I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £85,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1956, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (45 and 46 Vict., c. 74; 8 Edw. 7, c. 48; 1 and 2 Geo. 5, c. 26; the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1953; No. 45 of 1926; No. 14 of 1940 (Secs. 30 and 31); No. 14 of 1942 (Sec. 23); No. 17 of 1951, etc.), and of certain other Services administered by that Office.
The Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs already approved by the Dáil for the financial year ending 31st March, 1956, amounts to £7,707,000. Owing to causes which could not be foreseen, this provision will be insufficient and an additional sum of £85,000 will be required to meet expenditure up to the end of the financial year. The gross extra expenditure on the sub-heads for which the original provision is insufficient is estimated at £196,000.
The sub-heads affected and brief explanations of the causes of the increases are as follows:—
Sub-head A (2) — increase £66,000: due to pay awards and the cost of additional staff for increased telephone and postal traffic, offset by reduction in staff for telegraph traffic; sub-head A (3)—increase £57,000: the increased sum is required to meet pay awards; sub-head E (5) — increase £22,000: air mail traffic increased to a greater extent than anticipated. The additional traffic, it will be appreciated, produces increased revenue which more than offsets the increased cost of conveyance by air.
There is an increase of £15,000 in sub-head I (1).
The amount provided under the sub-head in the original Estimate is a net figure which is arrived at by deducting from the total cost of the salaries, wages and allowances that portion of it which is attributable to telephone capital works and which is proper to be paid from telephone capital funds. The relief to the sub-head by this process was less than originally estimated.
The increase of £7,000 in sub-head I (2) is due to an increase in the rates of subsistence allowances; the increase in sub-head K is £13,000 and is due to greater consumption of certain stores than was anticipated; and the increase of £16,000 in sub-head N (1) is due to the number of retirements from the service being greater than anticipated.
The increases to which I have referred amount to £196,000. Against this, however, savings on other sub-heads amounting to £69,000 will be available and, in addition, Appropriations-in-Aid (sub-head T) will be higher than estimated by £42,000, leaving a net sum of £85,000 now to be provided. The reason for the increase in the Appropriations-in-Aid is that more obsolete stores than estimated became available for sale and prices realised were higher than expected. This increase was partly offset, however, by reduced receipts from the Social Insurance Fund.