I was pointing out last night some of the difficulties facing the State in regard to this problem of C.I.E. and I think that Deputies will realise now, as the public realises, that it is not by any means a simple problem. It is complicated; it is complex; it is difficult. It is not a problem which has arisen to-day or yesterday. It is a problem of long standing, a problem that has existed over a long number of years.
The basis of C.I.E. has been the railways and for a long time the railways had a complete monopoly of transport not only in this country but in other countries, but once there was competition with the railways from the new challenge on the roads, the directors of the railway companies,particularly in this country, failed to face up to their responsibilities. They allowed their property to get into disrepair and their equipment to deteriorate, with the result that the position became very serious indeed.
Every Government in this State since 1922 has had as its continual headache this problem of the railways and public transport. We had legislative proposals in connection with amalgamation and the establishment of the G.S.R. We had the new legislation which the present Minister sponsored and then we had the legislation passed by the inter-Party Government.
At the end of all that, we are still in the position that things are not satisfactory so far as public transport is concerned. It is obvious that they cannot be satisfactory while the present position continues. We have railways and they are expensive. Their equipment and machinery are expensive. They are expensive to maintain but they do give a good volume of employment and the general desire has been to save the railways for the purpose of saving the people who are employed on the railways. The railways have had as I said this new competition from the roads—buses, lorries and private cars—and then under the comparatively recent arrangement the railways, or their new organisation of C.I.E., have entered into this competition themselves by the establishment of bus services and road transport services, As was said here last night there are places where these two systems, both owned by the one company, are in competition. We have branch lines in competition with bus services and road transport services and when the Board of C.I.E. desire to end that competition by lopping off an uneconomic branch line which is not being used by the public, there is objection to it in this House.
There is a more serious problem developing day after day and that is the competition that this public service is getting from the private motorist and private lorry owners. I do not want to elaborate on this too much because I think it must be clear to every Deputy that, while thisposition remains, it will be impossible for C.I.E. to become a paying concern. The more persons become owners of private motor-cars, the fewer passengers will travel either on the buses or on the railways. Similarly the more private lorries there are for the haulage of merchandise, the more difficult it becomes for the railways to make ends meet. We are, therefore, faced with this position if the State wants to do so, it can make the railways a paying proposition but to do that, it has got to eliminate all other competition. That is the problem.
This House apparently and the public generally would not welcome any proposals that would eliminate competition from private motorists and private lorry owners. That being so, I think we have got to face up to the fact that if we are to maintain the railways and to maintain C.I.E., we shall have to pay a subsidy of perhaps £2,000,000 per year. The Minister had the idea that is should not be more than £1,300,000. That was the figure that was considered proper when the Estimates were being prepared but because of the increases in wages given to railway workers—and the fact that railway services are losing money is no reason why railway workers should have to work at lower rates of wages than other persons—we have to provide more money than was originally estimated. I think as things go on, we shall be lucky if we are able to break clear on our railway and transport services by the payment of a subsidy of approximately £2,000,000. That is how the House must face up to the situation.
It is the easiest thing in the world to criticise. It is the easiest thing in the world to say that it is nonsense to pay a subsidy of £2,000,000. It is the easiest thing in the world to say that the railways and the road services should be more efficient but the difficulty is to make them more efficient and to make them pay their way. I heard some criticism of the board of directors. I have, myself, on occasion criticised the Board of C.I.E. but the more one thinks of the problem, the more one realises the difficult situation that faces those persons. I thinkthat if the public generally and Deputies would realise that we have got to subsidise C.I.E. when we will not give them the monopoly that they think they should have, then we shall be able to have a sounder and saner outlook on this problem.
Having said that in a general way, we must agree that it is the duty of C.I.E. to get the best equipment they can, the best engines for their railways, the best buses for the roads, and to see that their stations, whether they be railway stations or bus stations, are up-to-date and fit to serve in a decent, reasonable way the requirements of the travelling public. I do not think that there will be any problem about the provision of capital moneys for such projects. There is not much sense in a Deputy interjecting something about Store Street when we are discussing the difficulties of the C.I.E. The travelling public are entitled to decent waiting-rooms, particularly in the capital city of the country. I think it should be the desire of every Deputy that the waiting-rooms and facilities for our travelling public everywhere would be as near ideal as possible.
As legislation stands at the moment, the Minister can do very little except to pay up or to come into the House and inform the House that it has to pay up. It is deprived by legislation of the right to examine into the administration of C.I.E. This House was deliberately prevented from examining or inquiring into the administration of C.I.E. by legislation passed a couple of years ago. When that legislation was being passed, a few Deputies—and I am glad to say I was one of them— opposed that proposal. I felt at the time, and other Deputies also felt, that when we were paying so much towards C.I.E., we should have the right to examine into its administration and to see whether it was successful or not. I am quite sure that the Minister and his predecessor, or any Minister for Industry and Commerce, would be glad to be finished with this whole problem of public transport, but it is there and all the Minister and the Government can do is get the best board they can for the undertaking and leave it to thatboard to do the best they can for the public.
While I realise our limitations in regard to an examination of the general administration of C.I.E., I do feel that some flexibility is required in the undertaking. The problems that confront us in Dublin are entirely different from the problems that confront the people in different parts of the country. The problems of rail transport and road transport for goods are entirely different and the problems in relation to road transport and rail transport for passengers are also different.
I feel that if the board were to make provisions whereby we could have in Dublin an official—a high official—of C.I.E. charged with the responsibility of looking after the city bus services it would be a good thing and that it would lead to efficiency of service and that if anybody had any complaint or suggestion to make he could make it to a person who is directly charged with responsibility for the administration of that part of the service. If anyone makes an objection or a suggestion at the moment it has to go to the board as a whole and by the time it has come through all the machinery of that particular board it becomes a completely different thing in the end.
Similarly, I think that road freight deserves some type of administration of its own if it is to be maintained at all by C.I.E Similarly, the long distance bus services and the bus services that operate outside C.I.E. should have some director or chief director in control and similarly in regard to the passenger section of the railway.
These are the only suggestions that have struck me in regard to the problem thinking over it from time to time. They may not be sound. There may appear to be certain defects in them but, nevertheless, I do feel that they are worth consideration. When the last board was appointed by the inter-Party Government, the inter-Party Government did not, in my view, deal with the difficult problem in the way they should have dealt with it. They tried to balance here and balance there and no one will agree that they were concerned only with obtaining theboard that would be most likely to bring efficiency to the C.I.E. undertaking.
We have in our transport undertaking, in our roads and in our railways young, efficient men. I think it is one of these organisations in which youth should have a chance, where imagination would have an opportunity of playing its part. I do not want to be unduly critical of the men that were appointed but I do say they were not appointed on the right lines.
The Minister is tied up and the Government is tied up for the statutory period and, when that statutory period is up, the Minister will have the difficulty of deciding what he should do in regard to it. I think everyone would like to see the Minister ensuring that youth, efficiency and ability would get an opportunity of playing its part on the new board. But even with youth, ability and efficiency on the board there are difficulties from a public point of view. The main difficulty is that C.I.E., as it is at present constituted, cannot possibly, in my view, pay its way. I suppose from the public point of view that the less the subsidy is the better it will be for the State but we have got to realise that there must be a subsidy. There must be a subsidy for many years.
Some people may say that you can eliminate the road transport section— the section of C.I.E. which deals with merchandise on the roads and hand it over to private enterprise. I do not think that that is a solution of the problem. I think that there must be State organisation in regard to our public transport. That organisation may hurt a little here and a little there but that cannot be avoided.
Public transport is for the service of the community and not for the service of particular persons who want to exploit conditions in their own interests. This whole problem has been discussed for many years in this House. As I have said already, it is a headache for every Minister who is in the position of Minister for Industry and Commerce. I do think that if we approached the problem, having givenit some thought and consideration, we could at least see what we intend, and we could see to some extent where we are going in regard to it but the sort of intervention we had here last night in regard to this Estimate and in regard to this whole problem was in no way helpful.