asked the Minister for Transport and Power if his statement in connection with a reply of 14th February 1962 that the number of people who travelled on the Waterford-Tramore bus service increased by 40,000 is an official estimate.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Waterford-Tramore Bus and Rail Passengers.
45.
The figure of 40,000 referred to by the Deputy is an estimate made by C.I.E. at my request.
As I indicated in my reply of 14th February, 1962, the number of bus passengers carried by C.I.E. in the period 1st April-30th October, 1961 showed a small increase on the number of rail passengers carried in the same period in the preceding year. The balance of the estimated increase of 40,000 represents an estimate of the numbers carried by the private bus service operating between Waterford and Tramore.
46.
asked the Minister for Transport and Power the number of fare-paying passengers carried by C.I.E. bus service on the Waterford-Tramore service last year.
47.
asked the Minister for Transport and Power the number of persons carried in each year by C.I.E. on the Waterford and Tramore Railway from 1954 to the last day of the existence of the said railway.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 46 and 47 together.
Statistics of the numbers of passengers using particular rail or road services are not published nor have they been furnished to me pursuant to any direction given by me under Section 34 (5) of the Transport Act, 1950. Neither have I requested the information from C.I.E. pursuant to Section 16 of the Transport Act, 1950.
Will the Minister tell us how are we ever to find out how many persons travelled on this railway, if he refuses to publish the figures? He goes around the country making speeches and telling everybody how many people travelled——
Speech!
Is the Deputy asking a question?
I am asking a question, Sir. Will the Minister tell us now why he will not give us the figures?
I have given any amount of help.
The Minister has not. I have asked the Minister how many people travelled on this railroad and he says only a small number more than travelled on the railroad were carried by bus.
The background to this matter is that, because of the public agitation stirred up by a few people in a number of areas in which railways were to be closed, I carefully collected the figures for a short period in order to indicate the general position in regard to passengers and also in order to indicate the result of C.I.E. making changes, as they have a right to do. I have no intention of starting to answer long detailed questions as to the number of passengers carried on this or that section of the railway. Were I to do so, there would have to be a special staff in C.I.E. and I should have to have a special staff myself to compile the figures; there would be variations from year to year. The kind of reply I would give would not give any enlightening information.
Has the Minister not got a special section in his Department for the sole purpose of closing railway lines?
Will the Minister give me one figure——
I have already given the Deputy the figure.
The Minister has not.
Are we not approaching an alarming situation if this House is to be asked to stand idly by while large lengths of railway are closed and we are denied statistical information of the volume of traffic passing over these long lengths of line? Surely that information ought to be made available to the House if there is a policy persisted in of closing down lines.
In reply to the Deputy, in the special debate on C.I.E., which took place last year, I gave exhaustive information, sufficient to indicate the various trends in transport, and so forth, which led to the closing of the three particular railway lines involved. No one could have given more information to prove that the agitation was unnecessary. In fact, the traffic carried on the particular line was negligible in comparison with the traffic along the road. I gave all the information I could. The debate, if I remember rightly, lasted for nearly a week. At the end of it, I made an extensive and detailed reply, answering virtually every question asked during the course of it.
Is it not true that, consequent on that discussion in this House, a categorical undertaking was given by the transport authority, C.I.E., that there would be no further closing of lines for a period of five years?
The Deputy has already raised that matter.
If the Minister now admits that the undertaking given just prior to the general election is invalidated and they do not propose to stand over it, does there not arise a new situation then in which Deputies should be entitled to get from some source, whether from the statistical section of C.I.E., or the Minister's Department——
There is nothing in this question relative to the closing of railway lines.
No, but there is a duty on the Minister to provide statistical material and he cannot escape that duty on the ground that it would be too expensive to collect it. All I am asking is: has the time not come to change that situation and collect the information so that reasonably informed decisions can be taken by this House in a matter which, I submit, is no longer a matter of day-to-day administration but is, in fact, becoming a broad question of transport policy ?
I am afraid I could not agree with the Deputy in that. If the Deputy reads the background of the Transport Act of 1958, he will see it came to this House clearly in relation to the Transport Committee report. It would only be if action by C.I.E. were to go far beyond the scope of that originally envisaged in the Act or some extraordinary circumstance arose in which they decided to close the whole railway system——
They are going very near it.
——that a new situation might develop. In actual fact, the circumstances of the closing of these lines reveal quite clearly that the undertaking is acting well within the ambit of the 1958 Act. That was fully understood by Deputies. Any Deputy who reads the Berry Commission report and the statements of the Taoiseach would have to agree that nothing has happened—and nothing will happen, I believe—which goes beyond the general ambit of the considerations involved in the report, considerations fully delineated and, in some respects, amended and interpreted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the light of the information he had on the subject.
Did the Minister not give an undertaking that no line would be closed without prior consultation with the local people?
And it was on that basis the promise was given to the House.
This is a debate, and not a supplementary question. I am calling Question No. 49.
Will the Minister tell me——
I have called Question No. 49.
Perhaps the Minister would answer Question No. 48 first.
I am sorry; I am calling Question No. 48.