering industry which is necessary to complete our industrial organisation, necessary even for our security in time of war, perhaps even for any rational defence policy, it must be associated with Córas Iompair Éireann.

It is all very well for Sir James Milne to say that it is not considered appropriate in Great Britain for a railway company to manufacture its own chassis. Of course it is not; they do not have to do it. They have those motor car factories established throughout the country working efficiently. We have not. We cannot have it unless we can associate the enterprise with the largest transport undertaking in this country, because it is that undertaking which can do the bread and butter business which will keep it going.

And build hotels.

The particular project at Glengarriff to which the Minister refers was turned down by the Córas Iompair Éireann Board. If that is intended as a serious contribution to the debate, I say it is unworthy of the Minister. With regard to the spring shops, Mr. Reynolds, I think, gave a complete answer to Sir James Milne's criticism of the proposal to establish new spring shops. At any rate, he pointed this out, and no one, I think, has contradicted it, that from their own spring shops it was estimated that they could provide springs for locomotives and road vehicles at half the price they were buying them at. Sir James Milne came here with the idea that we are the kind of people who are satisfied with any type of patchwork organisation. He regarded it as his job to go to Córas Iompair Éireann and consider how he could save a penny here and a penny there so long as the resulting service was good enough for the Irish. That is not my approach.

If we are going to have here a transport system worthy of this country and capable of effectively contributing to the development of the country, then there has got to be a lot more capital expenditure than Sir James Milne contemplated, and even up to the £17,000,000 that the Minister mentioned. If we are not going to have that development, and if the policy of the Government is against undertaking capital expenditure upon the establishment of chassis factories, or spring shops, or the reorganisation of our transport services, or even the building of a central bus station for the convenience of those who travel by buses to Dublin, then let the Taoiseach stop talking about Irish economic problems being due to deficient capital investment, and let the Minister for External Affairs stop talking about the need of repatriating our foreign assets for the purpose of carrying out developments here. To what more useful purpose could the repatriation of our foreign investments be put than in the establishment of an efficient transport system?

The trouble with the members of this Government is that when they make speeches in public, they will not say anything which will give any indication of what they are going to do. They express sentiments with which none of us disagree, but their policy in the form of legislation is directly contrary to those sentiments. They hold it up as a major ground of criticism of Córas Iompair Éireann that they considered the possibility of increasing capital investment in Irish development and the repatriation of some of our external assets by using them to employ men here, to make railway chassis or springs and other things that they had to import. The fact that Sir James Milne said that they do not do things like that in Great Britain was no good argument against it.

Surely there must be a question of the type of capital investment?

Certainly, if the board of Córas Iompair Éireann had come to me with the request to promote the new legislation which would have been necessary in order to make it possible to guarantee new capital to the extent that they were contemplating, I would have questioned many items. The former chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann pointed out, in reply to Sir James Milne, that many of the matters which he had listed were merely projects which had been suggested and had been examined, but on which the board had taken no decision. There is a need for a great many of these undertakings. There is a need for the development of marshalling yards at the North Wall, for the new wharf at Waterford, for the extension of the railway at Limerick, for the reconstruction of Limerick Junction as well as for the building of these new shops, factories and workshops at Dublin. However, we have got an indication of the Minister's attitude upon capital expenditure and transport development. I hope that some of the Deputies opposite will be able to persuade him to change his attitude.

Let me turn now to the proposal in the Bill dealing with the reconstruction of Córas Iompair Éireann. I intend to be very brief upon it. I shall have more to say on it in Committee. What are the changes proposed? In future, the members of Córas Iompair Éireann Board, other than the chairman, will be appointed by the Minister instead of being elected by the common stockholders. They will get higher fees, I understand, and they will hold office for five years instead of three. The common stockholders are doing all right. They are the residue of the original ordinary shareholders of the separate railway undertakings. Their common stock in Córas Iompair Éireann gave them no right to a dividend. They, in fact, could not get a dividend unless Córas Iompair Éireann made a profit. I think I am correct in saying that the legal position was that even if Córas Iompair Éireann made a profit in any year, notwithstanding that a dividend could not be paid to the common stockholders so long as there was a debit in its profit and loss account. There was a debit of £2,000,000 as a result of the last two years' working. In future they are going to get transport stock with the interest guaranteed by the taxpayer —2½ per cent. upon the nominal value of their Córas Iompair Éireann holding and 3 per cent. on the nominal value of their transport stock. The actual result of that is this: in future Córas Iompair Éireann will have to pay £90,000 a year in interest to these stockholders which it would not have had to pay unless it made a profit and had wiped out the arrears of previous losses.

What did we pay the late chairman?

I am quite prepared to discuss that if that is an issue here. I shall probably take the opportunity of dealing with it when we are discussing the Bill in Committee. I think that scandalously unfair and untrue remarks were made in that connection, and if Deputies want to raise that I can point out to them that there are proposals in this Bill to give the present chairman certain financial advantages that his predecessor had not got. However, I am not going to say anything against the present chairman. He is, as far as I know, a competent well-intentioned official, and so far as I am concerned any proposals that will give him reasonable remuneration and reasonable security will not be opposed by me. I hope we will be able to raise the level of this debate somewhat above that which other debates of this kind have reached.

The present chairman has statutory rights in the matter of superannuation apart from this Bill?

As a former civil servant, certainly. My main point about the proposals in relation to the constitution of Córas Iompair Éireann, the nomination of directors, the alteration in their conditions and period of office and the alterations in the statutory rights of common stockholders is that they solve no transport problem. They may solve a political problem for the Government. It must be recognised that the step which is now being taken cannot be retraced. Therefore, we should take it deliberately and after full examination of all its implications.

It is proposed to put around the neck of Córas Iompair Éireann the Grand Canal undertaking. Will anybody tell me why? There may be some basis of theory for absorbing the last surviving transport undertaking in this part of the country into Córas Iompair Éireann, but what advantage is that to Córas Iompair Éireann? In 1947, the last year for which I have got figures, the Grand Canal Company earned a net revenue of £6,663. That is what Córas Iompair Éireann will get from the assets, including the rents and investments to which the Minister for Industry and Commerce referred. It produced a net revenue of £6,663, and in order to get these assets and that revenue they are going to have to meet the liability upon the transport stock issued to the Grand Canal shareholders on which they will pay interest every year to the extent of £21,075. Will someone tell me the sense of that? Will someone tell me what advantage that is to Córas Iompair Éireann? We know, in fact the Minister's words imply it, that the Grand Canal undertaking is not a profitable undertaking.

It is maintained, I think, by the Grand Canal Board very largely out of sentiment. They were able to do that and still pay a dividend because they had other sources of income, from investments and rents, which offset the losses on the Grand Canal Company's services, and made it still possible for them to produce a net revenue from which dividends could be paid. But what advantage is it to Córas Iompair Éireann to take over a canal company that is losing money and road transport services that earned £263 in 1947? That is all they earned and I am talking about 1947. In that year the net revenue of that Grand Canal Company was £6,663 but in July, 1948, the Labour Court made a recommendation for increasing the wages paid to Grand Canal workers. The effect of the award is to increase the cost to the company per year by £7,500, so unless there was some enormous expansion in the company's revenue last year, they made a loss and for taking over that loss Córas Iompair Éireann is being asked to pay £21,000 a year interest-not dividends paid out of profits but interest that must be paid every year whether the company makes a profit or a loss. I presume that this acquisition of the Grand Canal Company by Córas Iompair Éireann is a preliminary to closing the canal. If I am wrong in that presumption I want some Deputy to point to some canal that was acquired by a railway undertaking and that is still working. Is it reasonable to expect Córas Iompair Éireann facing financial difficulties and released from all controls—under no obligation to get the approval of the Minister for its action—will keep running the canal at a loss? If there is any idea in the minds of Deputies that they will be conferring a benefit upon Grand Canal Company employees by this acquisition process I hope they will bring these facts to their notice and take full responsibility for having voted for the Bill when the inevitable happens.

My main criticism of the Bill is that the Minister has failed to face up to the transport problems of this country, certainly he has solved no problem by the proposals in the Bill. It seems to me that in preparing it his sole aim was to avoid unpopularity. I think that desire to avoid unpopularity explains the general character of the proposals before the Dáil, and the pretence which ran through his speech that something effective is being done; it explains the generous terms to Córas Iompair Éireann common stockholders and the extremely generous terms to the ordinary shareholders of the Grand Canal Company whom the Minister forgot to tell us got no dividend in 1947 or since.

It is quite simple to say that over the past ten years their dividends averaged 3 per cent. but that conceals the fact that in the last two years they did not make enough to pay a dividend. They are now getting £100 Government guaranteed transport stock for every £100 nominal value of their present holdings. As long as the Minister is on good terms with these individuals no doubt he is satisfied even though we are placing on the Córas Iompair Éireann organisation whose financial difficulties have caused this Bill to be introduced, a further obligation amounting in the case of the Canal Company shares to £21,000 a year and in the case of the Córas Iompair Éireann common stockholders to £90,000 a year. That is an obligation which they must meet year in and year out no matter what the result of their operations may be. It is that desire to avoid unpopularity which led to the instantaneous rejection of Sir James Milne's various proposals for the taxation or curtailment of lorries operated on the roads, privately owned lorries the increase of which is in direct proportion to the growth of Córas Iompair Éireann difficulties. It is that desire to avoid unpopularity which explains the absence in this Bill or in the Minister's speech of any indication of taking effective proposals to secure traffic for the railway and the relinquishment of the powers of control are designed to ensure all that the Minister wants done, the closing of the branch lines, an increase in charges, the operation of discriminatory treatment of one port as against another and the removal of protection from certain ports, are all being done in order to avoid the Minister incurring unpopularity.

In conclusion, I must say I was intensely disappointed as I am sure other Deputies were that the Minister did not take advantage of the introduction of this Bill to give us a more comprehensive review of the position of the Great Northern Railway. We all know the kernel of the problem there. I told the House when I was introducing the Act of 1933 and the 1944 Transport Act that the absorption into the system of Córas Iompair Éireann of the portion of the Great Northern line that is in the Twenty-Six Counties would not be justified so long as the main Great Northern engineering works are located at Dundalk. We had to recognise and we were forced to recognise in 1944 that the development of proposals in the North for the nationalisation or the transfer of ownership of the portion of the line there was creating a problem we could not avoid. I am sure the Minister realises he has to face that problem. The discussions proceeding between Mr. Courtney and Mr. Pope may produce some result but whether they do or not the responsibility for action which will protect the interests of those who are served by that undertaking and employed by it rests with the Minister. He will not shelve that responsibility.

The Deputy is trying to be very helpful. He is doing his best to do harm.

I could say a great deal more if I wished to.

You are doing your best to do harm.

This business of "hitting me with the child in my arms" makes me laugh. I am told: "This is sabotage; you must not criticise me; I am the great authority." I know what I am doing and I have as much knowledge of these matters as the Minister has. Do you mean to tell me that nobody else knows the kernel of our transport problem with the North? If you think the people in the North do not know that you are very foolish indeed.

Go ahead if you think it is wise to do so.

That matter was considered by me and the possibility of an arrangement which would be beneficial not merely to transport users in this area but in the North emerged. If the Minister goes back to ideas which originated with Mr. Reynolds and discussed, I believe, by him with Mr. Pope it may help him to find the solution of the problem.

When he abolished through fare facilities?

What through fare facilities is the Deputy talking about? The Deputy may know more about it than I do, but so far as I am aware there is no Order by the Minister before or after the change of Government which imposes any obligation on the company to abolish through fares. If it was done, it was done as the result of inter-company discussions and not by Government Order. I intended to close on a note of complaint about the failure of the Minister to give us a more specific indication of his attitude towards the Great Northern Company. As regards our attitude on this Bill a lot will depend on the manner in which the Minister will deal with the points that I have raised and on a more coherent interpretation as to what has inspired its provisions. Otherwise we shall have to reject this Bill as an unsatisfactory attempt to deal with the problem that we know is there.

I want to say at the outset that the Labour members welcome this Bill because, with certain modifications, it will mark, we hope, the realisation of one of the great political objectives of the Labour Party. It is interesting to note that it has taken 25 years of succession of attempts, ending in failure, to solve this problem and to produce a situation in relation to nationalisation where there is complete unanimity among all sections of the community that the only solution for the transport problem is nationalisation.

Is this nationalisation?

I shall deal with that point in a moment. May I point out that I did not interrupt the Deputy during his speech? There is a statement in a document issued by the stockholders' association, a document which Deputy Lemass had in his hand, where it is stated that the report of Sir James Milne "doubtless contains many valuable suggestions which in due course one may hope will be embodied in a Bill under a national transport system". Again, in a document issued by the directors to the holders of the common stock in Córas Iompair Éireann, it is stated that they are "regretfully driven to the conclusion that there is no middle way and that the combination of public policy and private profits-earning capital cannot succeed".

As I understand the position, I think the House might more usefully address itself to what is not in the Bill and what they hope to put into the Bill before it ends in Committee rather than hold a post mortem on the past as to the causes which have culminated in such a succession of failures over the past 25 years. I speak in a special capacity because I am myself a railway man. I have been associated with the railway industry all my life. Because I now see something happening which I did not anticipate happening some years ago, I am not satisfied that this Bill should merely be introduced here and that we should merely state that we have in fact a national transport system if that system is not calculated to produce an efficient and economic industry. Over a considerable period of time there has been a disposition to concentrate traffic on the roads to the detriment of the railway. I would like to refer to paragraphs 13 and 14 of the report of Sir James Milne in order to emphasise the tremendous significance of that particular line of policy operated for some years past. It is pointed out in that report that the mileage of roads in Ireland is 49,000 miles, compared with 26,000 in Scotland; railways represent 2,440 miles in Ireland and in Scotland 625 miles; canals represent 415 in Ireland and in Scotland 152.

Referring to that question of roads, Sir James Milne says:—

"...the growing use of the roads by heavy commercial vehicles and the higher speeds now being run must give rise to serious misgivings as to whether the country can afford the heavy cost of improving and maintaining the present extensive system of railways which will inevitably have to be incurred if this development continues."

The report goes on to say:—

"Under existing conditions the whole cost of providing rail and canal services falls on the users, whereas a substantial part of the cost of road transport falls on the ratepayers who receive no return on the large capital expended on the provision of the roadways and who have, in addition, to bear part of the cost of their upkeep. It follows that if the traffic carried by the railways had to be conveyed by road, a heavy burden would be thrown on the community and in all the circumstances it is clearly in the national interest that as much traffic as possible should be conveyed by rail."

I am expressing personal misgivings in connection with this Bill in so far as the warning contained in these paragraphs does not appear to have been heeded. I can trace nothing written into the Bill which would suggest a variation from that practice which has played such a large part in the financial position of Córas Iompair Éireann, and its predecessor. So far as traffic in this country is concerned, the position is that it is limited for many reasons. One is faced with one of two positions. If traffic is to be diffused widely amongst a large number of agencies operating on the roads, then the roads are bound to deteriorate as they have, in fact, deteriorated for quite a considerable time, and the ratepayers as such will have to make good the damage done. On the other hand, there is the position under this Bill that now that transport has become a national concern, if there is a deficit at the end of the financial year that deficit will have to be made good in the ordinary course out of the Exchequer. In that case it is the taxpayer who will have to bear the cost. That is the main defect that I see in this Bill. There is no indication of any appreciation of the seriousness of that particular position.

We all want the new concern to start with the very best foundation both financially and otherwise. Railway men do not merely want to work in a nationalised industry which will show a heavy deficit at the end of the financial year, a deficit which will bring certain public opprobrium upon them because such a deficit will show proof that the system is run on an inefficient basis. Railway men are anxious to be associated with a concern which pays its way. Taking the position in 1948, so far as Córas Iompair Éireann is concerned, they have had to find something like £400,000 in order to pay interest on debentures. But in that very year their loss on the running of the undertaking was something like £1,400,000. In the new set up, in the new financial structure as we see it here, it will be necessary for the new concern to make a net profit of something like £680,000, that is, £400,000 odd to meet its charges under the stocks as set out in the Bill plus provision for the borrowings up to £7,000,000 which are to take place for capital purposes. The new concern, therefore, vis-a-vis the old one, has to make net earnings of over £600,000 and, so to speak, pay its way against a position which we know to be there of recent work where provision had only to be made for roughly £400,000 and the company sustained a loss of over £1,400,000. It is felt—so far as we know—that the loss this year on Córas Iompair Éireann will be considerable, too. It is obvious that if the new national concern is to be a success in the real meaning of the words “efficient” and “economical” it must have all the necessary features to produce that situation. I am going to suggest that it cannot do that if there is going to be unrestricted and unregulated traffic in the shape that it has been existing for years—the real downfall and the real misfortune, to a very large extent, of the present undertaking. In my opinion, the new concern, in order to start on a sound basis and to continue on that basis, would virtually need the monopoly of the entire traffic that is available in that pool to ensure the position which I have indicated. The Minister indicated, in the closing stages of the speech, that there were certain matters regarding the question of traffic charges and so forth, really the question of a general review of the position, which it was only fair that the new board should have an opportunity of examining. My personal opinion is that it would be better if certain at least of the safeguards which were outlined in the Milne report were really written into this Bill. A number of them are very important, so far as I understand it, and the Minister's Department would be ever so much stronger if these safeguards were included.

The Milne report suggested the issue of local licences for the use of vehicles within a radius of 15 miles from a point to be selected by the licensee and specified on the licence, with such extensions as may be approved by the licensing authority as necessary to meet exceptional circumstances; the duty payable to be the standard rate. The Bill does not take cognisance of that recommendation.

Paragraph 536 of the report recommended that general licences to merchant users should limit the use of vehicles to the conveyance of the licensee's goods to or from his own business premises and should not permit the conveyance of goods which are only in the ownership of the licensee during transit. According to the report this condition is necessary to prevent the evasions of the licensing law which are alleged to be widespread. Then there is the recommendation— and it is very important from this side of the House, may I say—that private road hauliers to whom licences are issued should keep their vehicles in a roadworthy condition and that reasonable conditions of employment, including payment of a minimum wage which should not be less than that paid by public undertakings, should be ensured. I think that that is a safeguard which is required.

Paragraph 543 states that the provision of adequate public services is of paramount importance to the economic life of the country, and that the services provided by the independent haulier and merchant user should supplement and not supplant the public service. Yet, in existing conditions, the latter is precisely what is happening and will continue to happen unless a check is placed on these activities.

There is a feeling abroad, a fallacious idea, may I say, that, in fact, Córas Iompair Éireann as we understand it had a complete monopoly of road transport as we see it at the present time—and vested interests have put that across very nicely, making the public believe that, in fact, that was so. I shall give you a couple of figures to indicate the real position. In the matter of road freight vehicles it is interesting to note that in August, 1948, the whole of the railways plus the Grand Canal Company—now to be taken over—had only 807 of these or 5.8 per cent. of the total of lorries of over one ton capacity. Other hauliers had 1,032 or 7.4 per cent. Hauliers carrying in areas exempt from licensing provisions and turf and wheat hauliers had 2,516 or 18.1 per cent. whilst traders running their own vehicles had 9,536 or 68.7 per cent. That gives the House an indication of the real position so far as road transport is concerned.

I want to close on the point which I believe to be the weakness in connection with this Bill. As soon as this Bill becomes law and is put into operation on 1st January of next year you can have a situation where you can have a virtual free-for-all in the field of transport, with the certainty that chaotic conditions will eventually ensue and that the national Exchequer very positively will have to meet a heavy bill at the end of the financial year. I suggest to the Minister that that is a prospect which he himself would not desire and that that position might be examined vis-a-vis the statement which he has made in regard to certain matters being referred to the board for consideration when the board has been set up. I suggest that that time might be too late, that the examination of that position might take perhaps six or eight or 12 months, and that the serious loss that would ensue to the company if the present conditions were allowed to operate would damage and prejudice the new concern that we want to have started under happy auspices.

On the question of the Great Northern Railways, I think the Minister will be sympathetic. The Minister's own outline of the position will, I hope, be accepted by the House generally. Anybody who knows the Great Northern Railways at all will realise that there is more than a transport problem involved. There are other considerations which members of this House understand and appreciate. Since negotiations, or talks, are going on at the present time in connection with that matter I am prepared and I am sure my colleagues will be prepared to place our trust in the Minister to see that the interests of the staff of the Great Northern Railways and of the users of the railway as a whole will be protected. I am prepared also to accept that the Minister will take the House into his confidence at the appropriate time. We shall have an opportunity of discussing the Bill itself, section by section, on the Committee Stage.

Lest I should forget to advert to it again, may I say that there was one matter to which Deputy Lemass referred and which I should like to touch upon? He challenged the Minister on the question of compensation so far as the employees are concerned. He said that, in effect, the provisions of the 1944 Act were the same as those contained in this. That is not quite correct. I think transport men generally will appreciate the fact that, under this Bill, if they are to be paid off from the service they will not, at least, be forced to prove the contention that it was as a result of amalgamation that they had to go. The Bill does provide that if there is no work for the person concerned he is entitled to compensation under the terms set out in the Schedule to the Bill.

May I direct the Minister's attention to Section 36 as I think the wording of the section and of some of its subsections could be regarded as mutually contradictory? Sub-section (2) of Section 36 says that the services of a person to whom the section applies shall not be dispensed with by the board on the ground of redundancy. Sub-section (4) of the same section says:—

"Where the board is unable to offer to a person (being a person to whom this section applies and whose retention in its service is unnecessary on the ground of redundancy) suitable alternative employment in its service, then notwithstanding anything contained in this section his services may be dispensed with by the board."

I should like to point out to the Minister that, according to opinion in transport circles at any rate, that section would require re-examination and redrafting if, as I say, it is not to be regarded as contradictory.

I would also direct the Minister's attention to Section 41 which says:—

"The board may prepare and submit to the Minister, and shall, if so required by the Minister, submit to the Minister within such time as he may direct a scheme ... for establishing on a contributory basis a superannuation fund for the benefit of the employees."

I want to repeat that: "The board may prepare and submit to the Minister and shall, if so required by the Minister, submit to the Minister within such time as he may direct, a scheme," etc. It is entirely permissive. If the board fails to prepare or submit a scheme and the Minister himself does not take any action, it means in effect that any scheme for a superannuation fund for the employees who are not already covered by superannuation could not be arranged under this Bill. I would ask the Minister to have another look at that section so as to make it quite clear that instead of its being permissive, it will be mandatory.

I should also like to direct the Minister's attention to sub-section (3), in which it is stated that "where a superannuation scheme is submitted or resubmitted to the Minister, the board shall publish in such manner as the Minister may direct a notice intimating that the scheme has been so submitted or resubmitted to the Minister and that any person may, during a specified period (not less than 28 days from such publication) make to the Minister objections and representations in relation to the scheme". Again, I should like the Minister to examine that sub-section so as to make certain that the term "any person" shall include representatives of trade unions. The Minister is aware that the matter of the preparation of a superannuation scheme is not so much the responsibility of the employee nowadays and that in general negotiations of that kind are carried on on a concerted basis. Obviously this is a matter that will engage the attention of trades unions and I should like to feel certain that the term "any person" does, in fact, cover representatives of trade unions.

Again, there is the question of apprentices. I am happy to be able to inform the Minister that the question of apprentices with Córas Iompair Éireann is on a very sound and efficient basis. Their apprentices are taken to the technical school nowadays and a special officer is placed at their disposal to ensure that the best training will be afforded to them so far as technical education is concerned, even during portion of the company's time. Since, however, the term of apprenticeship is five years, there is some uneasiness that under the section which provides compensation for employees under certain conditions in which there is a qualifying period laid down, if there is any tendency to dispense with an apprentice after four years, before he has completed his apprenticeship, he would have no claim for compensation under this Bill. I should like if the Minister would have that section examined to see that the interests of such apprentices are protected.

I should like to refer again to the question of superannuation and I shall end on this note. This is a question which has agitated the minds of employees in the transport concern for a number of years but especially in the last five or six years. They are hoping that, as a result of this Bill, and notwithstanding the provisions of the social security measure shortly to be introduced, it will be possible for them to have at the retirement age of 65, which coincides with the age mentioned in the social security scheme, some superannuation from the company itself on a basis to be defined between the trade unions concerned and the Minister. It is hoped that a man can retire at the age of 65 with a sense of security now, knowing that under the new social security scheme he will have a positive measure of State support that was not available up to now, plus something that he may have acquired by virtue of an agreement as between himself and the railway company.

Before we reach the Committee Stage, may I ask the Minister specially to examine the question of the clerical staffs who have retired in recent years? The number involved is not considerable; it runs to about 350 or so. Unfortunately for them, they were retired on very low salaries. As everybody knows who has any experience of the railway world, their salaries were not in any way comparable to those paid to employees of similar standing in commercial institutions operating in this State. They were given no increase during the war period nor have they any prospect of getting an increase now, unless some provision covering them is written into this Bill. The Minister may tell me that the new board will have authority and power to deal with this class of employees. May I say that the matter has been under consideration for some time now and that the present chairman is sympathetically disposed towards the claims of these men and has promised to place the matter before the new board but there is a danger that unless an enabling clause can be written into this Bill which will ensure that the board will give favourable consideration to their claims, these men may not get the increases to which they feel they are entitled? I hope that before the Bill leaves this House such a clause will be written into it. I would ask the Minister to have that particular point examined.

It is very interesting to note the interest taken in this debate by members of the main Opposition Party. If their interest in the debate is to be judged by their attendance in the House, they must be fully satisfied that this Bill is a good and sound one. I doubt, however, from the concluding portion of the speech of Deputy Lemass if that is going to be the position when the division bells ring, if a division is called. In his opening statement the Minister, notwithstanding what he has been saying to the contrary in many other places, appears to be satisfied that the problem to be solved in connection with the transport position cannot be solved by private enterprise. The Minister for Industry and Commerce and his predecessor have been emphasising, in my opinion over-emphasising, on many occasions the necessity for seeing that everything that is required by the community is provided by private enterprise. Here we have a very glaring case at any rate, and this is not the only one, where private enterprise, as now admitted by the Minister, has failed to provide the community with an essential and efficient transport service. The same thing applies in the case of electricity and, to a lesser extent, in the case of the provision of fuel, because we have in the case of electricity a nationally controlled board and in the case of the provision of fuel requirements for the people a publicly controlled board— Bord na Móna. The failure of private enterprise and the necessity for putting into operation a policy of nationalisation in the case of these key industries is solely due to the fact that people with plenty of money to invest are not prepared to invest their money for the provision of these essential services unless they are given a guarantee of a minimum return for their capital. Therefore, in this case, after 25 years' careful thinking, we have to have a nationalised transport service in the hope that it will cure the ills of our present transport system.

As pointed out by Deputy O'Sullivan, this is not a transport monopoly. I listened very carefully to the speech of Deputy Lemass apologising, in effect, for the failure of the policy enshrined in the Act of 1944, which Act was supposed to have been given the benediction of the people at a previous general election. I doubt if we would be discussing this problem to-night were it not for the fact that Deputy de Valera, supported by his colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Party, refused to accept the majority decision of this House to postpone the further consideration of the Transport Bill of that year which proposed and eventually set up a transport dictatorship. Deputy de Valera and his colleagues may continue to say that they stand for democratic rule in this country, but on that particular occasion at any rate they refused to accept the majority decision of this House. Subsequently, presuming to act with the full authority of the people, they brought the Act of 1944 into operation.

Speaking in this House on the conclusion of the discussion of the Transport Bill of 1944, as reported in Volume 95, column 422 of the Official Debates, the then Minister for Industry and Commerce (Deputy Lemass) said:—

"The purpose of this Bill is to create a monopoly. I am defending that as sound policy and I want to make it clear that anything which seeks to undermine the monopoly of public transport services which we are aiming to establish will operate to prevent the success of this scheme."

I could quote ad nauseam subsequent portions of that concluding speech in which he indicated quite clearly, with the Ministerial knowledge and information which he had at his disposal, that that Bill was going to solve once and for all the transport problem as he saw it at that period, was going to mean more security of tenure for the railway and transport workers employed at the time in the companies now forming Córas Iompair Éireann and was also going to mean a reasonable return to the stockholders for their invested capital and an efficient public transport service for the community. I listened very attentively to his speech to-night and took some notes of what he said.

At one stage of his speech he said that Córas Iompair Éireann never had a chance before 1948. Relate that statement made to-night to the concluding statement made by him when pushing the 1944 Transport Bill through the House with a machined majority which Fianna Fáil had previously received from the electorate under false pretences. He said it never had a chance. If, in his opinion, the Act of 1944 never had a chance, why did he not give a more detailed explanation in his speech to-night? Why did he subsequently, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, agree to the reduction of bus fares, which was the cause of bringing about a reduction to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds in the revenue of Córas Iompair Éireann in 1946 and subsequently? By his own action in condoning, presumably for political reasons, a reduction of bus fares at that time he is to that extent responsible for the bankruptcy and chaos which exist in Córas Iompair Éireann to-day and which is the cause of the urgency for bringing in this measure of nationalisation.

I welcome, as Deputy O'Sullivan has on behalf of his colleagues, the introduction of this measure and I am glad to have been allowed to remain a member of this House to support the scheme enshrined in the Bill. I do not agree, however, for some of the reasons given by Deputy O'Sullivan, that this is giving to Córas Iompair Éireann what is known as a transport monopoly. How can that be so when, out of 19,000 licensed lorries in this country, only 807 are actually under the control of the company which is to operate under this Bill? Until the Minister brings under effective control the remainder of the 19,000 lorries now unfairly operating in this country against Córas Iompair Éireann I do not think the problem will be solved in the way it should be. I have definite knowledge and could supply information to the Minister that the owners of the licensed lorries operating to-day are not giving their employees the trade union rate of wages and proper conditions of service. I know of cases where Córas Iompair Éireann itself in recent times has ignored existing legislation in so far as it has failed to provide the necessary number of workers on lorries operating over a certain laden weight. The Minister may have some information on this, because I understand that that was one of the reasons which led to the recent strike of Córas Iompair Éireann employees in Dublin.

Be careful of your facts.

I have had people coming to me in my ordinary everyday working capacity making statements. Of course, it is very difficult to get reliable information and evidence to prove these statements that men employed on privately-owned lorries coming into Dublin from country areas are not being paid the recognised rate of wages. If that is so to any extent— and the Minister must have some official information at his disposal to prove it—then how does he contend that the Córas Iompair Éireann road freight section can compete effectively with people who will only pay half the rate of wages paid by Córas Iompair Éireann and work their employees for double the number of hours? If that state of affairs is allowed to continue, I do not think this Bill is going to have the effect which the Minister hopes it will have, namely, to put Córas Iompair Éireann on a firm financial foundation. I cannot understand why the Government, in bringing this Bill before the House, have failed to take serious notice of the recommendations made in the report of Sir James Milne. Deputy Martin O'Sullivan referred to a number of paragraphs in that report, and I hope that the Minister when replying will deal with them.

Taking the transport position generally, as well as the urgency for the provision of a sound economic transport system, the Minister in many speeches made by him recently has rightly emphasised the necessity for making proper provision for the tourists who come here and of offering them the inducements which are offered to tourists in other countries. He has referred to the huge revenue that comes to the country from tourism. That money is shared by every section of the community. I have also noticed that, in recent times, the Minister has paid visits to several parts of the country in which harbour authorities are rightly seeking for improvements in the out-of-date condition of their harbours.

May I take this opportunity of suggesting to him that he should pay an early visit to Dún Laoghaire harbour which is State controlled? He can see there for himself the kind of conditions under which the railway and shipping companies have to handle the huge tourist traffic that we have had there in the last eight or nine years. I suggest to him that he should look into this matter himself and see how improvements can be effected there in order to enable Córas Iompair Éireann in the future and the shipping companies to provide better landing facilities for the tourists who come through that port, and in order that they may be treated better than they have been. In that connection, I would suggest to the Minister that he should have a look through the files in the Board of Works. If so, he will find there a scheme that was prepared about 1938 for the provision of better landing and railway facilities by Córas Iompair Éireann. That report has been lying there for 10 or 11 years. I am reliably informed—in fact I know—that a big scheme for the improvement of the conditions at Dún Laoghaire harbour and for its modernisation was prepared, as well as for the improvement of Córas Iompair Éireann conditions between Dún Laoghaire and Dublin. That was suggested and agreed to as far back as 1938. I do not see why that scheme should not be carried out, provided there is plenty of money available, as I am sure there is for every sound scheme of development.

These proposals have been lying in the Department of Public Works or in the Department of Finance all those years. If the money is available, and if the Minister is satisfied that the conditions for the landing of tourists at Dún Laoghaire, one of the best ports in the country, should be improved, then I hope he will advise the new directors of Córas Iompair Éireann, with the support of the Department of Finance, to take the proposals that I have referred to out of the pigeon-holes of the Board of Works and carry them out as was recommended years ago.

As well as providing facilities for tourists, I also suggest that proper facilities should be provided for our own people who go on holidays inside the country. Deputy Lemass does not appear to know that the late chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann some years ago acting on his own as far as I know, decided to abolish the system of through fares and of through facilities for tourists coming to the country. Previous to that, it was possible for tourists to get a return ticket from London, Birmingham or Manchester to Cork, and to get the through railway facilities that were provided in pre-war days from the port of landing to their point of destination. As a result of these through facilities being abolished by the late chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, tourists, instead of being taken from Dún Laoghaire to Cork without being obliged to make a change at any railway station, had to be pitchforked out of the trains in Dublin and obliged to make their own arrangements to get across the city to whatever station they wanted to reach. I think that is a disgraceful state of affairs. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will take steps at an early date to recommend the new chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann to restore these through rail facilities for tourists and so make the position more attractive for them.

As an ordinary citizen, I have noticed on several occasions seeing women and children on a busy Saturday morning being fired out of a train at Westland Row Station and obliged to take themselves and their children and their heavy luggage to Kingsbridge or some other station at great expense to themselves. That sort of thing should not be allowed.

I share the apprehension of Deputy Lemass on one very important matter and that is the attitude as disclosed in certain sections of this Bill towards the maintenance of branch railway lines in the future. I hope that the Minister, when replying, will state definitely whether the Government as a body believe in the maintenance of these branch lines. Of course, the Bill merely proposes to hand over their control to the new board that is to be appointed. I agree that would be a proper thing to do, provided the Government would tell the House and the country that it is their opinion that the branch lines are an essential part of an efficient transport system and should be maintained. Of course, there is the provision that if a branch line is abolished, an adequate road service will be provided instead. I have had some experience of these so-called adequate road services that have been provided where branch lines have been closed down in my area. I can say this with regard to one of them that where the so-called adequate road service carried live stock, the people concerned in sending the live stock had to pay 100 per cent. more as compared to the cost of carrying the live stock by rail.

That is not an adequate or efficient alternative service to the service that existed before the branch line was closed. I do not like the section which proposes to hand over to an unknown body complete control or full power to decide in the future whether these branch lines will be maintained or wiped out. Railway men, railway experts, and I do not pose as being one of them, have always suggested in the reports we have read from the different railway commissions that the railway is the foundation of a sound transport system and the branch line, if properly and efficiently worked, is a very useful feeder to the railway and should be maintained for that reason.

I smiled when I heard Deputy Lemass making the statement that our transport troubles in the past and up to the present have been caused mainly by the fact that British railway managers have been brought in to run our railways. We have a section in this Bill which has appeared in many previous Bills making provision for the recruitment of railway and transport staffs by way of open competitive examination. I wonder does the Minister know that, although the open competitive examination system was initiated, so far as the Great Southern Railways were concerned, in 1905, not one of the thousands of men who gave their lives to the service of that section of Córas Iompair Éireann have been allowed to reach the position of executive officer?

May I remind Deputy Lemass that there was no greater sinner in that respect, no man with greater responsibility for the appointment of British nationals to executive positions, than the chairman nominated by himself, who was operating that company up to the beginning of this year? There is a section in the Bill making provision for the transfer of a number of officers, and half a dozen of them are not Irish nationals, but they occupy the principal executive positions in Córas Iompair Éireann.

Sir James Milne—and this is a most important matter—dealt with this matter in his report. On page 35, paragraph 170, dealing with the appointment of executive officers, he said:

"The co-ordination of the raid and road activities of the company has presented many difficulties and no decision has yet been reached as to the ultimate organisation of the various departments."

Is that not a terrible admission, years after the late chairman had been appointed? The report goes on:—

"Considerable difficulty has been experienced in finding suitable personnel for the higher positions and a number of new appointments have been made on grounds of expediency rather than as part of a planned reorganisation."

Is that not a shocking admission, if it was made by the late chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann and his general manager to Sir James Milne and his advisers? I and Deputy O'Sullivan and every Deputy in the House who knows the old officials of the Great Southern Railways Company and Córas Iompair Éireann, are aware that the men trained in the school of experience in a highly technical service such as the railway service must be better for an executive job than an accountant who has no experience of railway or transport work.

I am prepared to say to anybody that you can bring a highly qualified commercial accountant into the railway service and put him before the Rates Tribunal and you can get a clerk with 10 years' experience who will put that highly qualified commercial accountant 12 questions and he will not answer two out of the 12 correctly. If you want information about railway rates you have to be trained in the school of experience. A commercial accountant could make himself appear a fool in the presence of a qualified railway man who would know all about railway rates and the fares system.

We have Sir James Milne told by the late chairman, who was nominated by Deputy Lemass, that considerable difficulty had been experienced in finding suitable personnel for the higher positions and a number of new appointments had been made on grounds of expediency rather than as part of a planned reorganisation. Does the Minister know—if he does not, I do— that some of the district superintendents never shook hands, or were allowed to shake hands, with the late chairman, and did not know the general manager? I doubt if some of them have yet seen him.

If it is true that some of the district superintendents were never received in audience, were never met by the chairman or the general manager of Córas Iompair Éireann, how could the chairman or the general manager, without knowing them, advise Sir James Milne that they had not Irishmen fit for executive positions? That is one of the most disgraceful sections of the whole report. It is a reflection upon very decent and experienced railway men who are far better fitted for the higher executive positions than some of the British nationals who were brought over by the late chairman.

Deputy Lemass spoke about the relation of railway costs of operation to railway revenue. He spoke as if he was an old Conservative instead of a full-blooded, 100 per cent. Republican. The old Conservative way of dealing with a bankrupt concern was to reduce costs, and that is proved by the suggestion made to the Minister on 13th March last by the late chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann when he suggested that the only way of saving Córas Iompair Éireann from bankruptcy was to dismiss another 3,500 men. I have heard that hoary capitalist-conservative policy trotted out on many occasions during my 42 years' railway service. I have heard that recommendation recently made by a railway man, who regards himself as an expert, as the only means of dealing with a certain situation with which I am fairly fully acquainted. I suggested to this man—and I make this suggestion now to those who will control Córas Iompair Éireann in the future— that it is always good policy in transport, as in every other industry, to spend a little bit more in order to earn twice as much. If that policy had been adopted by Deputy Lemass and by the late chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, the latter would not have put forward the silly and callous suggestion which he made to the Minister in March last, that the only way to save the company was to sack 2,500 men and close the branch lines, plus a further 1,000 men subsequently, without any certainty that these men would get compensation.

Deputy Lemass stated that all the men who became redundant as a result of the 1933 Act or as a result of the closing of the branch lines received compensation which he believed, and I will give him credit for that belief, he provided for them under the terms of the 1933 Act. I never believed any such thing. There were many men who were dismissed for redundancy or other reasons who never got one penny compensation. If Deputy Lemass makes inquiries he will get evidence to support my assertion on that particular matter. There were thousands of railway men paid off since 1924 and they never received any compensation notwithstanding the fact that their cases were brought before the arbitrator. Unfortunately they did not succeed in satisfying him that they came within the red tape definition of compensation either in the 1924 or the 1933 Act.

There is no provision in this Bill requiring the board to publish weekly or monthly reports of traffic receipts. That was always done prior to the Act of 1944. It is still done by the British railways and by the Ulster Transport Authority. Now that our transport will become the property of the people and that it is possible, though I hope it will never come to that point, that the taxpayers may be called upon some day to make good losses that may occur, I do not think it is wrong to suggest that the public should be fully acquainted from time to time of the financial position of the company. I suggest to the Minister that the new board should revert to the old healthy system of publishing weekly traffic returns for the information of the public who will be the owners of this concern in the future.

The board should also be required to provide an annual report and balance sheet containing the same type of information as was supplied in the old Great Southern balance sheets and is still supplied by the British railways. The form of annual report issued by Córas Iompair Éireann, has been calculated to prevent an intelligent examination of the administration of the concern. It was clearly designed to withhold as much information as possible. I made that assertion when the relevant section of the 1944 Act was being discussed here. In paragraph 165 of his report Sir James Milne has some very interesting comments on that particular matter:—

"These proposals for a revision of the basis of provision for depreciation in the company's account should be made retroactive and a reconstruction of the balance sheet carried out as at 1st January, 1948."

Córas Iompair Éireann was a concern with four expert accountants running it for a long period. Sir James Milne goes on to say:—

"Adjustment of the capital values of the assets and the release of the renewal fund would enable the company to convert the adverse balance of £811,901 on profit and loss account at 31st December, 1947, into a credit balance of approximately £75,000."

There were four expert accountants in charge of Córas Iompair Éireann. They produced a balance sheet over their certificates and the chairman put that balance sheet for the year ending 31st December, 1947, before the shareholders and stated there was a deficit of £811,901 for the period to which I have referred. Sir James Milne and his expert advisers—and I think everybody will admit that they were experts —say that if that balance sheet had been properly prepared in accordance with modern ideas of railway accountancy, instead of showing a huge loss it would have shown a profit of £75,000. I do not know what action, if any, the Minister has taken in connection with that particular criticism contained in the report. I think it calls for serious consideration. The question does arise as to whether those responsible for the presentation of that particular balance sheet to the shareholders of the company are not guilty of having unconsciously at any rate misled the shareholders.

The railway industry has been run by four or five expert accountants. We know the result. The result is before us now for our consideration. The cure is contained in the present Bill. I do not agree that the only people who can advise commercial concerns, industries or transport undertakings in this country are expert and qualified accountants. The accountant is a very useful man when it comes to making out a balance sheet. Some accountants when making out balance sheets have to carry out certain policy decisions and that means that they must present the balance sheet in the specific form decided by the directors for their own good reasons. When the Minister is appointing the members of the new board I am sure he will have a busy time reading the applications from people who think they are qualified to become members. I appeal to him to proceed very carefully and not overload the board with so-called experts of the kind to which I have referred. I do not know what the composition of the board will be but I think that in order to have an efficient transport system we must pick the people who have been trained in the hard school of experience. I think that if we had had practical railway men running our system for the past 30 or 40 years it would not to-day be in a state of bankruptcy and chaos. Our railways have been run by the nominees of banks, representing bankrupt shareholders, by drapers, chemists, and all sorts of people other than those who had been trained in the school of experience. The railway officials, the railway men, had been blamed wrongly for the failure of the railway industry. The railway officials who served under boards consisting of drapers, accountants, and all those who have been in charge of railways and transport in the past, have to carry out their policy and instructions and even though many of them expressed their views in opposition to wrong policy decisions affecting the work of the railways to the members. of the board who had no experience of the railway or of the transport industry, their point of view had to go. I hope this Bill is the last we have seen of that.

I appeal to the Minister that when he is giving consideration to the appointment of the most suitable people for membership of this new board—who will have a very busy and difficult job, there is not a shadow of a doubt about it—he will take into consideration the claims of the railway and of the transport people who have given a lifetime's service to the community.

I should like to know from the Minister on that particular matter whether the members of the board will be full-time or part-time. Previous to the nationalisation of the railways of Great Britain the regional concerns that were in existence there were controlled by executives consisting of working railway officials. As far as I know, that system worked fairly well and the officials and workers generally were prepared to take instructions from such a body and carry them out with greater certainty of success than under the régime which enabled bankers and drapers, chemists, doctors and all these other class of people, to lay down railway and transport policy

Generally speaking, I certainly welcome the Bill and hope it will receive the blessing and co-operation of every Deputy of every Party in this House who wants to see our railway and transport services put on the same high level as they are in many other countries that we know.

Anyone who has had experience of the transport services in this country during the emergency would have to realise the absolute necessity for the railways and the railway service. They would also realise that had the railway service not been there the condition of affairs, as far as transport in this country was concerned, would have been appalling. It is from that point of view that I approach the whole of this question. I consider that the responsibility for good and efficient transport in this country is that of whatever Government may be in power. It is their responsibility and, in particular, it is the responsibility of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

There are some points about which I am greatly concerned. The first is the absolute removal of any protection against increases in freightage charges. We have heard something about protection before. I remember having to fight some very tough cases on behalf of the Cork County Committee of Agriculture in regard to the freightage charges on sea-sand, beet, and other commodities of that description from time to time. Now, apparently, under this Bill the board can fix whatever charges they like and there is to be no control over their charges. They could show, if it is put to that, favouritism as between one particular commodity and another. That is one defect to my mind in the new Bill.

The second point about which I am concerned is one to which Deputy Davin has alluded. I refer to the fact that they can now close down any branch line they wish without any inquiry, or the hearing of any appeals from those concerned. All of us here are aware of the position regarding the branch lines, and particularly anybody who has been in my position as a member of the Beet Growers' Association because some 500,000 tons of beet are moved over railways each year. We realise the absolute necessity of having railway transport for that beet.

I was rather amazed at Deputy Davin's statement here in regard to lorries. He said that there are 19,000 of them still operating in this country and that only 807 of those were in the control of Córas Iompair Éireann. I can take my mind back to that famous election to which Deputy Davin alluded. I remember members going forward at that time with a copy of the Transport Act and waving it from the public platforms and saying: "This terrible Bill is going to do away with the private lorries altogether." I have a very distinct recollection about that manoeuvre. I am amazed that, since that terrible Act came into force, there are still, according to Deputy Davin, 19,000 private lorry owners operating in this country. In regard to that, I do not think that there is any rural Deputy from any Party in this House who is prepared to advocate here the removal or the abolition from business of the private lorry owner. He serves a purpose which no monopoly or transport service can serve. I am wondering what would be the condition of affairs if his advice were taken in regard to this Bill. Sorry and all as I should be to lose Deputy Davin out of this House and to see him put somewhere else, I appeal to the Minister not to take his advice as to this man of experience, and that he will not take Deputy Davin and put him as chairman of the board. If he does, I am afraid that those 19,000 private lorries will disappear, and that would be to the detriment of the country at large. I am seriously concerned with that condition of affairs.

I am wondering whether we are approaching this matter on the right line or not. Take the sideline, if you wish, that has recently developed in Cork County, namely, the sideline started by the Irish Sugar Company in their manufacture of ground limestone and its delivery all over County Cork. I should like the Minister in his spare time to take a look at the mileage charges per ton of the Irish Sugar Company for ground limestone and compare them with the charges of Córas Iompair Éireann per mile for road service.

For ground limestone?

For anything. The comparison will amaze the Minister. I am sure he has in his office and in his Department the charges Córas Iompair Éireann are making per mile. He has also the charges of the Irish Sugar Company for the carriage of ground limestone per mile. If he makes a comparison he will find that the charges of the Irish Sugar Company are 50 per cent. less than those of Córas Iompair Éireann. How they can do it—I will not say at a profit but without loss—and how Córas Iompair Éireann can go bankrupt with double the charge is a bit of a joke.

Does the Deputy know how the sugar company are doing it?

I am telling the Minister to investigate it.

Does the Deputy know how they do it?

I have a fair idea.

Why do you not tell the whole story?

The Minister can tell it, perhaps a lot better than I can. We have heard a lot about this bankrupt concern. We have Deputy Davin wailing and moaning about a concern that was rushed into bankruptcy and ruin and then telling us about Sir James Milne's report under which an £880,000 loss was turned into a £75,000 profit. It is a rather amazing story, and I wonder which story Deputy Davin believes. If he believes that the concern was being run at a loss and yet had a profit of £75,000, I cannot see where his argument comes in at all. He cannot complain if the Minister succeeded in bringing a machine into operation which reported that it had an £880,000 loss when the expert who was brought here found that, instead of there being a loss, there was £75,000 profit. The figures are beyond me, at any rate, and I am not going to bother going into them. I suggest that Deputy Davin and the Minister should go into them in partnership and then we shall hear the result.

Deputy Davin also complained that Deputy Lemass stated that Córas Iompair Éireann never had a chance until 1948. We all know the condition of affairs that prevailed during the emergency when it was a question of transport at any price and under any conditions. That was the condition of affairs under which Córas Iompair Éireann as well as other transport concerns had to work. It was a question of fuel to-day and a question of something else to-morrow. It did not matter what the cost was; the question was to get the stuff removed.

Deputy Davin alluded to Dún Laoghaire harbour. I have the reply which I got from the Minister to-day in connection with Cobh and the recommendations made by Cobh harbour authorities. I hope the Minister will be able to make an investigation and an early statement as to what steps he is taking to have the condition of affairs there remedied. Cobh is of far more importance in regard to tourists and tourism and matters of that description than the accommodation in Dún Laoghaire harbour.

Deputy Davin also referred to private lorry owners and the payment of trade union wages. The majority of private lorries are at present engaged in the transport of the owner's own produce, and I do not know how you are going to deal with them. The Minister, I think, was very wise not to interfere in any way with the private lorry owner in this Bill. The fact that the number of private lorries has increased by some thousands inside the past couple of years speaks for itself. It means that if you cannot provide the service that the people require, the people are going to provide that service themselves. The majority of private lorries are being worked by the owners and their families and these people, I take it, look after their own profits. The working of these lorries provides employment for the owners and their families and enables them to live in this country besides giving a service that cannot be given by any company like Córas Iompair Éireann. It will never be given by it.

Is the Bill interfering with them?

It is not and I am congratulating the Minister on steering clear of that. I urge him not to be swayed by the advice of Deputy Davin on that matter. As I stated at the outset, anybody who saw the condition of affairs which prevailed here during the emergency will have to realise that we must have a railway system in this country and that that railway system must be maintained. Secondly, it is the responsibility of whatever Government is in office to see that the railway services are not allowed to deteriorate.

So far as other matters are concerned, I hope to deal with them on the Committee Stage. The question of there being no appeal from the new board as regards freight charges or the closing down of branch lines is a matter that every Deputy should seriously consider because these are questions that will affect their constituents and it is their duty to consider what remedy they intend to provide.

I must admit that what I am going to say about this Bill will amount to very little inasmuch as my limited knowledge of its provisions and ramifications is just that of an ordinary man living from day to day in an area that was undoubtedly hit, and hit very hard, owing to certain action taken by Córas Iompair Éireann in the years of the emergency and subsequently. I should like to point out to the Minister that at various times we in Cork protested against the closing down of our branch lines. I think that Cork was hit harder than any other county in that respect. On one occasion I had to make a protest against the fact that too many trains were coming into the very small town at the foot of the Galtees where I live. There were three trains coming in there daily. Nobody with any experience of the nice little business that is carried on in that town could understand why three trains were arriving there daily. One day, when a protest was being made about restrictions in other services, I had to stand up in a very peculiar atmosphere and protest against the fact that a train which was leaving Cork at 8 p.m. was coming into the Mitchelstown terminus sometimes at 12 midnight, sometimes at 12.30, sometimes at 1 a.m. and perhaps on some occasions at 2 a.m.

I asked that my protest would be recorded because I said I felt that the whole thing was being purposely done to create a certain atmosphere and to produce a red balance sheet. That was being done in the year 1946 and up to the restrictions in train services in 1947, when fuel was in very short supply. Even when these three trains were coming into my town a Córas Iompair Éireann lorry used to radiate from Fermoy and carry goods right through the town of Mitchelstown to Ballyporeen, Clogheen and other places in County Tipperary. That does not speak very well for the administration we have heard so much about and which we heard so much about in the years 1943 and 1944.

Deputy Corry referred to people waving things in the 1944 election. All I saw Deputy Corry's Party waving was the document which the American Minister sent over here. There was not one word said about the railways and the plain people of the country forgot about the railways and were concerned about the war, and as a result several things happened. The less said about the waving of documents in 1944 and about going to the country on the Transport Bill by people on the opposite side of the House the better.

I should like to bring to the Minister's attention the pioneers of the establishment of railways in this country, the shareholders who through their own enterprise and thrift succeeded in accumulating a little money and from a monetary point of view, and perhaps a national point of view, invested their money in railway stocks. Undoubtedly they secured a certain amount of profit from their investments. Perhaps their success was a calamity for other people, inasmuch as it was an incentive to other people during the period of the first great world war and immediately afterwards to invest money in railway stocks. Everybody knows that since 1918 no dividend worth speaking about was paid to the ordinary shareholders of what was known as the Great Southern and Western Railways. I hope that the Minister when computing compensation will think of these people who bought their stock at par or perhaps something less and the capital value of whose shares was reduced by 90 per cent. by the Act of 1933. I think he could very easily do it, because there was a period between 1933 and 1944 when speculators invested in blocks of shares and bought them at a nominal sum and, in the first year that a dividend was paid by that company for 20 years, recovered in one dividend practically what they had paid for the shares. Those people are not at the same loss as the other people I refer to. Surely the records are there in the archives of the company of the people who purchased the shares at £100 and the people who purchased them at 2/6, or perhaps less.

I was surprised at such a well-informed Deputy as Deputy Corry bringing the sugar company into this. I cannot understand how the comparison can be made with regard to the price charged by the sugar company. Undoubtedly General Costello, manager of the sugar company, has done a great service to this country in initiating the ground limestone industry which will improve and increase the productivity of the land, but I cannot understand what bearing it has on this Bill. I appeal to the Minister, before taking the drastic action of closing down branch lines, to give every consideration to the branch line which I am interested in and which supplies the needs of my own town.

I am not sufficiently conversant with the technical side or ramifications of this Bill to know exactly what power is to be given to the board. It looks, as Deputy Lemass said, as if certain powers are to be given to the board. Those powers were formerly given, not to a board, but to an individual, the former chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann. I believe that at that time there was a one-man directorship, that the directors were more or less reechoing the statements made by the chairman. I ask the Minister to give every consideration to my appeal on behalf of the original shareholders. It may be a very hard thing to do because there may be a lot of complications. But surely the successors of those who were mainly responsible for financing the establishment of the railways should get more consideration than the speculators who came in from 1933 to 1944. I hope, when the Minister has decided, that he will be generous, and that his generosity will be befitting the position which he holds as Minister for Industry and Commerce.

I take it that at this stage of the Bill we are really facing the consideration as to whether or not to nationalise the transport system is good. I feel that we cannot debate whether it is good or bad because I think the Minister has been forced into the situation that, so far as any hope of the survival of the transport system is concerned, he has had to take the course which he has now adopted. I have always felt that there was something queer, something phoney about Córas Iompair Éireann. I have always felt that it was conceived in a hurry and born in sorrow, and I am glad to see that it is going to die in shame. I think it is going to be an epitaph to the colossal stupidity of the late Minister for Industry and Commerce. I am going to put no tooth on it. I think it is about time it was realised throughout the country what a colossus of stupidity—I will describe it as a colossus of administrative blundering—we had built under the guise of Córas Iompair Éireann.

Listening to-day to what was the conceived expenditure of this bankrupt company, in the line of capital expenditure, one wonders whether it is sympathy, castigation or medical attention that the late directors of Córas Iompair Éireann need most. It is time that the people of this country realised what an amazing mania was in the minds of some of those gentlemen who tried to paint all kinds of a dire picture of transport under anybody but themselves. Here it is a case of "its needs must when the devil drives."

I welcome the fact that the Government is going to try the experiment of saving the railway and transport system by nationalisation. I feel sorry that the Bill does not go a good deal farther. I think a good deal of reprehensible action was taken by the late company that might bear the light of public investigation, of recklessness and all the consequences of gross negligence of leaving the country without a transport system. No matter what the effort of the ordinary hardworking employee was, and no matter how earnest his efforts to keep things going might be, this concern was overloaded at the top and overloaded, mark you, by a lot of people whose only qualification for some of their posts in Córas Iompair Éireann was their friendship with our now political opponents. There was no criterion of merit, experience or ability as regards a railway or transport system required if you wanted to walk into any of the spit and polish jobs in Córas Iompair Éireann. It is time that the country knew that this was a first-class racket.

I feel that the new board is going to undertake a colossal task. Whatever restrictions may be put in the Bill as regards relieving men of employment on account of redundancy I hope that the axe will fall with guillotine swiftness on some of the popinjays in the administrative end of that company. The ordinary people of the country who tried to get Córas Iompair Éireann to move at the top know that in doing so you were blindly trying to cut through a morass, in the main, of stupidity and pompous ignorance. How the company was not in a worse state at times amazes me. How the Opposition can now bear to look back on their blunders, so far as Córas Iompair Éireann is concerned, I do not know, except I suppose it served its purpose for a number of years as a kind of place in which to dispense favour and patronage.

On the question of nationalisation, is there any alternative to it? At the moment I say there is not. This drastic step is necessary. This extreme measure of nationalisation is the only thing that will give any hope of survival to the railway and transport systems at present operated by Córas Iompair Éireann. I think myself that the Minister is only starting on what will have to be a series of Bills with regard to this who's problem. We had a lot of adjuncts and addenda conceived by somebody who obviously knew nothing about his job, but a lot of these will have to be shorn completely away, and our railway and transport system will have to be confined to its particular job and to that alone, lest again some raving idiot should conceive another six-storey railway hotel at a cost of £1,000,000. One can sit back now in the light of the figures disclosed to the House and ask what any person with a normal sense of responsibility to his directors would think of a bankrupt company which was not able to pay its debentures and not able to pay wages to its workmen in the latter part of last year, conceiving a capital expenditure of something over £17,000,000. Take one of their colossal blunders. Colossal is the only word to describe it. If one goes down to Butt Bridge one can see where they built a central bus station in the most awkward cul-de-sac in Dublin. They select the site on which to build this new central bus station just where they will make confusion more confused, and where, in fact, if it would ever become operative, they would probably have to spend another £225,000 in order to clear the block in front of it so as to allow the buses to come in.

I do not know what happened that this scheme was ever allowed to take shape. Already £320,000 has been expended. Any of us, no matter what part of Ireland we come from, walking to that corner where the new building has reared its head, would see at a glance that it was only bringing a most complicated traffic position into an area that already has a sufficiently big traffic problem. It would mean bringing all the country buses right through the busiest thoroughfares of Dublin into a very busy cul-de-sac. It is amazing to me that somebody, even before the change of Government, did not realise where Córas Iompair Éireann was heading for.

I will give the Minister a straight warning, that under the Bill he will have to give very wide powers to the board to cull some of the weeds growing with fat salaries at the top of the Córas Iompair Éireann tree. There is no doubt, on the case presented to the House, that incompetence has been the keystone, stupidity the watchword and, apparently, insanity the design of what was lately the board of Córas Iompair Éireann. Not only will the Minister have to get this legislation to enable him to proceed with the good work but he will also have to have courage to give the new board the widest possible powers to deal with the alleged administrative organisation of Córas Iompair Éireann.

I think nationalisation is a dire necessity. I think the only hope we have of putting on a business basis railway, bus and canal transport is through nationalisation. I feel certain that the Minister has available to him among the people born in this country, and possibly now working on English railway systems, the material on which to build a first-class board. He should get into that board men who know something about railways and general transport, men who have practical knowledge of it and not knowledge gained through papers or memoranda.

An immense task faces the new board. It is easy enough to give enabling legislation; that is a task which this House will gladly fulfil in the knowledge of the dire state of the company. I warn the Minister that unless he builds a board of independent, experienced, sane people this effort might easily cost our taxpayers a lot of money. With goodwill on the part of employer and employees, with goodwill on the part of the public and particularly on the part of this House to the venture, I believe it can be turned into a practical business concern. There is no reason why, in the course of a few years, it could not be made self-supporting or as near self-supporting as will make the burden nationally bearable. It is not this Bill that will be the basis on which nationalisation will succeed. That will be primarily the responsibility of the new board. It will be the job of that board to review the whole position and to try to get this concern back into proper working order.

The Minister has the responsibility of appointing that board and I urge him to ensure that only men qualified for transport work should be placed upon it. Some of the men who served on the last Córas Iompair Éireann Board were eminently qualified to be anything but the directors of a transport company. They may have been efficient lawyers or accountants, but they did not prove to be efficient for the job they were set to do. The people of the country must realise that this is the first sound effort to stop toying with the problem of transport and to deal with it on a comprehensive national basis. It is time the country realised the blunders that were made in the formation and development of Córas Iompair Éireann.

I would like to impress on the Minister the need to have this board subject to the Dáil. Our experience in the past has been that when we wished to ask questions with regard to the operations of similar organisations we were told that it was purely a matter for the board. I hope the Minister will bring in some amendment that will cover that aspect.

I would also like to impress on him the need to have some control over public hauliers. It was a terrible thing to observe the last attempt to solve the transport problem. Groups of hauliers were bought up after they had paid big prices for their vehicles. Then they were allowed to start off again.

I will not repeat what was said by Deputy O'Sullivan, but I certainly would like to impress on the Minister the desirability of having the board subject to the authority of the Dáil. It is this House that will have to sanction the payment of any losses that may be incurred and the House should have some say as to the conduct of the board in the administration of transport services.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce referred in his concluding remarks to the generosity and liberality to all concerned which, in his opinion, was one of the main characteristics of the measure before the House. It has to be remembered in this particular matter that the Government is merely the trustee for the taxpayer and that the transport stock, for the interest and repayment of which the taxpayer will in future be responsible, will amount to something in the region of £16,500,000. The question has been asked as to what is the difference in the policy which is likely to be pursued in the future in relation to the conduct of our transport system from that which operated in the past? What are the new factors which have determined the Government to the conclusion that they are fulfilling the dictum of the Milne Report that the objective of an efficient and economical transport system can be secured? If we ponder on some of the factors laid down in that report as being inherent in any such efficient and economical system of transport, I think we have the right to ask the Minister what is the policy which the new board appointed by the Government will operate?

The main factors according to the Milne Report inherent in any such transport system are:—

"(a) Fair and equitable conditions of operation must be established by the Government under which each form of transport can, with due regard to the national interest, function efficiently in its proper sphere.

(b) Public undertakings should provide cheap, adequate and efficient services and should be financially self-supporting.

These services should be available to all members of the public at uniform charges throughout the country. The interest of individual traders who desire to use their own vehicles, and of licensed operators providing only a limited service, should be subordinated to the interest of the majority who have to rely on public services."

The Minister has vouchsafed no information to the House as to whether the principles laid down by the Milne Report should be accepted if an economical and efficient transport is to be maintained. We have had no information as to whether, in fact, these principles are accepted by the Government.

Listening carefully to the Minister this afternoon, I heard him say that there has been a good deal of loose talk about cheap transport. I do not quite know what he means by that except that one might deduce from his subsequent remarks that he feels the public will have to pay such fares and freight charges for the services provided as will render the undertaking self-supporting. It is noticeable, however, that in this piece of legislation it is not specifically laid down that it shall be the object of the board to make the concern self-supporting. All we have are vague statements. As Deputy Lemass pointed out, we have not even definite answers to the questions posed by the Milne Report, except in one instance. We have vague statements from the Minister that duplicate services may be eliminated and that tourist services may be developed.

On the question of the restoration of the necessary traffic to the railways to enable them to meet their obligations, it has been pointed out during the debate that the determination of the charges will be left entirely in the hands of the board. No indication has been given to the House by the Minister as to the principles upon which the board will operate. The House is in the position that, as soon as this legislation is passed and the new board appointed, that board will be the determining authority and the final court of appeal in settling the charges for rail and road traffic. The only reference the Minister made as to his own feelings on the question of how these matters ought to be decided was to inform the House blandly that it would be the task of the new board to determine how best to arrange these charges in order to attract the maximum amount of traffic to both railway and road.

It has been pointed out that the Milne Report recommended that a public inquiry, as had been formerly the procedure, should be held before branch lines were closed down. We have no information as to whether that is contemplated. We have no information as to what procedure will be followed. We have no information as to whether the position will obtain that, when the board has the powers the Minister now seeks to give them, their word will be final and no inquiry or consultation of any kind will be necessary and that the lines which have already been closed down and in respect of which it was definitely promised such inquiry would be held before a final decision would be arrived at will, in fact, remain permanently closed.

The Minister referred at some length to lightning strikes and the inconvenience to the public of employees striking without justification and the necessity and desirability of workers making use of the conciliation machinery and negotiating procedure which exists for securing a settlement of disputes without recourse to strike action. I am sure we all recognise that the Minister was perfectly right in what he said. I feel that anything that can be done to bring home to organised workers the superior advantages of the negotiating machinery provided for them by this House and the painstaking efforts made by the Labour Court to settle disputes are worthy of their fullest support.

In dealing with this very important subject it must be remembered that transport, which is really the lifeblood of our national economy and our business activity, is largely in the hands of the workers who operate it. As the Minister has advised them, if they operate the system to advantage no one is likely to reap a greater profit from its success than they are. On the other hand, if they should be failing in their duty or remiss in the manner to which he drew attention then the whole community will suffer and they themselves will probably suffer more than the ordinary citizen.

The Milne Report did not recommend the nationalisation of our transport system. I think that the difference, if there is a difference, between the scheme envisaged in this measure and formal nationalisation is so small that it is not worth talking about. We all recognise that, in fact, it would be almost impossible to secure the position that you could have discussion on our transport system in this House on annual Estimates, such as you have on the Post Office, and that even the position of the Electricity Supply Board is rather unique. The railways are in a special position. There is a long trail of legislation behind the present measure. There is a long history attached to it. There are various troubles and problems arising and, on an occasion of this kind, when the State is being pledged financially to such very heavy commitments and when we are told that a new era is opening up and that a more effective and more efficient system is likely to be in operation for the benefit of our people, I think we are entitled to have an outline from the Minister of the broad principles of policy which he thinks the new board should follow.

Nevertheless, I quite realise that it would be almost impossible to discuss the details of transport organisation in this House, as it is suggested we should do, following the example of the Post Office. What we are doing is that we are giving the Minister power to appoint the directors: we are giving him power to remove them: we are giving him power to amend their powers: we are giving him power to limit the expenditure upon equipment and, generally speaking, we are taking the step of, if not bringing the entire system under direct control of Government Department, bringing it to the nearest possible step towards that end. We are, at any rate, taking a step, as has been pointed out, from which there could be no going back. We had at least the position up to the present that it was possible to reconstitute the existing board. It was possible to leave there that amount of private control and that representation of the private stockholder which already existed. It may not have been satisfactory from many points of view, but in any case, the unfortunate thing about the present proposals is that there is no going back from them.

If it is true that, in fact, it was inescapable and that sooner or later the step that is now being taken would have to be taken in any event, then it is all the more reason why we should examine carefully both sides of the balance sheet and see what exactly the country is getting in return for the expenditure that the taxpayer will certainly be called upon to meet to fulfil his commitments under this legislation. The recommendation, in fact, of this report about which we have heard so much was that there should be two Government directors upon the board and that they should have a veto on capital expenditure. The report did not recommend nationalisation. Those who wish to inform themselves about the position have only to look at the results of the reorganisation of the transport in Northern Ireland upon a nationalisation basis—whether they regard them from the point of view of the remunerativeness to the State of the undertaking or the extraordinary amount of evasion that I understand has taken place up there. They can hardly be satisfied in their minds that it is a very good example for us. In the neighbouring county, nationalisation has resulted in very heavy losses. I think no section of the community is more dissatisfied with schemes of nationalisation at present than the workers who are engaged on it.

They were led to believe that they were going to have a regular paradise when nationalisation was introduced. They find now that they are being advised that there are certain criteria that have to be fulfilled. Whether an enterprise is being run privately by a joint stock company, by a State corporation, or directly by the State itself, it has to pay its way in the long run. A certain point may be arrived at when the taxpayer may refuse to bear the burden and the whole State itself may have its finances endangered by having to undertake the commitments that it might be called upon to bear.

In those other countries where the railways are controlled by the State, as in France, there is no proof that they have been more efficient than in countries where they are carried out by private enterprise. In any case, in those countries, the railways were taken over long before the decline that has arisen, owing to the competition of road traffic, and before both road passenger and goods traffic began to compete so severely with them. Therefore, there is no comparison. We have to examine what we have at present in the light of existing circumstances and not try to proceed, as theoretical advocates of this course of action have often tried to do, on the idea that something which has been done in New Zealand, for instance, is entirely applicable to this country, where the circumstances may be completely dissimilar.

The recommendation, then, of this report was not in favour of nationalisation but in favour of strengthening the Government representation on the board and of giving them a veto on capital expenditure. When it is suggested from certain quarters in this House—it has been suggested in the past, and I suppose it will be suggested in the future—that the profit motive is no longer operative or should not operate, what criteria are we going to have if we are not going to have the criterion that an undertaking is to pay its way, to pay all its overhead costs and all its capital charges in addition? What criterion are we going to have to estimate whether the enterprise is doing its duty by the community or not? There is no suggestion in the speech of the Minister, nor was it suggested by anybody else, that, on the present basis, the undertaking can possibly pay the increased costs which have come upon it. It has been pointed out that these costs outrun completely any possibility of increased revenue.

Statements that the railways are necessary to the country, that they form the backbone of our transport system, that they are necessary for the carriage of certain types of goods, that our agricultural economy would find it difficult to carry on without railway transport, however true they may be, neglect the point of view that for very many years, long before the war, the railways had not been able to pay their ordinary charges. Competition is now very much more severe than it was then. When the 1944 Act was passed, there were about 11,000 or 12,000 lorries operating either under private operators or under licensed hauliers. I understand that the number has greatly increased and that there are up to 30,000 lorries in the country at the present time so that the competition which the railways have had to face has progressively increased, in spite of the steps which the former Minister took to strengthen the position by bringing in the remunerative traffic of the Dublin City Borough with the existing transport system of the country, thereby reducing overhead costs and enabling a service to be given in country areas that could not possibly have been given if the transport system had to depend on rural areas alone. It is very doubtful, as Deputy Lemass has pointed out, whether at any time the railway system was capable of paying its way having regard to the low density of our population and the lack of heavy industries. It was only because the British railways and the Irish railways in the first world war were heavily subsidised by the British and remunerated rather handsomely on a cost basis for the work they did during that emergency that they were able to carry on. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
Top
Share