It is about time. I have told the truth on many occasions and I shall tell a little more before I am finished. I am not very enthusiastic about the Bill. It seems to me that what I said earlier in the debate is quite true, namely, that it is largely a draftsman's Bill, got together in a great hurry to meet an immediate need —to give some form to a change in the control and direction of Córas Iompair Éireann. The previous control, which embodied in the chairman most peculiar powers, has come to a sudden halt and we have to have a substitute for it. We propose to do it now through the medium of a Government-appointed board and to give them certain powers. That is good so far as it goes. All we do in the Bill is to formulate an instrument. The Bill has completely side-stepped some of the most grave questions of policy that should be dealt with and considered by the Government and not by a subordinate board. I am sorry that in the time that has elapsed since Sir James Milne presented the report the Government did not realise that, so far as transport was concerned, what we required was policy and, having decided policy, that the exercise of that policy would be of secondary importance.
Our main concern is with the instrument to carry out policy and not with policy itself. As I gathered from the Minister's statement, the view is that having established this board we shall throw on to the board the responsibility of considering the various problems in regard to national transport; that we shall regard that board as being a body of experts and that they, having considered, will advise the Government and that the Government will take action. That seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse with a vengeance. If we go back over the immediate period and consider the difficulties faced by Córas Iompair Éireann—the problem of the chairman, Sir James Milne's Report and our own knowledge of the situation—certain factors stand out that require attention. It seems to me that the only body capable of formulating policy is this House and that the only body charged with the responsibility of making decisions is the Government itself.
I draw the attention of the Minister to questions which are still lying on the Table, such as a proposal from Sir James Milne in regard to a central highway authority. I am not arguing that his policy in that connection is wise and should be accepted but he has raised the question of the capital and maintenance cost of the railway system as against that of roads; of the use of public roads by private hauliers entering into competition with public transport, and of our whole road policy and what is going to be the future in relation to our capacity to carry vehicles on the road. It is very easy for Deputies in this House to defend the right of the private trader to run his own lorry or of the private haulier to engage in competition with the public transport system. However, the members of this House, regardless of local responsibility, have a major responsibility and that is to decide the question of whether we are going to have any system of transport in this country. If we are, they must decide what that system is going to be based on and whether we are going to make the needs of the individual secondary to the needs of the public as a whole.
Everybody can see the force of the argument of the private trader who asks why he cannot be allowed to run his own lorry, or to pick up a load if that lorry is coming back to town empty from the country. There is no reason why, but there is another question to put to him. Why should he expect to be able to call upon a public transport company at an hour's notice to provide him with a lorry to take his goods if he has not a second lorry or will not spend the money on one, or when he has a load that is not a paying load, or for some other work? If he wants a public transport system not merely to serve the public as a whole but as a fall back for the manufacturer and the private haulier in their times of emergency, difficulty, and when they want to get rid of an unprofitable load, then, having accepted the position that we must have a public system, that public system has to have a right of way over everybody else. The sooner we realise that, the sooner we can see our way in regard to maintaining a public system of transport.
In the course of the discussion, questions are raised as to whether or not the Minister has yet given any consideration to the matter of public and private hauling. It seems to me that that is one of the questions which require consideration by this House in order that guidance might be given to the Minister. I do not think it would be fair to expect either this or any other Government to decide the policy in regard to that particular matter— with all this local political pressure behind it—without first having the advantage of hearing the members of all Parties in this House express their views. If, having set up a new transport board, we find, say, that in six months' time—having considered the problem of the competition which a public transport system has to meet— they make certain recommendations to the Minister, the Minister will still have to come before this House and formulate policy and ask our support for it. I believe we could very usefully have used the time that has elapsed since last autumn in getting from this House a mandate on policy which would now be available for the new transport board so that they would be free, from the first time they take up office, to apply themselves to the technical problems that may possibly overwhelm them. Similarly, in regard to the public transport system itself. Have we yet decided on our policy in regard to the rail system and the road system in that company?
I have mentioned in regard to Córas Iompair Éireann in the past that there was not merely competition between Córas Iompair Éireann as a single concern and private hauliers and traders but that there was competition within Córas Iompair Éireann itself, between the railway system and the road system. It was not uncommon for traffic to be lost to the railway system —and not to the private haulier, but to the road section of Córas Iompair Éireann—without even the rail section knowing the road section was competing. The new board, from the early days when it takes up office, has got to know on what line it is going to pre-pursue its policy. Is it going to preserve the railways and to use the road system either as an auxiliary system or as a feeding system, or is it going to develop the road system as competition to the rail system?
Similarly, in so far as competition from private hauliers is concerned, there was a very valuable recommendation in Sir James Milne's Report namely, to give attention to the conditions of employment and rate of wages on which these private hauliers carry on their business. He suggested that, in so far as they were entering into competition with the public transport system which was required to work on the basis of regulated and standard wages and conditions, there should be a similar safeguard provided in regard to private hauliers. Again it is a question of policy. If Córas Iompair Éireann in the future is to be able to maintain itself against this competition, quite clearly they are entitled to an equitable basis of operation in so far as wages and conditions are concerned.
There was a proposal put forward by Sir James Milne which merited examination not from the point of view of machinery but from that of policy. So I say that in so far as the present Bill is concerned we are only manufacturing machinery to carry out the policy and leaving the major questions of policy still hanging in the air. I personally believe that it is a mistake to leave those questions of policy to be decided by the new board. In the first place, I am not one of those who believe that the expert knows the answer to every problem. Time after time, as every one of us is aware, when the expert had made his final statement with regard to any problem the ordinary person of wide breadth of view, commonsense and a wide appreciation of the social and economic problems of the country has had to step in and apply that expert's knowledge and very often to correct the expert. I do not know what the personnel of the new board will be at the moment—I hope to speak on that question later—but if we appoint it as a board of experts or as a board of experts plus other men and women with a wide grasp of our economic problems I still feel that we are placing a burden of problems on their shoulders which could only properly be decided by this House or by the Government itself. Until we decide those problems the new board cannot hope to approach the question of providing within the terms of the Act a cheap and efficient system of transport to the public in relation to agricultural development and the needs of the public generally.
During the course of this debate a great deal of play has been made by the Fianna Fáil Party and by my good friend, Deputy Captain Cowan, because of the fact that the Bill is not full nationalisation. I think that many of us are not yet clear as to what we mean by nationalisation and I have no preconceived ideas on that question except to the extent that I want to see men and women working, as far as possible, in the service of the community rather than in the service of private individuals for the profit of those private individuals. What the machinery or administration form may be is a matter for argument and probably adjustment to meet each situation as it arises. As far as the Bill is concerned, what I notice about it is that, in the first place, we have public ownership. While we will give the present owners of debenture and common stock guaranteed transport stock, it does not give them a further interest in so far as control is concerned; it is a public concern and the guarantee of interest is limited in so far as it is merely the rate on stocks. The owners may no longer appoint the board of directors, decide policy. In the second place, it is based on the proposition that the transport system is to be run as a public service and not as a profit-earning enterprise. As far as I am concerned, that largely decides whether we are dealing with a nationalised undertaking or not. In the course of the discussion on the 1944 Act many of us who were opposed to that Act were denounced as rather opposing a Bill which was going to nationalise transport. It was not nationalising transport; rather was it personalising it, but in this case I am satisfied that, in so far as the fundamental approach is concerned, we are dealing with public ownership and control. How it is to be exercised is a matter on which there must be a great difference of opinion. I listened with great attention to Deputy Cowan and, frankly, I thought that his speech was the best argument against his form of nationalisation and public control. If we are going to have a nationalised system of transport in which we will have a board constituted of transport experts presided over by a Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary all open to the most detailed inquiry, questioning and explanation on any occasion when any Deputy in this House feels like getting on his feet we may lock up the transport system and bid it good-bye.
We must by some manner of means retain the right of this House to deal with questions of policy with regard to transport. At the same time, while I am as anxious as anybody to secure ultimate protection for the individual members of the staff of that concern, I am not prepared to try to utilise this House to do work that can and should be done by the trade union movement with regard to the individual worker. But there are times when questions regarding wage rates and conditions of employment have been dealt with by individual trade unions and then become questions of national policy, and I believe that we have got to find, during the Committee Stage of this Bill, some medium whereby, without crippling or cramping the day-to-day direction of the undertaking, we can find ways and means to make it possible for this House to explain its views on the policy pursued by that national undertaking.
I would like the Minister in this connection to say with regard I think to Section 32 where provision is made under which the Minister lays the accounts and reports of this company on the Table of the House whether he regards that as a reasonable opportunity for discussion on the policy and general operation of the new company. It does, of course, only provide that opportunity once a year. We have had a similar opportunity in regard to other concerns such as the Electricity Supply Board, the industrial alcohol factories, etc., and as far as I am aware advantage has never been taken of that opportunity. At the present moment there is a motion down in the names of two Deputies to discuss Bord na Móna and it has now been on the Order Paper for some months, but I take it that if the accounts and reports of the new company to be established by the Bill were placed on the Table of this House and any Deputy or Party desired a discussion on them time for that discussion could and would be made available at short notice as a matter of policy. I would be glad if the Minister would consider enlarging on that aspect of the matter, whether within the Bill we have sufficient provision to enable this House to retain an overall control with regard to the policy and the broad workings of the system.
One of the objections I have to the course discussed by Deputy Cowan—it is not exactly connected with the discussion at the moment—is that I feel we have now got quite a number of concerns in this country operating on a basis of public or semi-public control and for which this House does carry a very direct responsibility. It seems to me that we must consider whether discussion in this House as a whole is the best way of dealing with those concerns. In view of the fact that the number of such concerns may increase in the future we might consider whether machinery in this House by way of committee might be set up for detailed discussion of the day-to-day operations of these concerns and not have every small matter of detail dealt with as a question of political strategy and tactics so that the work of this House is tied up while the merits of the case may be lost in the exchange of brickbats across this House. That is a matter which could be considered, as to providing machinery whereby the House, through a system of committees, could establish and maintain more direct and intimate contact with the working of these public and semi-public concerns.
One matter with which I am particularly concerned is the question of the financial provisions. It is not in respect of compensation. It seems to me that, with all that has happened in regard to investments in railway stocks and shares over recent years, we have now got to the end of that particular worry and it is not of very great importance any longer. The question whether they get 3 per cent. or a smaller amount of interest also is not material, although it is interesting to know that, on the occasion of the discussion in this House on the 1944 Transport Bill, one of the members of the present Government waxed very eloquent in opposing the payment of 3 per cent. at that time, but he seems to be overwhelmed by the pressure of the present Government and it is still fixed at 3 per cent.
What I am concerned about is that as a result of proposals for the compensation for the whole of the debenture and common stock guaranteed to have 3 per cent. interest, the company is required to meet certain interest payments on an annual basis and if they fail to do so the Government guarantee comes into operation. I am concerned as to whether the requirement to pay—and provide the moneys to pay—that interest will be the primary and overriding concern of the company in the same way as the requirement to pay the debenture interest is the primary overriding claim on any public or private company.
I personally would prefer if, instead of issuing transport stock to the holders of the present debenture and common stock, it were possible to issue Government stock to them, on the same basis, if you like, and completely divorce them from any further connection with the new transport company, leaving the new company in the same position as the Electricity Supply Board, obtaining its finances direct from the Government as it may require them from time to time and paying them an agreed rate of interest. Why I think that is valuable is that under the present Bill we will have a board charged with transport policy and at the same time charged with the responsibility of finding the necessary moneys to pay the interest on its stock. At the moment I understand that the annual charge for that interest will run to something in the nature of £600,000. In addition to that, we have already a deficit which by the end of the year may be in the nature of £1,250,000. Where they are going to find the money I do not know, so it seems to me that the guarantee will come into operation very quickly.
Leaving aside the present critical state of the company and considering it from a normal point of view, the normal proposal is that they will require to obtain money to meet that interest. The board will, therefore, be under certain pressure so to order its policy as to make that amount of money available. If they appear to be following the policy that will not bring that result, I take it that they will be under certain pressure from the Government and the Minister for Finance to mend their ways and so preserve the Government from having to find the money direct and fulfil its guarantee. On the other hand, if they keep out of the clutches of the Government and the Minister for Finance, and base themselves purely on their own situation inside the company, is the requirement to find that interest going to take precedence in the minds of the board over the needs of the public and over the legitimate claims of the staff carrying on the system?
That is why, personally, I would prefer if we could remove the question of compensation for the existing stockholders completely out of the realm of the future operations of the company. Let us compensate them, giving them Government stock of whatever type you like, guaranteed 3 per cent., but leave the board completely free to provide the system of transport which is required by the public and is in conformity with the policy given to it by the Government. Let it obtain its finance from the Government and let its primary consideration as a board be the provision of effective and efficient transport and of reasonable conditions for the staff. Let it not be concerned—as it must be under present proposals—with the annual charge it will have to meet, in accordance with the present Bill, for the payment of interest. It would not require any great change, but it would make a tremendous difference in the policy of the board and particularly in the relations between the board and the staff.
I dislike intensely looking forward to the day when the chairman of the board will possibly tell the representative organisation of the staff that their claims are quite justifiable but have to be put to one side as the board has a primary responsibility to find £600,000—or whatever the sum is —for the payment of the interest on the guaranteed stock. If we have that situation, we will end up eventually with a discontented staff, which will not feel inclined to give the cooperation for which the Minister has called. We will have again, in a most peculiar form, a conflict between public policy and welfare and the claims of those who have invested their money in this undertaking, even in this indirect form, through a type of Government guaranteed stock.
I think we should make a complete break. Let us establish on the lines of the Electricity Supply Board—even with all its limitations and faults—a new type of public board suitable to this problem and free to operate the policy generally laid down by the Government, free to meet the needs of the public and having a contented staff which will co-operate wholeheartedly in the running of the system.
One matter referred to in the course of the debate is that of redundancy. The present staff is assured that, if redundancy does arise, there are reasonable terms of compensation for them. Deputy Briscoe, in his usual way, tried to suggest that the passing of this Bill would create a redundancy of 2,000 or 3,000 men. I suggest that, if Deputy Briscoe thinks over the railway policy of the Fianna Fáil Government, he will realise that, but for the act of God, we would have no railway men left in the country. Apart, however, from the compensation terms embodied in the Bill, the Minister should realise and impress on the members of the board when they take up office, that redundancy has not to be considered in the light of these compensation provisions. There is no compensation which could be given in monetary form to a man that will make good his loss of employment. If we take the case of a young man who happens to get employment on the railway. After a year or two, he expects to become more or less constant and in good time to become a permanent employee. He marries, enters into family commitments, establishes a home and so on. What good is it to him to give him compensation after he has four years' service? Not only is the compensation completely inadequate in regard to the lump sum of money received by his but there can be no compensation for the almost inevitable break-up of his home, possibly the fact that he has to leave where he has been living for a number of years and has got to re-settle himself and get other employment.
I think the earlier reference in the Bill to redundancy is the one that the board should be charged to operate, on the assumption that there will be no redundancy and that, where there is a need to reduce staff on any part of the system, the board will regard it as a primary obligation to see that those men are fitted in to some other part of the system with the least disturbance to their working lives and particularly to their home lives.
In regard to branch lines, I would support the pleas made to the Minister to provide some machinery of inquiry before a decision is taken on the closing of a branch line. I notice that Sir James Milne in his report takes the view that largely appeals to me, when he says that the closing of a branch line should be regarded in the first instance from the point of view of the public interest. He goes on to make a further point, which Deputies should consider when discussing this question, that the branch line is not to be considered purely in relation to the local public interest, neither from the point of view of keeping it open nor closing it, but it should be regarded as part of the general railway system. Even though a particular branch line, as far as its separate costing is concerned, may show a loss, as part of the whole railway system it may be very essential as a feeder and as part of the general system. When charging for transport services no company bases its charges on each separate local division but works them out on the basis of the system as a whole, with due allowance for the differences in the traffic that has to be carried, both in relation to the type of traffic and the concentration of traffic in the various areas. It is from that aspect, I suggest, that there has been a good case made in support of the proposal that the Bill would be amended so as to provide some form of inquiry before a decision would be taken to close down a branch line and, preferably, it would seem to me, that inquiry should take the form of inquiry by independent persons who live in the locality where the branch line is situated and a public report to the Minister who would then give the proper direction to the board.
Similarly in regard to the question of the imposition of charges. I accept a good deal of what the Minister said when he pointed out that, because of the breakdown in what was formerly a monopoly enjoyed by railways in the carriage of goods and passengers, there is no longer the same need to provide the same machinery in regard to the fixation of charges, with one important exception, namely, the case of the ordinary passenger. The private trader, the large manufacturer, if he is dissatisfied with the charges fixed by Córas Iompair Éireann with regard to any freight he offers them, has an alternative and can use that alternative as a means of defending himself against the charges of Córas Iompair Éireann but the ordinary passenger who travels by train and bus has no alternative and if, to-morrow morning, Córas Iompair Éireann decided to increase passenger fares by 100 per cent, the passenger has either to pay or to walk. From that point of view, I suggest that, even though the Minister, in the Bill, is giving over power to the new company to fix its charges without reference to any other body, he should, not as Minister for Industry and Commerce, but as a member of a Government charged with representing and protecting the welfare of the citizens as a whole, retain some power in respect of the fixation of passenger fares because that is the only protection the public can enjoy.
Even though we are dealing with a publicly owned concern, a concern which, supposedly, is to be operated in the public interest, we are all aware that bodies create their own sectional views and sectional interests and it would not be unnatural to expect that on some future occasion the board of the new Córas Iompair Éireann organisation might decide in pursuance of their own narrow sectional interests as a transport concern that passenger fares would have to be raised and would have to carry more than their due share of the total cost. From that point of view, there should be some protection for the ordinary passenger on the bus and the train. That protection should be subject not merely to the Minister but, through him, to this House where it was found necessary.
Reference was made in the course of the debate to certain of the items of capital expenditure proposed by Córas Iompair Éireann and dealt with in Sir James Milne's Report and referred to by the Minister. One of these was the new chassis shop. Deputy Lemass waxed very eloquent when he pointed out that one of the reasons why such development should be encouraged is that it would go towards providing a general engineering shop for our national economy. It is amazing how people wake up when it is too late. In 1929 the proposal was made that the old Great Southern Railways would spend £250,000 on extending, developing and re-equipping their railway shops at Inchicore, not merely as railway shops but as a central heavy engineering shop for the whole of the Twenty-Six Counties. That proposition was quite well known to Deputy Lemass. From 1932 to 1948 he had ample time to give effect to it. He did not bother to give it a thought until he came to the point where he no longer had power to deal with the matter. Now he complains, in a period of the most critical conditions for Córas Iompair Éireann, that there is a stop put upon this chassis shop and the argument he advances is that we are interfering with the development of our national economy and denying ourselves a most essential engineering feature. Deputy Lemass, as I have pointed out, is the darling of the railway men in Inchicore and could have looked after them when he was in office and when he had the power.
That proposal to extend and equip the railway shops in Inchicore in 1929 was one of the proposals put forward at the time to try to ease the very critical situation that had arisen and which led to 3,000 railway men becoming redundant and being thrown out of the service. Even at this late stage, I would urge—not on the basis of the proposals in regard to the erection of a new chassis shop—that there should be a direction to the new board from the Minister that one of the proposals they would keep in mind would be that Córas Iompair Éireann, through its railway shops, would definitely undertake, as a matter of national policy, the provision of a heavy engineering works attached to the railway system, not merely for the carrying out of railway maintenance and repairs, but that would be available for Irish industry as a whole.
At the present time quite a large number of our new industries find it necessary to send their machinery back across the channel for even minor repairs because of our lack of a suitably equipped engineering shop to carry on this work. It would be of tremendous help, not only in normal times, but particularly if we should have a further emergency such as we experienced in recent years, if somewhere in our own country we had a properly equipped and developed heavy engineering shop. No body in this country is in a position to do that except the body that is charged with the carrying on of our railway system. That is the basis on which it should be erected.
There are two small matters which I should now like to deal with. Reference was made here to the personnel of the new board. I hope the Minister will exercise a great deal of caution and discretion in this matter. I would be very sorry to see the board constituted of a Government-appointed chairman, possibly with a non-railway background, and five other members whose only background was either the railway system or the road freight system. I would fear for the future transport system and, above all, for the public. I hope the Minister will find it possible to get a balance between experts and men and women with breadth of vision greater than that of the average expert, who know the economic, industrial and social problems of our country and who have the independence of view to stand up to the experts, if necessary. One of the weaknesses that I am aware of in regard to the Electricity Supply Board is the overwhelming weight of opinion on the expert side, so much so that even on technical matters there might have been a better view taken if we had a more balanced composition of the board. It is important, from that point of view, that attention be given to the personnel of the board.
I am aware that suggestions have been made that the personnel of the board should include direct representatives of the staff working in the concern. I am as ready as anybody to make claims on behalf of workers in any concern but, in my opinion, if we have—and I think the Minister must have—a representative on that board with what we would call a trade union, a labour or a workers' background, that representative must come from a broader section of the working class and the trade union movement than that represented merely by the staff of the particular concern. It would be a most embarrassing position for any representative of the organisations at present catering for these members of the staff to find himself on that board and expected to represent the interests of that staff rather than the interests of what we would call the working class and trade union community as a whole. The important thing is that on the board we will have somebody who has an understanding and a background of speaking for and representing workers, both as wage earners and consumers. Through that means, we will get, in association with the trade unions representing the staff, sufficient protection for the members of the staff; but if a claim is to be pressed merely on the basis that because we have 10,000 or 20,000 workers engaged in the concern, they must have the sole right of representation, we are going to run into difficulties not merely in regard to our transport system but in regard to any other concerns that come under public control.
The question has been asked why the Grand Canal Company should be included in the Bill. I can see no argument why it should not be. We seem to forget that we are dealing with national transport and trying to arrive at national policy. The Grand Canal Company is one of the basis systems of our national transport which works in as a feeding system for the railway system, but, because of lack of an overall policy, the railways and the canals at times find themselves competing with each other. I am not concerned, however, solely with that aspect, but with the fact that we have on the canal system a body of men, some 500 in number, who, for the past 30 or 40 years, have assisted in carrying on a portion of the transport system of the country and at a cost which only they know. The canal company has been a profitable concern for the directors. It has paid dividends and has enjoyed a steady and remunerative income out of its rents and holdings, but it has been able to continue as a concern only because of these 500 workers who, in the words of its own representatives, have never been paid a fair rate of wages or given proper and reasonable conditions of employment. These 500 men have a right to be regarded as part of the transport labour force in this country and if we are going to give, out of the charity of our hearts, reasonable compensation to stockholders and shareholders, then these men who, for more years than I care to remember, have enjoyed the worst possible conditions of employment and the lowest rates of wages of any type of worker in the country, have a claim not only on this Assembly but on transport as a national concern.
One of the difficulties will be not that of relating the management of the canal company to that of the railway company—that is very simple because that has almost worked out to-day—but of deciding how and in what way railways and canals can be fitted into modern transport with its new forms of traction and carrying of passengers and goods. On the Continent, there has been large-scale development of canal transport, even since the end of the war, with very heavy capital expenditure in the shape of the building of new barges, widening of rivers and erecting of new locks. On the other hand, in England, the effort to adapt the canal system to modern requirements has not made very much progress. I believe there is still a future for canal transport for certain types of freight in this country, but it is a problem which requires a knowledge of transport and transport needs. The fact that we are dealing with what appears to be a very slow-moving form of transport is no reason to suggest that, in this day of speed, it cannot find its rightful place. There are still types of traffic which it is more profitable to carry by canal than by any other system, if we look at it from the point of view that if to-morrow we abolished our railway system and our canal system and threw the whole of our passenger and freight traffic on to the roads, we would have complete chaos. So long as these canals are open—they represent probably a capital value to-day of £100,000,000—they can serve a useful purpose, and the men who have maintained that canal system through the years, and especially through the years of the emergency, as part of the labour force in the transport system, have a rightful claim to, and should be given, due and proper consideration.
