When I was speaking on this Estimate last Wednesday, I made it clear that, in my view, some substantial changes were required if the services provided by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs were to be such as would accord with what is needed in modern times. In my criticism of the present situation, I made it fairly clear that I regarded a new and radical approach as being urgently necessary. I also made it clear that, in my criticism, I did not desire to imply that I had ever received anything but the utmost courtesy from the officials of the Department. I want to make it quite clear now, in case anyone thinks otherwise, that in putting it that way, I was not in any way implying that I received any discourtesy from the Minister himself. On the contrary. If courtesy alone were the mark of efficiency, the Minister and his officials would be entitled to claim that theirs was the most efficient Department. Unfortunately, efficiency involves more than courtesy and, as I said already, unless we have a really efficient means of communication in these days, we will not be able to achieve the greater production, and the economic growth, which both sides of the House urgently desire to achieve.
It so happens that last night I was at a meeting in Kildare and I put to that meeting the criticisms I had made here last week of the telephone system in so far as it affects my constituency. I repeated the criticism I had made here of the trunk line between Naas and Dublin, and in that I include the satellite exchanges in Newbridge and Kildare. As I said, people have the greatest difficulty and must dial repeatedly to get the number they require. I came across what I think was one of the most amusing examples which I have yet met. A subscriber in Kildare told the meeting that he dialled a Dublin number and instead of getting that Dublin number he got Liverpool. A subscriber in Celbridge told the meeting he had dialled a number in Naas on 11 occasions without getting any result at all, much less getting the right number.
I am afraid it is a fact that however accurately the telephone system may work in its own exchange in Kildare, when it comes to getting a Dublin number through the trunk dialling system, it does not work properly. It is virtually impossible to get a number from the Celbridge group of numbers through the Naas, Newbridge and Kildare dialling systems, the first time. I have experience only of what I have to do myself. I find, in relation to my constituency, that since the fault was found in the Newbridge exchange, local calls can now be got reasonably accurately. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that if we get one out of three calls correct, dialling up to Dublin, it is about all one can get and that, across the county, the average is very much worse. That was the experience of a cross-section at a meeting last night of between 60 and 70 people, all of whom have regular occasion to use the telephone.
Human error does sometimes come into it and one cannot grumble too much about that when it falls down. A few days ago, I was endeavouring to dial my own home from here. After half a dozen shots and having failed, I rang the exchange and I asked the man who answered me if he would please give me 0457200. I said that I had dialled it six times and could not get any dialling at all. The man replied: "Of course, you cannot. There is no such number." It happens to be my own number at home. I thought I would be a reasonably good judge of what my number is. It shows that there must be some fairly widespread confusion in the telephone exchange system that I could get such an answer that there was not any such number when, in fact, I should have thought everybody in ordinary life would know that there would be four digits and the 045 prefix as well. I do not know what the explanation of that is. I am quite certain that the man concerned did not say it out of pure stubbornness or to annoy me or to prevent me from getting the number. It showed that the organisation in the Exchange was not such as it should be.
Now, we shall have to pay substantially more for telephone calls. The burden of my objection in relation to these increased charges is that every Minister in the Government, particularly the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, are going out and saying, and properly saying, that increased costs must be absorbed as far as possible by greater productivity. But the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs takes the easy course merely of slapping on increases in costs in the very way that his colleagues are advising, and correctly advising, it should not be done.
The Taoiseach also, I must say, speaking immediately after the Budget, gave away his Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in a very unfortunate manner for the Minister. On the day following the Budget, the Taoiseach announced that the Minister was then going to look into the matter to see what new procedures could be initiated. I want to make it clear that in my view the Minister should have been looking at this for months. Everybody knew, from the beginning of December last, that the ninth round was coming and that methods of productivity to offset to some degree ninth round increases were necessary.
I do not know what the Minister was doing from the beginning of December onwards but the Taoiseach has put it on the records of the House that the Minister was doing nothing until 15th April. I must confess that I imagine there have rarely been cases before when a Taoiseach showed so clearly that he had found out a Minister failing in his duty to such an extent——
