Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 29 Nov 1962

Vol. 198 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 45—Transport and Power (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration"—(Deputy D. Costello.)

Mr. McGilligan

Before the interval, I adverted to the different principles operating as far as internal and external transport are concerned. On the question of external transport, Irish Shipping do not to any extent serve this country but the air services do, to a limited extent, serve Irish nationals. I said and I want to repeat it, that it is a great pity an apparently efficient company like Aer Lingus should be put in a false position before the public.

We hear statements from publicity officers and important people on the boards of these companies to the effect that they have made operational profits and the public are rather relieved until they get a shock to find these profits are not calculated by any business standards. That presents the company in a false light to the public. It would be far better to let the public know that just as we regard Irish Shipping as a prestige service so we should regard the air services—that we frankly recognise they will not pay their way or that at least if they do it will be the surprise of the century. It is wrong to have the accounts presented without paying attention to the capital involvement or how that capital is met. Because of that, a bad situation has developed.

Let us take a look at the relevant portion of the Minister's 48-page memorandum of introduction to this Estimate. On page 12, speaking of Aer Lingus, the Minister said:

The accounts of the company for the year ended 31st March, 1962, show that the Company earned an operating surplus of £56,000 as against £277,000 in 1960-61. Total Revenue increased from £4,970,000 in 1960-61 to £5,684,000 in 1961-62, but this was more than offset by increased operating expenditure which amounted to £4,693,000 in 1960-61 as compared with £5,627,000 in 1961-62. The results of the company's operations in 1961-62 can be regarded as satisfactory in view of the increased competition encountered in the period both on the cross-channel and Continental routes.

To make the accounts show an operational surplus without bothering about the capital involved is dishonest. It would be so regarded in any business concern which would have to pay attention to whatever capital was involved, whether in the form of outside borrowing or share capital. They must make provision for repayment of capital and for the payment of interest. This failure to show in the accounts the capital involvement carries forward the deception of the public.

We have then the final revelation with regard to the accounts when the Minister admits deficits on the airports but shows operational profits for the airline companies. The Minister had to admit that there were deficits because he had to add in such things as pension provisions and provisions in respect of the airports.

When we come to Aer Lingus, we are told an operational surplus is earned—£56,000 as against £277,000 during the previous year—and people reading that are very happy, even though they might say: "Maybe the company have not made as much as in the year before but at least they have made money." Nowhere in his statement does the Minister say Aer Lingus is in the red. Putting Aer Lingus in the red may not be anything we should be surprised at. I know Aer Lingus—I do not know Aerlínte, never having travelled on the Atlantic route—and I am always struck by the efficiency of the people you meet on that service. In fact, there are few companies where one would receive more courtesy and greater efficiency but they should not be presented as making money when they are not making money and when they are depending on the taxpayer. That is a misleading statement for the Minister to make. At page 13 of his speech he says:

The accounts of the Company for the year ended 31st March, 1962, show that the Company earned an operating surplus of £200,000 as compared with an operating deficit of £94,000 in 1960-61.

Anybody reading that and reading what was said about Aer Lingus would say that between the two, they had changed a deficit into a surplus.

The statement goes on:

The total revenue earned by the Company in 1961-62 was about £4,167,000 as against £2,463,000 in 1960-61 and this very considerable increase reflects the extensive development achieved in the Company's traffic during the year.

There are 48 pages in this statement which shows that Aer Lingus and Aerlínte are not making money according to business standards. If this House were asked: "Do you insist on the company making money? Do you insist on its measuring up to ordinary industrial or commercial trading standards?", we might say: "No. We shall give them a certain amount of rope. They are very hard pressed by competition. It is not a commercial service and we shall allow them to run a deficit, provided it is not over a certain amount." Two attempts have been made to mislead the public which will not redound to credit of Aer Rianta which controls these two companies. Such items as capital and pension liability are things which must be counted in the world in which we live, unless this Parliament says: "We shall not ask them to meet these charges. We shall take it out of the taxpayer's pocket." The framework in which this whole thing has been put indicates that operationally the two companies are making a profit. That is completely wrong.

I said the Minister's memorandum ran to 48 pages. My calculations make that 14,000 words. It is an amazing document for what I call a "phony" Department. This Department is described as the Department of Transport and Power. It is now transport, power and tourism. In dealing with Aer Rianta, the Minister makes what is to me a revelation. This Minister for Transport and Power, who has now added to himself tourism, has got the Minister for Finance to subscribe £275,000 by way of share capital for investment by Aer Rianta in Irish and Inter-Continental Hotels, Limited. The statement goes on:

The money is being used towards the construction of hotels in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and these hotels will provide much needed additional first-class tourist accommodation, the lack of which at present is undoubtedly retarding the air companies in their efforts to attract more tourists to this country.

The situation is now that the Minister for Transport and Power is not so much interested in transport as in attracting tourists. In order to do that, he has to go into the hotel business. I hope I have made the members of this House familiar with the work of what is called Parkinson's Law, the groundwork of that being that if a person has time enough, he will occupy all the time on a particular job, that he will extend the time he would use on that job until all the time available is used. That applies also to personnel.

Here we have a completely unnecessary Minister for Transport and Power doing what used to be done by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. People looking through this memorandum will see that as far as transport and power are concerned, the Minister has handed over all his obligations and duties to boards. You have Aer Rianta, Aer Lingus and Aerlínte; you have the people under Aer Rianta who run the airports. You have the board of Irish Shipping, Bord Fáilte and a whole lot of subsidiary or ancillary boards that run tourism. Then there are the ESB, Bord na Móna and CIE.

The Minister having handed over all his duties to various boards, found he had nothing to do so he developed a line on tourism. Even tourism does not occupy a man who is doing even a 40-hour week job and now he is going into hotels. I do not know where this will stop but it is Parkinson's Law working entirely to the satisfaction of Mr. Northcote who first wrote about it. The man who has time on his hands will find ways of utilising that time and you will get the establishment of associations and amalgamations of associations which will give him some interest in life if they do not give him some occupation. The Minister is now in the hotel business because, as he says, the lack of good hotels is retarding the air companies in their efforts to attract more tourists to this country.

Let us be honest in this matter. Let us say the Taoiseach was wrong when away back in 1959 he said prestige did not matter, that tourism did not matter, that we are going to get cash profits out of the operation of the transatlantic airlines. Let us abandon that but it has got to be done frankly. We are no longer adhering to that standard. We are now going in with the ordinary rut, with the people who are losing money in all-out competitive effort to attract travellers. When we see the Minister for Transport and Power getting into the hotel business, there is no knowing where it will stop. There ought to be some limitation put upon it.

We have come to the point where there ought to be some clarification given. If it is not given in the clarification of the accounts of the airlines, of Bord na Móna or different other boards, at least it should be given by the Minister. We are the shareholders representing the public. The Minister ought to explain everything honestly to us as the director of a board will explain to the shareholders. He has not done that and these 48 pages are mainly occupied in trying to evade the significant fact that emerges from this document, that, with the exception of the ESB, all the State companies are losing money and losing money judged by ordinary business standards.

It is interesting to see the division of the Minister's speech. He spoke about 14,000 words as well as the 22 columns he spoke about CIE on 14th November. Take the 48-page memorandum of yesterday. Four thousand five hundred words are devoted to aviation including the Shannon Free Airport; 2,500 go to shipping; 3,000 to tourism. Therefore 10,000 of his 14,000 words are occupied with aviation and shipping and there is the mass of verbiage with regard to tourism, including hotels. Electricity which is the only really profit-making concern is disposed of in 1,000 words. Turf gets another 1,000 words; coal, whatever it means— I have not been able to analyse it myself properly—gets another 1,000. CIE gets a quarter of a page because the Minister says he dealt with CIE at length on 14th November.

Again I want to repeat that the division was lucky. We are told CIE must pay its way in all its branches. Airlines, no; shipping, no; turf, no; other things, no. No such rule was put upon them. They could be subsidised, and apparently the public are to be asked complacently to accept subsidising those concerns. I think they might if the facts were disclosed to them, but it is completely wrong to have this parade of an operational profit when they are sinking deeper and deeper into the red every time, in fact.

I notice the Minister's evasion on page 15 in regard to air discussions with America. I know very well from the past two experiences I have had in Government that the authorities in America are pressing hard to be allowed to fly into Dublin and not bother with Shannon. Their advances, and aggressive advances, were repelled in 1950, and again in 1955. Apparently the threat still remains and the American companies want to be allowed to by-pass Shannon and fly into Dublin. It has been put off for the time being. The Minister said:

The agreement which regulates air traffic between the two countries provides that a revision of the agreement may be requested on 60 days' notice by either side and the US Government have reserved the right to re-open the question in accordance with the agreement.

In other words, the Americans are still persisting in their view that it is wrong to make them use Shannon and that they should be allowed to fly into Dublin. We have not got the better of that argument. We repelled it twice in my time, and apparently it has been repelled again, but the threat is still there.

After that, the Minister comes to the "great national asset," as he called it, of the Shannon Free Airport Development. Again, we should get a bit of sanity and some balance in our approach to this. It has been hailed as a spectacular matter, a revolutionary concept, as the Minister calls it on page 17. We have created a great national asset. I wonder? I read an account of comments mainly by the person chiefly associated with the Shannon Free Airport Development in which he told, in a hysterical moment, that he contemplated a new town with 50,000 inhabitants out at Shannon. That is just the population of Limerick, or quite close to it. He meant, not that he was going to shift Limerick out to the Shannon area, but that there would be a new town equal to Limerick out at the Airport. That is the greatest nonsense.

Over the years, I have asked questions—timely questions, not put in too hurriedly—and in the end I got the revelation that 1,300 people are now employed there as compared with 700 a year ago. The actual value of wages and salaries was of the order of £½ million. That does not matter. If they are not being employed economically, we could give them £frac12; million to do nothing. It would be better if they were employed at something, no matter how futile it may be. I am not saying that the work at Shannon is futile but I remember the hysterical forecasts about a town of 50,000 inhabitants after three or four years, and now I find that 1,300 people are employed there.

A Deputy in the Labour benches drew the attention of the House to the fact that in the early part of the year the unions had to interfere to prevent the exploitation of child labour by some of the companies operating in the free area. That, I hope, has been stopped, and either juvenile labour has been placed in a proper condition, or there is adult labour with adult conditions. It is now hoped that by March, 1964, that is, March next 12 months, that the total number employed will be 2,000 people.

I have tried, vainly, to find out what is our investment figure. A figure is given but I do not believe it. It says our investment is £2½ million but I think it is much more. An investment of £2½ million which in the end might produce an employment figure of 2,000 in another 18 months or so, does not seem to me to be the most profitable type of investment.

I am very anxious about another matter. I have refrained from raising it, but I am entitled to raise the point. We have applied to go into the European Economic Community, the Common Market. The application was made on behalf of the area of jurisdiction of this State, the 26 Counties. We have to leave out the Six Counties. They will go in as an appendage of Britain. They are cut off from us and are beyond our control.

What will be the situation of the Shannon Industrial Estate if Ireland gets into the Common Market? Will that area get in or will it be excluded? It makes a big difference. If the area is included and we are inside the European Economic Community, of course goods that come to us from outside that area will have common external tariffs so all the brouhaha about allowing goods in free of customs duty will disappear. On the other side, whatever goods are manufactured—if any—or put together in the Shannon Industrial Estate will have to face other countries with the conditions that apply to the Common Market area, if we are in the Common Market.

The position of the Shannon Industrial Estate seems to be somewhat anomalous. The Minister has told us that we must keep our eye all the time on the possibility of being inside the Common Market in a few years. He must have considered that question and be in a position to advise us what will be the situation of that estate under conditions where we are in the Common Market and under conditions where we are outside it. Either way it seems to me it has not much future.

The Minister talked about shipping. I have already mentioned that it seems to me to be absurd that we should ask the heavily-laden taxpayers to subsidise our ships which are sailing the Seven Seas and hardly ever put into an Irish port, hardly ever carry a cargo consigned by a native of this country or to a native of this country. The vast bulk of their carrying is between people who are completely alien to our country and whom we should not be asked to subsidise. I presume the answer will be that it is insurance and that we require some shipping service in case war breaks out again. We faced that situation before.

In 1939, when war broke out, we had four or five vessels of our own and in, I think, three months after war broke out, we had lost those four or five vessels. Whatever the conditions under which they had come to us, the real owners were able to take them back from us. In three or four months, certainly before the New Year of 1940, we were left without a boat of our own on the seas. We did buy a certain number of old hulks which no one else would buy. We were in parlous circumstances and we had to buy anything. We bought at panic and famine prices and we sent those vessels looking for our provisioning.

Of course, everyone realised that boats were worth nothing by themselves, unless you had battleships to convoy them. We had no battleships but we were convoyed. Neutral as we were, we got the protection of British naval might to get in whatever small supplies were brought in by the few vessels we purchased at panic prices at the start of the war. I do not know whether the same argument will be used, that this fleet of ours, all these boats of ours called after trees, are there only as a safeguard. I do not think they are worthwhile as a safeguard, but maybe there is another view.

I should like to hear who are the shrewd businessmen or politicians who advised the Government it was worth while having so many ships travelling the Seven Seas and hardly ever coming home, just because we might want them in case of war. A Deputy who spoke from the Minister's benches today said he had been aggravated by the shipping services between this country and England and asked why did the Minister not do something about them. He put up that pathetic plea I have listened to so often: we have got the ships, we even have the yards to build these ships, we have the technique, so why do we not call back these boats from Hong Kong and the American and Canadian ports and put them on the traffic between this country and England? I should like to hear the Minister's reply on that. I have often considered the step. Personally, I do not think it is possible. I do not think what we have in the way of ships would be worth while on that service, but maybe the Minister has other ideas. If he has, he ought to attend to the appeal of the Deputy and put our boats into commission on the cross-Channel trade. We have refrained from doing so for so long that there must be a reason why we have not done so. I should like the Minister to explain why.

The Minister now becomes quite candid and clear and says that while Irish Shipping showed an operating surplus of £279,000 compared with £238,000 for the year ended 30th April —he does not stop there as he does in regard to the air services but goes on further—the depreciation of the fleet for the eleven months amounted to £691,000 and the commercial loss for the period was thus £409,000, compared with a figure of £515,000 for the previous 12 months. What is the principle that allows the Minister to tell us the real losses on shipping, counting all these things in, and stops him from telling us the real losses on airlines, because there would be a real loss if he deducted all these matters he refers to, such as depreciation and so on? There it is. We have one mind towards CIE, a different mind towards the airlines and a somewhat different mind when it comes to Irish Shipping.

The Minister refers to the Verolme Cork Dockyard and says: "With the establishment of the Verolme Cork Dockyard, the building at home of deep-sea vessels for the company is now also possible." I asked questions about this dockyard in July, 1961. I asked the Minister for Finance if he would state (a) the amount of external capital invested in the Cork Shipyard Company (Verolme Cork Dockyard Limited) and (b) whether the commitments of the Industrial Credit Company Ltd. to the said Dockyard Company had increased beyond the figure of £4.6 million which was stated to be their commitments to the said Dockyard Company on 31st October, 1959, by the Chairman of the Industrial Credit Company. The short answer I got to that was that I was referred to a question on 14th December, 1960, and the Minister had nothing to add.

The question asked in 1960 drew the reply that the Minister did not think it desirable to say what the State commitments were, even though a few months later Dr. Beddy presided at the general meeting of the Industrial Credit Company and said that the Irish commitment was £4.6 million. The Minister for Finance said he could not give me that information; yet the Chairman of the Industrial Credit Company gave that information to the public. I have refrained from putting down any further questions to the Minister, because it has been complained of by many people that the Minister for Transport and Power and the Minister for Finance will say: "We will not give it to you. It is not right to disclose such information. We will not give it to you in any event." Dr. Beddy gave the figure of £4.6 million, and I have not found he has made any improvement on that figure.

The general view is that our immediate commitments to the Verolme Yard are in the region of £6,000,000 at this moment, but it is impossible to get information on the matter.

Mr. Childers

It is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister means it is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce to refuse? I will take your refusal as well as his. The Minister for Transport and Power will tell me it is none of his business and the Minister for Industry and Commerce will tell me it is none of his. You are all on the same plank. The Minister is not going to tell me to go off to the Minister for Industry and Commerce when he knows well I will get no information from him. But we should get that information. The Minister himself referred to the Verolme Dockyard in his speech and, as he brought them in, I thought at least he would have some information about how they were doing. Whether he has any responsibility for what they are doing is something I shall not put on his shoulders, but we are entitled to know whether that company is operating on foreign capital or on our capital.

I personally have always been a little bit on the alert with regard to that company since I saw that the head of the Verolme group met pressmen in this country before the time I put down my question. He said he had not come to this country to make money. The businessman who tells you he is going into anything not to make money is immediately suspect. I wondered what he was here for. He said of course he had yielded to pressure from whoever was our representative in Holland at the time. But a hard-headed businessman does not go spreading his tentacles throughout the world not to make money, simply because he has been persecuted into opening a new yard in some foreign country by a representative of that foreign country encouraging him to make an investment here. We are entitled to find out what is the whole investment or the parallel investment made by the owners of the Verolme Dockyard. I am not alleging anything against them. They may have £10,000,000 of our money and they may be giving a very good return for it, but we do not know. All we are told is this meagre phrase that it is now possible to build at home deep-sea vessels under the auspices of this company.

The Minister then gets into a long harangue about restrictive trade practices at the ports. I know nothing about that except what I read in the papers. But certainly a picture is being painted that there are a lot of restrictive practices at the ports and that these will impede the development of various harbours, particularly Dublin. That I leave to people more expert in the matter.

The Minister comes on then to cross-Channel shipping. Again, I want to pass from that. All that one can say is, notwithstanding repeated appearances by the Minister in the Press, emphatic statements about what he was doing and that he recognised the grievances shippers had, no great improvement has been made. Even Deputies in the Minister's own Party have been driven to the point of despair and have asked him to bring home our Irish ships and allow them be used for the transport of cattle between this country and England.

I gather that the Minister is now almost happy in the view that harbours are now on a basis that no subvention is required. This would be a matter of anticipated revenue by harbour development and the calculation of what improvement that would warrant in the harbour itself. I do not know if we have got to that point, but the Minister seems to think we have. It is in line with his attitude towards CIE. It has to do with home harbours. That is the standard applied to CIE while an entirely different standard is applied to shipping and air services.

Parkinson's Law works still further. The Minister now becomes interested in and devotes five pages to bank holidays. We are going to take in transport, power, tourism, hotels and bank holidays. This is an idea he thought of himself. He thinks it got a certain amount of praise from the public. My reading indicates that they regard it as a foolish proposal. The people mainly concerned who might be expected to regard it as effective were the Irish National Teachers Organisation but the Minister admits that the Irish National Teachers Organisation are against this proposal of his. I want to put what has been suggested to me —that the Government received a deputation from the Irish National Teachers Organisation and heard from that organisation the arguments which they have since disclosed to the public and the Government accepted these arguments as sound. I felt, when I heard that, that that ended this quest to try to change the ordinary bank holidays to some time in June and put them off to the early part of autumn. This is one of the ways in which the Minister pleases to occupy himself when he has his transport and power matters handed over to various boards.

The Minister is very worried about the loss of benefits which will occur by not accepting it. People have complained here from time to time that the members of the Government seem to be living in the clouds. Nothing shows that so clearly as the five pages devoted to the harangue about the holiday period. The Minister grudgingly admits at the end that many of the people he would like to draw out to holidays never go on a holiday in their life. It is doubtful if they ever took a holiday even if they could afford it except to take a paddle in the sea at week-ends at Dalkey and other places. The Minister wants to have school children's holidays changed so that the families of these children and the children themselves can go off on holidays. If the Minister got out of his anti-subsidy mood, he might start to subsidise holidays for people who could not afford them and then he might get some to go on holidays in June instead of October or September.

The Minister has very little to say about the ESB. It is the best board the country has. The Minister says they had a good year and one of the reasons was that no new generating plant was commissioned during the year. There was a very critical argument by a correspondent in the Irish Times some months ago about the finances of the ESB. He dragged out three big errors that have been made in recent years in connection with the ESB. The first was that they had been ordered to increase generating capacity in excess of what was required. In Mr. Whitaker's book on Economic Development, the fact is emphasised. It says that the development of excess generating capacity and the cost would impose a heavy burden on the already burdened ESB. This correspondent picked that out as one thing.

The second item was the encouragement given to turf stations, without any realisation of how ineffective the turf stations really were. The third item he mentioned was the opening up of turf stations in areas where they might be all right for giving employment but were never likely to give a return. Bellacorick was in that category. The present Taoiseach, when returned to Government, ordered the ESB to erect generating stations when a previous Government told him not to bother on the ground that they had more capacity than was required even allowing for a break-down and development during the year. Demand has caught up with capacity.

We are still in that position. We are going along with a number of turf stations. I suppose it will be accepted now—I remember when it would have been denied—that the more electricity production depends upon turf stations, the dearer electricity will be. There have been three ways in this country of providing generating capacity. One is through hydro-stations. They are practically exhausted by this time. I heard a Deputy speak of the Comeragh mountains. Perhaps there is a hydrostation there. There is also oil and coal—let us put these together as one class of fuel. There are then the turf stations.

Let me take the ESB accounts for the year ending 31st March of this year. There is a Table—Account No. 1—on page 17. First of all, there are the hydroelectric stations. The price per unit sent out—I suppose it is the best one to take, represents a halfpenny or less, 486 of a penny. In regard to the oil and coal, you get close to the penny but it is still short of the penny. The turf stations are slightly over the penny but they are over it. It has to be remembered in connection with these statistics that coal and oil are lumped together. You have stations at the North Wall, Ringsend and so on. Most of these are on oil fuels. It must also be remembered that a tax is put on the oil fuel which the ESB use. If that tax were taken off, there is not the slightest doubt that there would be a greater difference between the units generated by coal or oil than there is by peat. I object to coal and oil being bulked. Oil ought to be separate.

Mr. Childers

There is no tax on oil.

Mr. McGilligan

There was. When was it taken off? There was a tax on the oil used by the ESB, as distinct from diesel. It may have been removed since. It was put on the last time when I was associated with government. I regretted it very much. I should be very glad to hear that it is taken off. Let us take it that it is free from tax. I should like to see the break-down as between oil and coal. In any event, let us take the unit cost and the unit sent out. The cost of using hydro is under a halfpenny. All the whole hydro-stations bring it up to almost a halfpenny. The oil people are short of a penny and the peat stations are slightly over the penny.

Is it not quite clear that the development must proceed along these lines? We have exhausted the main hydro-stations unless we mean to harness the tides, but, leaving that out, we have got to the point where we must depend either on coal and/or oil, and/or peat. The more we go in for peat development involving the ESB in the use of that, the dearer our electricity will be. There is no getting away from that. The last speech the Minister made in relation to the ESB accepted that. I thought it was recognised that we are going to move away from these peat stations and get either oil or coal in the absence of hydro. Those are the figures the ESB give us and all that produces a surplus.

There has been a great deal of comment here on the attitude of Ministers who have boards operating under them and their refusal to answer questions in relation to the operations of those boards. They say that the matter raised is one for the Board. That matter was voiced long ago when the Electricity Supply Board was first established. There was a great deal of hostility to that whole development and there was very specially a whole roar of antagonism, propagandist antagonism, against the Electricity Supply Board and a promise was made in the House by the responsible Minister of State that he hoped to meet the grievances, or the imaginary grievances, in connection with electricity supply development in this way: the Electricity Supply Board could produce their own accounts, according to their own accountants, who would be their employees, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce would have the right to appoint an outside accountant, who was to view the operations of the Board on a commercial basis from a business point of view.

It was also pledged in this House that, if there were any public grievances voiced during the year, it was the Minister's responsibility to see that these grievances were made known to the outside accountant, who would then discuss these with the Board's accountants, and they were supposed to be incorporated in whatever report was produced at the end of the year. The promise moreover was given that if any significant number of Deputies—it did not mean a majority of the House, Party strength, or anything like that—asked for a debate there would be a few days given to a debate on the operations of the Board during the year.

The result of that has been that there never has been a debate asked for because the accounts are produced in such a way that much more clarification is contained in them than is contained in the accounts of any other State company or State board. The ESB accepted the idea that, having got State credit, the consideration in return for that was publicity for all of their activities, and that publicity was to be given either through their accounts or through whatever report the outside accountant brought before this House. I think that is a development that might be encouraged with regard to these other boards. They should not be left under the control of the Comptroller and Auditor General; and, if outside people are put in to investigate their accounts, they ought to be people who are not marked by any political point of view so that the public can be assured that the accounts will be examined in the most accurate, straightforward and detailed way, and the accounts can then be produced.

In July, 1961, I asked a question with regard to State investment; I asked what was "the amount of the total State investment for commercial, financial and industrial purposes by way of repayable advances to and purchases of shares in State enterprises, the gross amount received by way of interest and dividends on such investment during the latest year for which figures were available (distinguishing the return provided by the Electricity Supply Board" and the other companies).

The reply I got—it was dated back to March, 1961—was that "State investment of the nature referred to amounted to £109.2 million." I am sure the Minister can bring that figure up to date. I do not mean now, but I am sure he will be able to do so in reply to a question put to him. State investment in July, 1961—the figures go back to March, 1961—was £109.2 millions; "the gross amount received by way of interest and dividends was £3.5 million." The significant matter was that "£2.9 million came from the ESB, representing a return of 3.2 per cent overall and 4.5 per cent for the ESB on the amounts invested at the beginning of the year."

I had known that when I was in Government in 1958. I knew that the ESB was shouldering part of the costs of the investment in other companies. The overall here was stated to be 3.2 per cent, but 4.5 per cent for the ESB. I asked what was the average rate of interest paid out on long-term debts by the State and I was told that on 31st March, 1961, it was 4.3 per cent. Three figures there are of importance. The State, in other words, paid for the money it had borrowed from the public 4.3 per cent. The ESB was returning to them on its share of the public investment 4.5 per cent and the overall was only 3.2 per cent. Now, if the ESB were returning 4.5 per cent and the overall was 3.2 per cent it meant that places like Bord na Móna, and so on, were only paying 2 per cent, if they were paying anything.

I should like to have those figures brought up to date and I should like to find out from the Minister what is the average rate of interest on the long-term debt to the State. It was 4.3 per cent at the end of March, 1961. I should like to find out what the ESB are paying for whatever they get out of the State's borrowings and what all the other companies are paying. I think it would be quite a good thing at this time of day to find out what the different companies are paying, if they are paying anything. I suppose we can count out the air companies, but I assume from what he said that Board na Móna are paying something in relation to the repayment of interest on money.

On the turf side, again this is not a frank statement by the Minister. At page 42, the Minister says Bord na Móna had a bad year. They were trying to build up a stockpile, and it was not possible to build a stockpile. He says then: "After paying interest and allowing for depreciation the Board showed a loss for the year of about £95,000" and the Minister passes complacently over that with the comment that, on a sale of £4? millions odd, this is not a serious deficiency.

I saw an article in one of our papers in the last week by the Chairman of Bord na Móna. I think he admitted that the deficits which had accumulated over the years were in the region of £600,000, so it is surely not a true picture to say that last year the Board had a deficit of only £95,000, commenting that that is not significant in comparison to a total sale of something over £4,000,000. It is not, of course, a true picture; but add that to the more than £600,000 accumulated deficit over the years and one gets a true picture of Bord na Móna.

The Minister said "After paying interest and allowing for depreciation..." What interest did they pay? I am entitled to ask, and I expect to get an answer. What are their terms of depreciation? What are they depreciating and what is the class of what is called depreciation in their accounts? In any event, the main thing is to expose to the public what are the accumulated deficits of Bord na Móna and over what period they have accumulated. Again, I am not to be taken as criticising the working of Bord na Móna. They may be a very efficient body and doing far better than anybody expected, better than the expectations of the Government, but a proper presentation of the accounts entails that we shall know what rate of interest is charged. Is it the national rate, or something else, and, if so, why are they being favoured, and why should a body like the ESB carry a body like Bord na Móna on their back?

The Minister gives statistics of the production of turf—so many tons of milled peat. He says "Production, however, was sufficient to meet the demand for electricity production." I suppose the Minister is quite well aware that, if he gave a free choice to the ESB, they would not use any turf. They have to use turf—it is a ministerial direction. They are not even entitled to query the price. I would have thought that Bord na Móna might have continued the provisions they had many years ago when they gave the cost of production at their different stations. If they did that, then we would know. Then we would know at just what price they supplied the fuel to the ESB. We would know if they are charging the ESB a higher price than the cost of production and if, in that way, the ESB were giving a subvention to Bord na Móna on sales of turf to the public. I believe that to be the position. I would like to know also what is the interest paid by Bord na Móna and what are their total deficits to date.

I do not think coal is a significant matter in the history of this country so I will not deal with the Minister's reference to it. One of the chief complaints has been to the attitude of Ministers who have refused to answer questions in the Dáil. I have suggested that we should have the accounts of these State companies properly produced and investigated by a group of commercial auditors. The responsibility of the Minister would be to see that the questions put here from time to time and not replied to should be put in block at the end of the year before the auditor who should be asked to inquire into the matters raised in them and put down the answers he got from the companies.

That would be one way of meeting the complaints and it would not interfere with the day to day working and administration of these bodies. It is about time that we stopped the habit of various Ministers sheltering behind these boards and saying that any matter raised in questions put to them is a matter for the boards concerned and not for the Minister.

Somebody here today referred to the Tostal and I thought the Minister winced at that reference. I have the feeling that not many years hence some other Minister will wince when any suggestion is made about the Shannon Industrial Estate, and wince every bit as much as the present Minister winced at the mention of An Tostal. The Tostal was a failure of ten years ago and it is remembered now only to be regretted. The only reminder we have of it is that obnoxious thing on O'Connell Bridge.

If the Minister is going to take this Department of his seriously, he ought to see that facts and figures go before the public through the Dáil. He should do that if he wants to gain a reputation as a person who is keen on the application of business methods in respect of State boards. If he has come to the conclusion that there are State boards which cannot operate on business lines and which need assistance, he should come to the Dáil, tell us that and get the approval of the House for that assistance. It creates a completely false picture when accounts are produced which show operational surpluses and then these things are swallowed up by all the other matters.

There is a mood developing in this country today and amongst certain Deputies who are enthusiastic in the view that the only properly run concerns in this country are the State bodies. They are not present in the House so I will not mention their names but they have come to that conclusion from the wrong view that one gets from the particular way the accounts of these State bodies are presented, and also from the wrong impression that is given, that these State bodies have to face up to the obligation that ordinary business firms have to face up to. The Minister should dissipate that idea by showing the reality and by showing what these State bodies are actually doing. Some of them will pass scrutiny but some of them do require subsidies.

I want to refer the Minister back to his own view that subsidies create inefficiency and I wish he would tell that to some of his colleagues with regard to their policy of tariffs, protection, tax remissions and other matters. These are subsidies and if subsidies create inefficiency, we have been working along inefficient lines for a long time.

Mr. Mullen

This morning, Deputy Gallagher set out to admonish Dublin Deputies for attacking the situation of the people of Dublin as far as CIE is concerned and he suggested that Dublin Deputies should look at the matter in a more national way. It is obvious to me that Deputy Gallagher has not taken the opportunity of consulting with any of his colleagues within his Party who are members for different constituencies in Dublin. If he had done that, he would never have expressed himself in the way he did.

It is true to say that the majority of people in Dublin are sick and tired of carrying the rest of the country, as far as CIE is concerned. It is also true to say that all the people who use buses resent the idea of the repeated increases in fares, the bad service, and the lack of consideration extended to them by CIE. Deputy Gallagher also intimated that one should not attempt to criticise the members of the CIE Board. I agree with him. It is bad that we should have to do so, but there is a grave situation in existence and we have to do it. Deputies are left with no option but to do that because of the attitude adopted by the Minister.

We heard the Minister yesterday stating to the House that he is responsible for CIE. I often wonder to what extent is he responsible. I have put down questions here in relation to CIE and the ESB. I asked the Minister for Transport and Power would he recommend to CIE that they introduce workers' bus fares for workers travelling from the outside suburbs. The answer he gave was that that was not within his authority and that he could not do it. He said that it was outside his province and in the hands of CIE.

I also asked him if he would see about having the ESB establish branch offices in the outer parts of Dublin for the convenience of the citizens. I was told that this was not a matter for the Minister, that it was a matter for the ESB, that this was a matter of a domestic nature. We are full of democracy in this House. The members of every Party in this House preach democracy and yet we have that sort of dictatorship in existence. A classic example of that is the situation in CIE. We can talk and prate here and do anything we like by way of asking for things to be done but we cannot get the Minister to say that CIE will do these things. Surely that is a wrong situation in a democratic State.

This idea of creating dictators is absolutely wrong. It is not so long since Deputies representing Dublin and the county met here to try to do something about the increase in bus fares. They sought an interview with the Chairman of CIE but they could not get it. They were told somebody other than the Chairman would meet them. They tried to have the matter raised here but found it was not a ministerial responsibility. How frustrating that can be. Every person living in Dublin, no matter to what Party he pays allegiance, expects his representatives to be able to bring back answers to matters he considers should be answered. The situation regarding bus services in Dublin is to be deplored. I have often wondered if the Minister realises the situation that confronts a man or woman living in the north-western part of Dublin who is obliged to use a bus to get to the north-eastern part of the city to work, or the south-eastern or the south-western part, and what the cost is. The cost, if you work it out for a week, represents half, if not more than half the rent that person is paying in the area in which he or she is living. If any of their public representatives, councillors or T.D.s, attempt to do anything about it or make suggestions, they will not be listened to. Surely the Minister, who undoubtedly is responsible, should be disposed towards making an arrangement whereby suggestions can be and will be entertained in matters of this kind.

I invite the Minister to go to Finglas or to Cabra, which is in my area, and he will notice the marked absence of bus shelters and see people queuing for bus services, and if he wants to, he will observe the infrequency of the bus services. It should be borne in mind that men and women have lost their employment as a result of the infrequent bus services. Recently I learned about a crowd of dockers who applied their minds to the situation and decided to take a taxi to work. They went to work by taxi to see what it would cost and they found that it was cheaper and quicker than the CIE bus services. If anybody tries to make representations to CIE on matters of this sort, he is given the cold shoulder. I know of factories in my area where the managers and workers have combined and appealed to CIE to improve the services so that the workers can get to and from work but the appeals fall on deaf ears. When that happens, I submit we should be able to go further and speak to the Minister for Transport and Power and have him do something about it.

We in the Labour Party are not suggesting that we should run CIE, the ESB, or any other company, but surely it is reasonable to ask the Minister to establish a committee of the House with power to follow up representations and requests emanating from the public through their public representatives? That is not an unreasonable request but what is happening? A barrier is being built up. The members of the Board, whom Deputy Gallagher has implied are being attacked, are the subject of an attack because the Minister does not protect them in the proper way and create proper relations with the public. When this position of Minister for Transport and Power was created, we in the Labour Party understood that it was being created to ensure that the different sections coming within its control would be better organised and that we would have a person to whom we could make representations and who would be answerable to this House. We deplore the fact that that did not happen. It is rather ironic that in making these arrangements we have forgotten about the roads and in forgetting about the roads we observe the great hurry to close down the railways in a mad race to beat the dateline of 1964.

In Dublin at the moment, bus services have been reduced instead of being improved. It has been said to me by people who have had negotiations with CIE that the people who control CIE are a law unto themselves and it does not matter what representations are made by the Minister because he will be vulgarly told to mind his own business. Surely the time has come for the Minister to have an understanding with the people who run CIE and arrange for them to be more practical with regard to bus services for city users?

Is there anything wrong with asking for a through-ticket? Where can the working people get an opportunity to make representations regarding the issuing of through-tickets? We hear a lot of talk about going into the Common Market and the Minister, who is a travelled man, knows that on the continent, it is not unique for transport services to provide through-tickets and cheap fares on particular occasions to suit working people. I do not imagine the Minister uses motor cars all the time he is on the continent. I know that he has used bus services in France, Germany and Belgium. Furthermore it is not unreasonable to ask that old age pensioners who have to use the buses to do their shopping, or obtain their pensions, should be given reduced fares.

Before this debate commenced, by way of question and supplementary question, an attempt was made to direct the Minister's attention to the necessity for creating a proper liaison between the trade union movement and CIE. We found that the Minister was advised one way and the Labour Deputies had different information. I submit that there is one thing very wrong with the set up in CIE, that is the absence of top level discussion.

We have in this country the Congress of Irish Unions which is recognised by the Government and by the members as being the organisation representing the whole trade union movement. I want to make it perfectly clear that there is a great need for a proper and improved liaison between the top level of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Board of CIE. It is no use for the Minister to say that CIE discussed this matter with a constituent union of the Congress of Irish Unions. For this reason, when CIE, like many other employers, got the idea of work study and when they set about selling the idea of work study to the workers, they set about doing so through the medium of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions at top level.

What has happened? Having sold the idea at top level, it was disseminated down along the line. The situation now being presented is: "This is what you get for work study"—people being declared redundant at very young ages. Recently, we had a situation where it was observed that sheet containers were coming into this country. The reason given to the Department of Industry and Commerce for the import was that the men working at Inchicore could not cope with the volume of work they had. Rather ironically, simultaneously with the import of the containers, men were declared redundant and men of 26 years of age were put on pension. That was a lovely pattern. That was a great thought, surely, to instil in the minds of any young man, particularly men who had served their apprenticeship in CIE. At the age of 26, they were put on pension. They can now go to work in England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, America or, if you like, if and when we join the Common Market, they can go over to work for Fritz. Surely this is a crazy arrangement?

As these men were being laid off, the containers came in. Nobody can question this. We are all privileged now to have the opportunity of talking about this matter. However, let any one of us dare to raise a question about it outside this debate and it is taboo. That is not in keeping with the sentiments we express about freedom of expression.

Can the Minister tell the House how many mechanics CIE plan to let off within the next six or 12 months, having regard to the recent decision made by CIE that they will not run buses in any more for check-up but will run them until the engine is worn out when they will replace it with a new one? It is to be hoped that if this arrangement continues, the Minister for Justice will exercise diligence and ensure that the Garda authorities do not let CIE away with it. We cannot continue to economise at the expense of our people's pockets, at the expense of our people having to stand in the rain waiting for buses and certainly we should not economise in a fashion that will result in our people being in danger.

Another matter to which the Minister should also give serious consideration concerns the clamour going on for years in respect of the old pensioners of CIE. I am not talking about the men of 26 or 30 years of age but of the old pensioners. I am talking of the man who has worked so hard for this country all his life and who is now trying to exist on a mere pittance. That anybody should dare to suggest that they could live on such a miserable pittance is beyond my comprehension.

Realising that the Minister has an interest in tourism and, through that, has an interest in food, he must undoubtedly be aware that, in view of the cost of food, these old pensioners cannot exist on the pension they are getting at the moment and feed themselves adequately. Is there any hope for these people? It is too late for them to emigrate. It would not be a bad investment if they were given some increase in recognition of what they have done for the country. Consider the young man of 26, the young man of 35 or the man of 40 years of age who is declared redundant. He will get a pension. Some of our people have been bought out of CIE, surely it in mind the remaining span of life of an old pensioner of CIE, surely it would not cost the State that much to get them out of their difficulty?

Some years ago, this House was told that CIE had until 1964 to become solvent without disrupting the service. That being so, whoever accepts responsibility—in this case it happens to be the Minister for Transport and Power —must admit that that understanding has not been carried out. It would appear, having regard to the approach of 1964, that a mad race is now going on and that heads are to roll. However, we do not hear of any sacrifices being made at the top of CIE. They will get their increase in salaries. There is no suggestion that they should do without a few more assistants who are in a very high pay-bracket. There is nothing like that. The attitude is to get at the fellow on the floor, to kick him as much as you can, because not many people will bother about it so long as you do not remove the favoured one.

I come now to Bord Fáilte. First of all, it is a great pity that we could not have the same approach to CIE as we have in relation to Bord Fáilte. It is not difficult to get information about the activities of Bord Fáilte, so far as I am concerned; I must be fair about it. The Minister is responsible for Bord Fáilte, for CIE, for the ESB, for Aer Lingus, for Bord na Móna, for Irish Shipping, and so on. With Bord Fáilte you can get information. With Aer Lingus you can get information to a certain extent but with CIE the door is closed and closed very firmly. The door seems also to be closed, so far as I am concerned, in the ESB.

I would ask the Minister, in considering his responsibility affecting Bord Fáilte, to decide that the time has now come to stop inducing interlopers into the tourist business, particularly the catering business. It has become a very big hunting ground of recent years because people have been getting attractive loans and grants to set up establishments. One of the greatest users of this arrangement are some building contractors who "haven't a clue" about the catering or tourist industry but avail of the opportunity to use material that they may have to build houses or factories to rush up a quick hotel and cash in on it. That is bad enough but, due to the absence of knowledge, they do not know how to handle the people they employ or how to treat them. They realise from the start that they are in a fertile land. If they are building houses or factories, they are subject to trade union arrangements and rates of pay, but when they go into operating hotels it is another story.

Outside Dublin, there is no real protection for catering workers. In some cities outside Dublin, a concentrated effort is made on the part of some employers to threaten people and prevent them from joining trade unions. Yet we find it is often remarked how well tourism is doing, how important it is to the national economy, that it is the second largest industry after agriculture and that it does this and that for the people. If a proper analysis is made, it is found that the people who make most under it are not the workers, unless they are able to be members of a trade union.

The Minister can say that is a matter for the trade unions but the going is very hard for them so far as catering workers are concerned because there is a concentrated attempt made to keep organisation away. The Minister could play no small part in this matter. On previous occasions, I asked him about this and he reminded me that he had made pronouncements about it advocating that workers should be given fair wages and conditions. What is to prevent the Minister insisting that where people get loans and grants, they must undertake to treat workers fairly and give them reasonable working conditions?

Many of us worry about what will happen industry if we enter the Common Market and we fear many industries will go to the wall. Much faith is being pinned in the tourist industry and the possibility of its absorbing other types of workers. If that is to happen, you must first attract the workers and that can only be done by offering decent wages and conditions. I urge the Minister to exploit the possibility of making it a condition that anybody getting a loan or a grant must undertake to give fair wages and conditions to his employees. It is not unreasonable because, in effect, everybody is paying for these loans and grants.

I was glad to notice that the Minister is arranging for any hotel wishing to improve its staff quarters to get financial assistance from the Board. Could the Minister go a little further and arrange that there be insistence that these hotels provide proper staff quarters?

The Minister referred to the council for education that has been set up in relation to An Bord Fáilte and in particular in regard to catering workers. He indicated that arrangements had been made for workers' and employers' representatives on that body and I would ask him to ensure that the workers' representation is not rendered futile by reason of its size, having regard to the size of the employers' representation. It is only fair that they should have equal representation.

I agree with the Minister's advocacy of a longer holiday season. In seeking to secure that, there should be greater concentration on the English, Scottish and Welsh tourists rather than on the Americans. I see no reason why we should not be earlier in the field than we are, nor why we should not have some type of permanent display of our amenities in England, Scotland and Wales.

I recently observed that Bord Fáilte has an advertisement for an assistant Director-General. I do not know from where the demand for this post has come but I urge the Minister to ensure that if the post is filled, it will be filled by somebody conversant with, and having experience of, the tourist industry. Let it not just be another way of finding a job for somebody. The Minister should arrange for serious consideration to be given to the filling of that vacancy from within the existing top-level staff of Bord Fáilte. Things like that can encourage our people employed by bodies like Bord Fáilte to take their jobs seriously and make them feel that the better they do their work, the greater their opportunities and the more likely their promotion. It can be very discouraging if they see somebody coming in from outside who has been displaced by somebody else.

The Minister has indicated he is going to get Bord Fáilte to ease up in regard to hotels and go in for grade B rather than for grade A hotels. I ask him to ease up on the establishment of luxury hotels here. People come to Ireland to find us as we are and we should cease to be a nation of pretenders. The gold braid and the glamourised front is not the way things should be done, particularly if the background is very bad, and it is extremely bad in catering circles in this country where you have flashy fronts, lovely lounge bars, beautiful grill rooms and restaurants and nice bedrooms but staff quarters which leave much to be desired.

It is important when spending State money in establishing these premises to remember that you also must put staff in them to work them. We must not get the idea that if we do not get staff in Ireland, we can get them elsewhere. Recently a group of workers in Killarney have complained that they were told that all of them are going out of a certain hotel in which there is a considerable amount of State money. They were told they would be replaced by continentals because they are trade unionists.

The Minister should make a serious attempt to preserve Irish castles as tourist attractions.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think that is the responsibility of another Department.

Mr. Mullen

It may be that the Minister could take an interest in it, just as he is interested through the medium of Bord Fáilte in giving grants or loans for the improvement of hotels. That ideas could be extended to the improvement of Irish castles as tourist amenities. The organisation of greatest repute in Europe, the Workers' Travel Association, which has been operating now for many years and is the largest tourist association in Europe next to Cooks, have made and are making their progress, in the main, as a result of preserving old English houses and utilising them as tourist attractions.

Deputy Gallagher this morning referred to something that a colleague of mine, Deputy Treacy, said concerning the amenities on cross-Channel lines. Deputy Gallagher did not like it and he tried to twist it and indicate that Deputy Treacy was being jocose and was thinking only in terms of immigrants. Let us think in terms of not only immigrants or even of emigrants, but also in terms of visitors. Is there anything to be proud of in so far as the cross-Channel services are concerned? There is no use in Deputy Gallagher or anybody else saying that by lengthening the tourist season, the situation in regard to cross-Channel services will be improved. Obviously, Deputy Gallagher and people who think like him, have never availed of these services. If they did, they would never say the things he said here this morning. Undoubtedly, there is vast room for improvement, as the Minister very well knows. People who take a serious interest in tourism have been known to ask if those who are in control of the ships are not in a sly way attempting to smash the tourist industry. This idea of packing people like cattle into boats is all wrong. Deputy McGilligan referred to the activities of Irish Shipping. Is it not possible for Irish Shipping to institute a service to and from England? I cannot understand this idea of sending Irish ships to other parts of the world. These ships could be fitted out with cabins and could be utilised to accommodate tourists coming to this country from England. I am told that at least one of these ships is lying up now because there is no work for it.

I shall refer briefly to the ESB. There is great need for the establishment of ESB branch offices in housing areas in Dublin. People who live in these areas do not want to incur expense in travelling into the city, if they have a complaint to make or have to pursue any matter in relation to their arrangements with the ESB. Attempts have been made through the medium of Dublin Corporation to have something done about this, but to no avail. The ESB will not listen. Attempts have been made to ask the Minister to use his influence, but to no avail. We are told that it is a matter for the ESB themselves. There must be some way in which public representatives can make suggestions to a semi-State body.

There is another aspect of the ESB which is a great joke. It is the charge for meter rent. When does a consumer own the meter? The meter rent is paid religiously. The meter is never changed. Old age pensioners are called on to pay the meter rent. The company manager is called on to pay the meter rent. I cannot understand it. If one tries to have something done about it, he is told to mind his own business, to shut his mouth. That, in effect, is what is said. "It is not a matter for the Minister" is a nice way of saying "shut your mouth; go wherever you like to go".

In Cabra, which is part of my constituency and which is a thickly-populated area, people have found they cannot use modern electrical appliances because of the way in which the electricity was installed in the houses. Anyone trying to get Dublin Corporation to do something about it is told that it is a matter for the ESB and anyone trying to get in touch with the ESB is told, in effect, that that is not a matter for him, that they will do what they like.

I do not wish to be over-critical of Irish Shipping, but recently a group of workers employed by Irish Shipping found it necessary to complain about a considerable number of their colleagues being laid off. They complained to a body that is a constituent of the Congress of Irish Trade Unions, the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, that 60 per cent of their colleagues had been laid off, due to the absence of work in the Liffey Dockyard. It was claimed by the men that certain private firms that used to have ships were not using Liffey Dockyard. It was also noticed that Irish Shipping were not doing their best either. That was the opinion of the men concerned. They found that some work for Irish Shipping was going into the Liffey Dockyard and some of it was going outside Ireland. I am talking now about repair work and things like that.

Mr. Childers

That is inevitable.

Mr. Mullen

It may be inevitable to the Minister because that may be his mentality but I have to put something to the Minister now in connection with it. There is Irish money in Irish Shipping. It is a State-sponsored concern. The Minister says it is inevitable that repairs will be carried out in ports other than Cork, Dublin or Belfast. Shipping firms who use the port of Dublin, those who run the cross-Channel services, British Railways, do not use the Liffey Dockyard. Rather than go into the Liffey Dockyard, in a great display of patriotism, they limp home and have repairs carried out in a dockyard in England, Scotland or Wales. I accept that repairs to a ship belonging to Irish Shipping should be carried out in Holland or some other country when the ship is on a certain route, but I cannot understand why a ship of the Irish Shipping fleet on the route between this country and England, Scotland or Wales, cannot limp home to the Liffey Dockyard for necessary repair. The Minister says it is inevitable but I would ask him to consider the comparison between his attitude and that of British Railways.

I think the case for Motion No. 23 submitted by members of the Fine Gael Party has already been made and proven conclusively by the behaviour of CIE as a Board. Their neglect even to receive a deputation comprised of Deputies representing Dublin city and county proved conclusively the necessity for this motion. At a time when the House was not in session, I attended a meeting to which the Dublin city and county Deputies were invited and at which it was decided to ask CIE to meet us. They would not meet us. It is as a result of the Chairman's failure to do just that that you have this motion which, I submit, should be accepted.

Likewise, the case for the motion in the name of some members of the Labour Party, No. 30, is substantiated and very well proven by the Minister's inability to exercise or obtain control over some of the semi-State bodies he purports to control.

Mr. Crinion

After so many years of success and development in the tourist industry, this year there was a slight falling off in receipts and I was pleased to learn that the Minister has taken note of that falling off and has investigated the causes.

It is heartening to note that those interested in tourism have seen the necessity in this country for more Grade B hotels. There is a big need for them. Where I come from, the people are energetically developing coarse fishing, and increasing numbers of anglers are coming across each year from Manchester, Liverpool and London to enjoy the sport. Most of these people stay in Grade B hotels where they can get good food, clean beds and also the friendly atmosphere that may be lacking in Grade A hotels. Their main interest is to get as quickly as possible each day to the canals and rivers. In order to develop that branch of tourism, I submit we need to give much better encouragement for the provision of first-rate Grade B hotels.

In England there are about 3,000,000 registered coarse fishing anglers. I suppose there would be as many more who are not registered. That, to my mind, is an enormous source of income which we should make every effort to tap by providing the type of accommodation they require. The sport they want to indulge in is there already and we are developing it further. These fishermen have the experience in England during bank holiday week-ends of being forced literally to stand shoulder to shoulder along river banks or other waterways. Here, when they go to fish, they find plenty of freedom, plenty of room to move about.

Mr. Dillon

Provided they do not fill up the canals as the present Minister is likely to do.

Mr. Crinion

A pioneer effort is being made to develop the type of guest house these people need, the type of establishment which, if necessary, would provide them with transport to the location of their day's fishing. The most important thing to that type of sportsman or woman is to be able to move to the canals or rivers. If they are driving, it is most important they should be able to pull up near the scene of their day's fishing; if they are being transported there by the hotel in which they are staying, it is desirable that they would not have to tramp through fields and then tramp back at the end of the day. Because of the revenue potential of this type of sport, I should very much like to see the Inland Fisheries Trust developing and stocking our canals and lakes much more rapidly than they are doing at the moment. I know they are doing a considerable amount of work in that field but we should all like to see them develop it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The development of fishing would arise on another Estimate.

Mr. Crinion

I was attempting to deal with it as a tourist attraction. We do accommodate quite a number of people from Britain and the continent and it is important that we should develop as many as possible of the types of hotel which display to the best advantage our natural attribute of friendliness. We have improved considerably in that matter during the past ten years, to such an extent in practice that from being a small part of our national income, tourism has developed into one of our major industries. As I have said it is desirable that we should put on display on every possible occasion our traditional friendliness. I have travelled quite a lot on the continent and have had opportunities of noting that lack of friendliness which one finds there.

We heard quite a lot to-day about CIE and I would remind Deputies that CIE have a very hard job on hand in trying to make the transport system pay. All over the world, railway systems are losing money and from that point of view, I think CIE are to be complimented rather than criticised. They have been bringing in new ideas and in this connection I would mention particularly the hostesses and the new diesel-electric locomotives. Both innovations should help them in their efforts to succeed.

However, there is one complaint I have to make against CIE, a complaint which relates specifically to my own area but which I believe is widespread. It is that drivers of CIE lorries are not supplied with the equipment to change a wheel. The instance I have in mind meant a long delay in the transport of cattle because when the driver of a lorry found it necessary to change a wheel, he had to telephone for a fitter who had to be brought 40 miles merely for the purpose. Most commercial lorries are equipped with wheel-braces and other such equipment and I do not see why the same should not apply to CIE lorry drivers. I hope the Minister will bring this to the attention of CIE.

On the credit side, people engaged in the cattle industry generally find CIE very punctual. They are also able to provide the kind of service that small farmers particularly require. Many such farmers on their own are unable to provide a full lorry load of cattle so CIE have developed a system whereby they can take a few here, then travel on and take another few and so on until the lorry is filled.

There has been some criticism of Bord na Móna here today and I do not like to hear it because in my constituency it is amazing the amount of employment it has given. At times in County Kildare alone, there is employment for up to 2,000 people. Thirty years ago, those bogs were lying idle and unproductive. Now they are being developed and giving employment in the production of turf. They are also giving employment in the production of electricity from the turf. The consumption of electricity in industry is rising to such an extent that it would be a sorry plight if we had to generate that electricity by importing coal or some other product like oil. This is one of our natural resources we are developing and harnessing to make our industries go.

I was pleased to see that over the past couple of years a substantial number of firms have changed over to central heating by turf. It used to be the tradition here that it had to be done by coal or by oil. These firms have realised through economists that turf can be the cheapest form of fuel. We have seen it in hotels and some of the larger firms and Bord na Móna are to be complimented on being able to produce turf that can compete with foreign products. These foreign products are coming in without tariffs and Bord na Móna are able to compete with them and make turf an economic proposition.

During the war years, when turf sales were being pushed, the quality of the product was not as good as one would like it to be and here in Dublin turf got a bad name. However, Bord na Móna have overcome that resistance and have been developing their sales. Turf briquettes were for a long time struggling to make the grade. When I was going to school, I remember the teacher bringing in one of the first lot of briquettes made near Allenwood. That factory found it hard to survive, but during the past ten years, it has been in full production and not alone that, but a new one just over the border in County Offaly, at Mount Lucas, has started.

A substantial number of turf briquettes is also being sold in Northern Ireland. Going through my constituency, particularly from my own house to Navan, I constantly meet these lorries coming down from Northern Ireland to get their loads of briquettes. These briquettes are clean and they are particularly useful in the cities and towns where there are flats. People can bring them up into their rooms and there is none of the dirt that used to be associated with turf. Bord na Móna are to be complimented on their success in meeting the demands of the people.

There is one problem which I am sure the Board is trying to overcome, that is, seasonal work. It is very demoralising for a man who during the summer months gets very high wages to receive the small amount he gets in the winter months in unemployment benefit. I hope the Board will minimise that hardship as much as they can.

In regard to CIE, there is one matter on which I have had a great deal of correspondence with both the Minister and with CIE, that is, the dam at Pluckerstown, Newbridge. This dam was erected to supply the canal. It is a seven-foot high dam and the water flows over it and backs up for three miles. It causes a waterlog on 1,500 to 2,000 acres of good agricultural land which could be put into first-class production. That could be remedied if the canal could be supplied form another source. Looking at the maps and at the area itself, I felt that if there were a supply coming in from the other side, the problem could be solved. CIE engineers maintain that it could not. If there is a will, there is a way, and it would be a great relief to those farmers if something could be done. If a pump could be erected near the canal, the dam could be taken away but I am led to believe that would be rather costly. I am convinced that if the matter were examined thoroughly, some way could be found of eliminating this dam, because 1,500 acres of land are too much to have going to waste as very rough grazing in the summer time for the sake of getting a water supply for CIE.

I was glad to see that this year Aer Lingus was practically the only air line in Europe that made a profit. We have heard a great deal over the years about the dangers of going into the North Atlantic service but Aerlínte, by making a profit of £200,000 in this year, have justified this step.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 4th December, 1962.