Transport Bill, 1964—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Byrne

I was speaking on subsection (2) (e) of section 12 in relation to recruitment of staff to CIE. It says Irish shall be a compulsory subject at every competition. I am asking the Minister if he considers that a constructive and progressive step in regard to the solution of CIE's difficulties. Will this provision make CIE a more efficient concern? Surely, what we want in CIE are efficient engineers, efficient technicians, efficient transport staff generally. Surely the question of their knowledge of Irish is irrelevant in that context.

Are we to see in CIE inferior people appointed over the heads of more worthy applicants technically by reason of the proficiency of the inferior persons' knowledge of Irish? Is that to be the position in CIE? If it is, I for one most strongly object. This sort of carrying on does no good to the Irish language anywhere. It is only cod. The Minister knows it.

I appeal to him to keep his feet on the ground and to drop this sort of nonsense. I shall say no more about it because the gallery is full of children and one could scandalise them as I could scandalise them if I let my feelings run away with myself in regard to this matter.

Last night, Deputy McGilligan stated that it is the intention of this Party to table an amendment to this Bill which will have the effect of making CIE accountable to Parliament. At present in CIE we have a confused and undesirable, to say the least of it, state of affairs. Deputies of this House who put down Parliamentary questions for answer through the normal channels find that such questions about CIE are disallowed by the Chair on the grounds that the Minister has no responsibility.

Over the course of years, we have devised a very rigid procedure in regard to the control and handling of public moneys. We have a Committee of Public Accounts to which the heads of all our Government Departments have to account for the discharge of their stewardship. At the same time, over the years, we have allowed to develop a number of State companies such as CIE and we have left them completely outside the control of Parliament. That is a major problem to which we must, one of these fine days, address ourselves—the problem of how to make these bureaucratic growths accountable to Parliament because they handle, in many cases, far more public moneys than do the Government Departments.

I am aware that there is a sound case for providing State companies with a certain amount of autonomy in their day-to-day operation. We do not want Deputy Joe Soap standing up here and asking why so and so was not appointed office boy in CIE. I agree that is not desirable. It is undesirable that the system of Parliamentary questions should be abused by parish pump questions as to the site of a bus stop. However, it is completely undesirable that a company handling so much public moneys, a company which is now being voted a subsidy of £2 million a year, should be completely divorced from Parliamentary control. How to meet this case is a problem that must be worked out. Very probably, without studying it in close detail, it seems that a committee such as the Committee of Public Accounts could be given the right to examine the affairs of these companies. I have no doubt whatever that when Deputy McGilligan applies himself to this matter, as he indicated last night, he will produce a sound proposal and I hope the Minister will accept it.

I want to refer to a matter on which I feel quite strongly, namely, CIE's accounts. I have referred to it in the House before and the Minister was good enough, when pressed here by me on the occasion of the Estimate for his Department some months ago, to divulge this closely guarded secret of what profits CIE were earning in Dublin city. He gave an estimated figure for the financial year 1961-62.

The time has come when the full consideration of CIE's affairs, which we should like to give them, necessitates the publication in the glossy annual report of suitably detailed accounts setting forth the result of CIE's operation in Dublin city and Cork city. We should be a lot less vexed about these matters if we were met reasonably. I have felt particularly annoyed in the past by reason of this great secrecy and by reason of the apparent position that the board of CIE may themselves not have known what profit was being earned in Dublin city.

I want briefly to reiterate what I have already said. The Minister is providing a subsidy of £2 million a year for CIE. Will he please face up to realities and discontinue this unjust state of affairs of imposing upon the workers of this city the responsibility of providing a further concealed subsidy?

Mr. Donegan

I should like to say, at the outset, what perhaps is so obvious that it does not need to be said, namely, that the thinking of the 1958 Act has now been proved quite erroneous. It is no good for the present Minister for Transport and Power to say, as we find on page 18 of the circulated version of his speech, what the present Taoiseach, when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, said when introducing the 1958 Act. The Taoiseach, at that time Minister for Industry and Commerce, was very measured in what he said. However, there was nothing measured about the legislation he introduced and shepherded through Dáil and Seanad Éireann and placed on the Statute Book of this country in that year. That legislation clearly defined the position that for five years there was to be a subsidy to CIE and that by that time the officers of the board of CIE were charged with the duty of providing an economic public transport system in this country.

We have now arrived at 1964 and the Government have failed. The Taoiseach, who was responsible for the thinking in the 1958 Act, has failed. The present Minister for Transport and Power, in respect of that period for which he was responsible for the administration of that Act and for the activities of CIE, has himself personally failed. It is a failure for the Cabinet, a failure for the Minister and a personal failure for the Taoiseach. Between that, one can talk of the different things that arose in the interval—all the differences that there were. For instance, there were, I think, three separate rounds of wage increases. All these had their effect but they should have been foreseen in 1948 because this wage increase situation, in the conditions of ordinary creeping inflation that exist in every country today, is something you can forecast. It is not good enough to say that the £ is not worth as much as it was in 1948 as has been said many times in defence of the situation.

There was a lot of very woolly financial thinking in regard to every piece of transport legislation passed through this House. The writing off of £1.6 million is mentioned on page 1 in the circulated version of the Minister's speech. On page 13, we have the reference to operating losses and on page 16, reference to unremunerated capital. This is all in line with the situation in every State company except the ESB which was started by this Party when in office and which has continued on the right road since. In fact, in every other State company, we are not remunerating capital and to some extent not allowing for depreciation.

Mr. Childers

Bord na Móna?

Mr. Donegan

I do not want to go into a detailed argument on this situation. The Minister may be taking me up on the phraseology I used but the matter can be debated at another time.

Mr. Childers

And the Sugar Company?

Mr. Donegan

To get the Minister back on the rails of CIE, we are not remunerating our capital there and we are writing off £1.6 million in the legislation we are now passing. What are the real losses of CIE? Where are we in regard to depreciation? These are things on which we have not full information. Deputy Byrne suggested that a body such as the Committee of Public Accounts could examine these questions and he is reiterating the policy of this Party which is that Parliament, as distinct from Government, should be brought considerably nearer to the operation of State-sponsored concerns. When you produce a colossus—by our standards as a small country—such as CIE, Bord na Móna, the ESB or Aer Lingus, you create a situation where their activities can impinge to a very great extent on the lives of the lowliest and the richest of us, a situation where their policy, decisions and actions can bring about changes even in the attitude of the police force in regard to their activities and the activities of private individuals.

I am not saying this is something that happens to a great extent but it is surely true that if Parliament is our guarantee of freedom and if Parliament is the guarantee of the individual's right to plead his case before the highest authority in the land— which surely is Parliament—then, in fact, Parliament should be, by means of the committee suggested by Deputy Byrne, brought nearer to the operation of CIE.

The problem is a big one. We are dealing with the biggest employer in the country. We have wiped out a very great mileage of track on the basis that it is uneconomic. In so doing, we are spending, or have spent —I think the Minister's wording in his speech indicates that we have spent— as I understand it, in compensation a figure of £7 million. If one were to look at this in the cold materialistic light of, say, the Manchester School of Economics this has brought about a staff reduction of ten per cent.

We, on this side of the House, want to see the people who are in CIE getting a full opportunity for advancement and enjoying full security of employment, but this operation, this closing of branch lines and the compensation of employees who became redundant and the general improvement in the efficiency of CIE that was attempted, has not brought anything like the saving in staff that should have been possible. Without great disruption or interference with opportunities for advancement, it should have been possible to get a better result. I know it happens to anybody in any business, large or small, but I often wonder if the people at the top, coming in to do a clean-up job, a job related to efficiency, find themselves as they get more and more embroiled in the day-to-day working of the concern, not seeing the wood for the trees and in this case becoming so pro-public transport that their idea is that this colossus should grow larger and larger.

If we want to save money, we must be efficient; to be efficient probably means some lessening of employment in CIE but so long as that is carried out always on the parallel lines that the people within CIE have their rights and opportunities of full advancement preserved and at the same time have security of employment, I think we are playing fair with them. At that stage it is quite possible that we could utilise, in our efforts to get this greater efficiency, private enterprise transport as well as the public operations of CIE.

There are particular facets of the movement of goods in which private enterprise transport is extremely necessary. If we take the beet campaign and the harvest campaign it is true that for two reasons CIE could not do the job. First, they could not have the right sort of trucks to collect these goods at the farmer's door just for six weeks or perhaps, taking the two periods, a total of three months in the year. It would not pay them as the trucks suitable to go to the farmer's door would perhaps be too small when that three months ended.

So, for these campaigns CIE "plates" private hauliers. They issue discs which give the private hauliers power to operate as hauliers and derive benefit therefrom. They pass the earnings through their books and, for doing this, they take something like 7½ or ten per cent. That allows the campaign to be successfully carried out. One must remember that as you have combined harvesters operating more frequently, wheat becomes more and more a perishable commodity so that it is quite necessary to have this arrangement. But there is something happening today to bedevil the whole situation. It is that, as the line of the police becomes tougher as a result of what influence I know not, more and more of these unlicensed hauliers or private operators without plates, are being forced off the roads. In fact, as you come to the beet and wheat campaigns, your problem is that they are not there any more and CIE, with all the goodwill in the world who would wish to issue plates to these people, cannot do so because they are not there.

This could create a situation which would mean in a few years' time these highly important campaigns could be seriously slowed up. I do not object to CIE issuing these haulage plates; until such time as we have greater efficiency, haulage must be, to some extent, the prerogative of CIE, with the exception of existing plates, but if we force these private people off the road to the extent that they are no longer there, our position can become quite different. There is also the underlying factor I mentioned, that vehicles suitable for ordinary CIE operation for nine months of the year may not be suitable for this particular type of agricultural operation.

There are other facets of the operation of the 1958 Act dealt with in this Bill which might be mentioned. One of them is the transfer of employees which in certain cases causes great hardship. There may be an individual in a small station who may be transferred and who hopes to get back again when a vacancy occurs and who can get back. That is merely a temporary setback for him. But, there are a large number of cases of people who were transferred from the town of Dundalk consequent on the reduction in employment in Barrack Street central goods station as a result of the cessation of the Northern Ireland traffic. There were almost 100 persons transferred to Dublin and, as I understand, the arrangements by which they were transferred involved that they cannot be transferred back to Dundalk, that there is an agreement whereby, if there is a vacancy in Dundalk, these people will not be brought back. The Minister has been good enough, in response to representations from Deputy Faulkner of his own Party and myself, to agree that between the introduction of this Bill and its final passage through the Dáil, he will see the union in respect of these men. I would like publicly to ask him to realise that it is a rather tough thing to have to start at 7.30 a.m., having come on a bicycle for three or four miles, arrive in Dublin for work at 8.30 a.m. and to arrive home after an ordinary day's work, without overtime, at 8.30 p.m. I know you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. The Minister has had many difficulties in relation to transport over the past few years. But, I would ask him when he does interview the union in respect of these men to consider sympathetically the matter which involves great hardship for the persons concerned.

The Minister mentioned the question of the number of seats in buses. I think I get his meaning, which is, that we provide seats in buses in the city here whereas in many continental countries, notably Italy, one does not expect a seat. There is a large area in the rear of the bus with a large number of straps and passengers are expected to stand. There is something in this, if only for the physical reason that you can never hope to move back houses in order to create everywhere wide streets like O'Connell Street. The congestion of buses alone is something that as other traffic increases year by year and day by day in our cities will mean that we will have to cut our cloth according to our measure and that will mean some people standing in buses and buses of a design that will allow them to stand.

Most of us who go on buses in the city go on short runs. It would not be very difficult to ensure that buses on the route to a residential area like Ballyfermot, which is a far distance out, would be of the ordinary type and in the case of short haul passengers through centre-city streets to adopt the continental idea if only because of the fact that we cannot in every street in Dublin and Cork produce room for the vehicles which are increasing in numbers day by day.

Section 12 of the Bill is one which will be discussed more fully on Committee Stage. I agree with Deputy Byrne that it is a pity to write in at subparagraph (e) of subsection (2) the proviso that Irish shall be a compulsory subject in every competition under the subsection. I think it would be in any case. I do not see anything wrong with leaving this matter to the judgment of the officers of CIE. Even if it were not a compulsory subject, if it were a principal subject, to which was attached the same number of marks as are attached to mathematics and English, we would have done our job. I think there is at the present moment a great revulsion at the idea of compulsory Irish. On this side of the House our policy is not to have compulsory Irish but, instead, by giving inducements and by scholarships to propagate the language and a love for it as well.

I think the writing in of the provision is a mistake. I know the Minister, like myself, is not a great Irish scholar —he will pardon me if I say so—and perhaps the proviso was written in without his having adverted to the detail of it. He is a very busy man. It would be a sign of great moral courage if he now removed it and I would publicly compliment him if he did so. I am certain that it would not do the Irish language one whit of harm and it would do a good deal of good.

The proviso in subsection (2) (c) whereby under the rules of examinations to be held children of persons who were made redundant because of being employed by a dissolved railway undertaking would get preference is an odd sort of provision but I can see fair reason for it. It is not a binding provision. It does not have to be invoked in respect of all examinations. I can see that in places like Dundalk, where there has been such serious interference with people's lives, hopes and ambitions, where they have served for 20 or 30 years, it would not be a bad thing if there were certain examinations which were confined to persons who had been involved in the undertaking that was dissolved. It is a provision that is rather sticky because when you start confining examinations, you can bring about injustice as well as justice. However, there may be some good reason behind it.

The Minister is very fond of statistics. One can be sure that whenever he makes a speech he will give statistics. I would ask him to deal with this question of unremunerated capital, this question of writing off loans and to indicate what he means when he says in the circulated version of his speech that if we destroyed the railways altogether and went on to the roads, we would produce an economic transport system but that it would not be worthwhile because of the huge capital expenditure. I want to know, if we remunerated this huge capital expenditure to which he refers, would if then be uneconomic. If that is what he means, I want to know the figures. There is far too much vague reasoning and undefined calculations in this whole situation. I would ask the Minister to give a more detailed exposition.

Mr. Ryan

As far as I know, there is no statutory obligation on CIE to inscribe on their transport fleets such interesting slogans as "Seiliu toirmisgthe" or "Ná túirlinn go stada an bus". It baffles me, therefore, that it is thought it is necessary to include in a Bill which we are told is to provide an efficient transport system a requirement that Irish shall be a compulsory subject at every competition under the subsection. Last night, I gather from the reports, there was some little altercation between the Chair and a Deputy who sought to discuss the transport of Irish citizens across the Irish Sea. He was chastised and forbidden to proceed in the matter because it had nothing to do with the Transport Bill. It is utterly and grossly irrelevant, therefore, to be providing in a Transport Bill something to do with the revival of the Irish language.

Of course, it is not intended to revive the Irish language or to assist in the transport of people and goods. It is intended to keep alive the lie, which Fianna Fáil pretend, that they alone are the custodians of loyalty to the Irish interest. It seems base and contemptible that a man, who himself would fail if compulsory Irish were a subject for Ministerial qualification, has the audacity to present a Bill in English only, to make a speech in English only and to impose on us, because of his inability to understand, an obligation to speak in English only. Objection is taken by those whose patriotism has been ill-used by Fianna Fáil and who accuse us if ever we use the phrase "compulsory Irish". Here we have for the second time— it was used in 1950 as well—statutory recognition being given to this phrase "compulsory Irish". It is a wonder the Minister is not advanced enough in his knowledge to know that the word "compulsory" is now out of fashion and the word he should be using is "essential".

When dealing with the language we should consider the language of the Minister's speech. We find that, not only can he not speak Irish, but he cannot speak English either. I do not want to follow this in a pin-pricking way, but to illustrate my remarks, I refer to this paragraph, in which the Minister says:

If the hopes of every Minister in charge of CIE, whenever a new Bill was provided, that the system would pay have been dashed in the past it is to be sincerely hoped that this very large subsidy will be sufficient ...

That is like saying that if Mr. White, Mr. Black and Mr. Brown have died in the past, it is sincerely to be hoped Mr. Green will live in the future. Are we to understand from this that, if the hopes in the past had not been dashed, it would not be hoped that CIE would be able to work in the future on the subsidy now provided? That is a classic example. There are many more examples of the lack of logical reasoning and the prejudiced comment being made on this subject.

Certain figures are given in the Minister's speech and quoted in the CIE report which are clearly figures produced for the purpose of special pleading. I say with careful consideration of the weight of my words that those figures are unacceptable, because figures already given by CIE in relation to the Dublin suburban rail services have been shown to be specially chosen, to be but half truths used to justify a course of action which, even in the Minister's speech, is now admitted to have contributed to the existing loss on the railways, at least in part.

The Minister tells us, for instance, that only 410 miles of the railway are profitable and that 300 miles are marginally profitable—whatever that is supposed to mean. In running transport in this country, we ought to be concerned, not with making a profit for investors or so that the State will earn a revenue, but with the provision of a reasonable method for people and goods to be conveyed from one point to another. These figures mean that about half of the railway system is profitable. Let us leave aside this Childers jargon of what is marginal and what is profitable. If any transport system can pay its way, whether it is marginally profitable, grossly profitable or excessively profitable, it is profitable and that is all that matters. These figures are not acceptable to us until the Minister identifies the mileage in question.

On the Minister's admission, the mileage we can anticipate to be profitable is the mileage most used. That is the railway situated in the densely populated parts of the country, which include the Dublin suburban lines. The slaughter of those lines in recent years, by allocating to the short distance of those lines the capital cost of the stations, signals and other equipment, was grossly dishonest. It does not do to be specially pleading a case of that kind and carrying out an irregular allocation of the capital replacement of these lines and other services.

If the Minister argues, as he does, that an arterial railway system must be maintained, the greater the amount of traffic that can be drawn to that system or portion of it, the less will be the loss. That being so, it is unpardonable that CIE cut down on the suburban railway service in Dublin. It shows the chaos and madness that exists here, where one State-sponsored body is unconcerned with any of the other problems affecting the country and this city. Very careful consideration should be given to co-operation to ensure that our railway system is used to ease the monstrous road traffic problem at present. Within the next decade, that problem will be of gross proportions. This requires co-operation, not only with the Department of Local Government in relation to the solving of the traffic problem, but also in relation to several other Departments. It is almost a sociological problem.

Part of our difficulty in relation to transport has been a lack of co-operation between the different organs of Government and other bodies dealing with these problems. Two of the largest extensions of Dublin city since the last war have been in areas not served by railways, the Finglas area on the north side and the Ballyfermot area on the south. The latter has a railway touching on its fringe at one point, but it goes only as far as Kingsbridge and is not therefore suitable. It seems to me that a little planning and foresight 20, 30 or 40 years ago would have ensured that this city would have grown out along the northern railway line, the south eastern line and the line which is now closed from Harcourt Street to Bray. It is only now, in 1964, 20 years after the war, that we have any sizeable extension of the city along the railway. It should have been possible to foresee that extension and take steps to provide services in anticipation of that growth. After all, the growth was obvious.

Even now, at this late stage, it might be sensible to start building satellite towns along the northern railway line round Portmarnock, Malahide, Skerries and Balbriggan, with non-stop fast services available at half-hour or quarter-hour intervals, according as the traffic offered. That would be a sensible way of dealing with the housing problem, the social problem, the industrial problem and the transport problem. Even at this late stage there could be some conscious effort to dovetail many activities in relation to national and municipal affairs. That would make a tremendous contribution in revenue towards transport and people would be able to get in and out of the city faster than they can today in streets that are choked with traffic, in streets in which traffic will soon come to a standstill.

This Bill is worthy of acceptance for one reason, and one reason only. At long last we have a situation in which a reluctant Government have accepted that a railway is essential. In the years ahead, I believe the world will find, whatever may have been thought in the past, that the necessity for having a railway will grow rather than diminish. So long as we can hold this national asset I believe the day may yet arrive in which the railway will become a paying proposition. Because of that, we have no objection to providing the financial plasma, as it were, to preserve life until healthier days ensue.

The Minister referred to the luxury we enjoy in having a large number of seats in our buses. The number is proportionately larger than that available in many other countries. This touches upon a problem which will earn for the Minister, if he solves it, the sympathy of the working-class people of Dublin. It would be much more pleasant to be standing travelling in a bus than to be standing in a frustratingly long bus queue out in the suburbs, knowing you will be late for work once more, perhaps to be docked an hour's wages or receive the sack. It is undoubtedly true there are many bus services which do not answer the needs of the people who require them.

It is a constant experience of Dublin Deputies to receive letters and personal complaints from people who have to wait daily for long periods in queues or who are forced to add to the already excessive cost of city travel by paying a bus fare out to the terminus in order to make sure of getting a bus into town. That is an experience the people of Ballyfermot daily have to undergo. That is an area in which there is still a considerable amount of poverty and a considerable amount of unemployment. It is an area in which there are many large families, the children of which in many cases have to attend schools outside because there is no accommodation for them within the area.

The school bus service does not provide for more than a small proportion of the children and it is not uncommon for as much as 10, 15 or 20 per cent of family incomes in working-class areas to be expended weekly on bus fares. When that is added to another 20 per cent or so in respect of housing, one gets some idea of the colossal social problem we have to deal with here. If that can be solved, as I think it should be, by the provision of buses of lower seating capacity, I believe that would be welcomed in general by the workers. Such buses could be put on during the peak hours.

I appreciate that the Dublin problem, like that of any other city, is one which imposes on the transport authority an obligation to have a large reserve of trains or buses for use over a period of perhaps not more than two or three hours in the day. That imposes a tremendous liability, of course, but the burden of maintaining these vehicles would quite clearly be lessened if the vehicles were not quite so luxurious and were designed to serve the minimum requirements of people going to and coming from work who, as I say, would be much happier standing provided they were able to move than they are at the moment standing in bus queues. I could wring the Minister's heart by describing the scenes in inclement weather. I am sure he is not so out of touch with realities that he is unaware of the nature of our climate.

There are some rather surprising things in this Bill because they have little or no relation to transport problems. For example, there is the imposition of compulsory Irish, as if Irish would not otherwise be thought of. It seems to us, in Fine Gael, that we ought to make available to old age pensioners free travel on public transport. We are sorry the Minister has not taken opportunity in this Bill to provide that free travel. We are providing millions here in order to make transport facilities available to a large section of our people, who otherwise would have no transport, because it is not economically profitable. If we are here subsidising people who could pay perhaps double, though maybe with difficulty, then I think we would be justified in providing that old age pensioners and other social welfare recipients should travel free on public transport. Public transport is used in the main at particular hours of the day or evening. At other periods the vehicles travel only half full. If old age pensioners and social welfare recipients generally were entitled to travel free of charge during the valley periods that would not cost the State or CIE an extra halfpenny because the seats would be there in any event.

I would hope that in future there would be a better understanding of the problems between the members of trade unions, their officials, and the Board. I do not think the blame can be fairly attached to the trade union officials, who were frustrated in their efforts to better the lot of the men by a certain distant attitude on the part of the Minister and the management of CIE. If we are to have a good transport system, we must have a contented staff. We will not get that if we have a continuation of the outmoded methods that were used in the past.

One of the most acute problems which face members of the staff of CIE is that experienced by people who are transferred from the company to Dublin, particularly when they have families. Dublin Corporation have their own housing problems, as we are all too well aware, and it is not possible for them to give preference to workers transferred by CIE from the country to Dublin. It seems to me that provision should be made in this Bill, or elsewhere, to see that housing accommodation is made available for employees of CIE when they are transferred from the country to Dublin, particularly when they have large families. Otherwise, they suffer very severe hardship. In many cases workers are separated from their wives and families, or they have to live in what are now most expensive lodgings in Dublin, because the number of cheap rooms available in Dublin is fast declining. I suppose that in another few years none will be available at all.

That is a very critical situation, and if CIE want to maintain their right to transfer their employees from the country to Dublin, there is clearly an obligation on them to provide accommodation. Having said that, of course, CIE should not succumb to the temptation of expelling from their existing accommodation any of the present tenants, many of whom have been loyal workers for many years and are now retired, or in some cases it is their widows and families who are in the accommodation. Quite clearly, it would be very wrong for CIE to attempt to solve their own immediate staff problem by resorting to such action.

One of the great difficulties that arose in relation to last year's labour dispute was the failure of CIE to cater for their retired workers. Indeed, that is a continuing problem, the solution to which has been postponed by the appointment of the Minister's stop-gap committee. In this day and age, we must expect that the provision of reasonable income and housing accommodation for retired workers is just as much a part of the conditions of service as the provision of pay for existing workers. These are problems which are worthy of attention and CIE must attend to them. Certainly the people of Ireland would want them to be looked after.

I share with Deputy Byrne the suspicion that we are not being told the truth about the Dublin bus services. Again, as in the case of the railway line to which the Minister referred, we are unable to accept the Minister's figures unless he identifies their source. In stating that only a certain number of Dublin bus services pay and others do not, if he wants us to consider these matters seriously, the Minister should identify the routes which are paying, and the routes which are not.

Time out of number the Chair has ruled my colleagues and myself out of order when we endeavoured to table questions about particular bus routes—and bus routes in general— in Dublin. The Minister has time out of number quite clearly inspired the Chair to rule various matters out of order on the grounds that he had no Ministerial responsibility in connection with them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I might point out to the Deputy that the Minister does not advise the Chair on those matters. The Chair determines each question on its merits.

Mr. Ryan

I appreciate that, but whether the advice is given before or after, or in the climate which obtains at the time I do not know. What I say is not inaccurate. The Minister's attitude in the House, and the rules which the Minister set at an earlier date, have undoubtedly been in the knowledge of the Chair and the decisions which the Chair has taken. That is not a reflection on the Chair.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The House adopted the rules which the Chair carries out.

Mr. Ryan

It is time there was some reality in relation to transport matters in this city and in this country. In the limited amount of statistics which the Minister has given us, it is interesting to learn for the first time that a greater percentage of road services is unprofitable than is the percentage of unprofitable railway services. It therefore seems to be against the Minister's argument that all the transport losses could be wiped out if we went over to a road system instead of a railway system. It is clear they could not be wiped out. One of the matters which must be faced realistically, unless it is regarded as being a purely local matter, is that every local authority and every ratepayer has to make a substantial contribution towards the provision of any road service, whether it is the haulage of goods or the haulage of persons, whereas, on the other hand, the railway services must operate more objectively in that all their costs are clearly identifiable. The same does not arise in relation to the use of the roads.

The fact that CIE pay a certain contribution to the Road Fund in respect of each vehicle does not get away from the fact that you cannot estimate or set aside any particular proportion of the cost in relation to public transport on the road. We are aware, for instance, that the closing down of the Howth tramway imposed an obligation on the local authority to construct a new road all around Howth Head, a need which would not have arisen if that service had not been closed down. The relation of transport to the tourist problem is one of which the Minister is acutely aware. May I say in passing that it was most unfortunate that the Howth tramway was closed down? It is clear from the experience across the water that small railways and tramways of that nature had a tremendous tourist attraction. The view of Dublin Bay from the Howth tram by day or by night was one of the best views obtainable within a short distance of Dublin. Had it been maintained by a subsidy or some financial plasma for some years, I believe the day would have come when Dublin motorists would have left their cars at Sutton and taken the tram around the Head and back again. That service, however, was wiped out, due to a paucity of forethought on the part of the management of CIE and the Department of Transport and Power. The need to have a review from time to time in this House of transport problems including what we consider local problems, although they may concern tens of thousands of people per day, is shown by the fact that members of the House have been unable to get satisfaction from the Minister and the public in general have been unable to get satisfaction from CIE in many matters over the past five years and indeed before that, but particularly since the 1958 Transport Bill.

Therefore, on that account and on account of the fact that CIE collect and spend more public revenue than many Government Departments, we are of the opinion that we should restore the postion which existed before 1958 and we might then get the Minister and his Department in close touch with the reality from which they seem to have escaped over the past five years. We might also be able to get CIE and the Minister to realise that transport is not just a question of statistics or of Pacemaker Reports but that it is a great social problem and one which must be concerned with local problems and which must take cognisance of planning matters, of housing matters, employment matters and so on. Clearly CIE is like the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It only considers that it has an obligation when a problem is created for it. It ought be able to provide the lead to other Government Departments and the local authorities; it should be able to make suggestions and be able to say that if a housing estate or a new industrial enterprise is located in a particular place, there would be an opportunity of revenue there, an opportunity of employment and an opportunity for the use of public transport.

It seems to me to be wrong that some of the industries which have been set up should have been set up without regard to the possible use of CIE facilities. In many cases they have been set up far from railways when quite clearly railways were the obvious way for conveying the goods of those industries. This, as I say, was the kind of thing which, when it did arise in any particular instance, could not be discussed because we were told it was a local problem. We regard it as a vast national problem and one which CIE should be capable of seeing and planning for in the years ahead.

The other matters which arise on this Bill are primarily matters for Committee Stage but I should like to put on record that if the people are dissatisfied, as we believe they may well be, with the transport situation in the years immediately ahead, it will be no blame on the Opposition. The blame will lie fairly and squarely on the Minister and the other agencies of the Government who have successfully muzzled public representatives from airing where they ought be able to air, the grievances of the public in relation to this important matter of public transport.

Mr. Gallagher

This is a Bill on which one would have expected to hear constructive contributions from the other side of the House but neither a plan nor correlated thinking is forthcoming. In this Bill we are asked to provide CIE with £2 million and also to provide a free grant of £1 million in respect of last year. A sum of £3 million for last year and this year is a considerable amount, but we must ask ourselves: Is it necessary? How can it be avoided?

There are certain ways one could see this expenditure being avoided. One is greater economies which would inevitably bring about redundancy, unemployment, in the transport system. Another is a further increase in freight and passenger fares which would probably to some degree affect the earning capacity of CIE. Those methods having been examined and found unacceptable, then it rightly falls to the Department of Finance to provide the necessary money.

He said he would endeavour to make it pay.

Mr. A. Barry

He said he would make it pay. The Deputy should read the 1958 Act.

Mr. Gallagher

I have read it. It is unfair to attack the Minister. It is unfair to attack the Board and management of CIE when these people are unable to defend themselves. It is also unfair to doubt the veracity of accounts obtained from CIE. These men are unable to defend themselves here. Deputies take advantage of their position and the privileges they enjoy in this House when they attack CIE personnel. Management boards of semi-state bodies, by and large, are doing an efficient job. It takes many years to bring their schemes to fruition. I do not think the Board of CIE have left anything undone that could be done to reduce running costs.

Typical again of Fine Gael is their method of dealing with the question of the Irish language in respect of CIE. Deputy Donegan suggested: "We are all for it really but why write it into the Bill? Let CIE do it." That is an underhanded attitude to the matter. In other words, the Minister should not say in the Bill that Irish is essential or compulsory but it would be all right if CIE said it. If we are to accept the Fine Gael thinking that we go in for the best in every field, then I should like to know why we see questions in this House in regard to posts being reserved for certain Irish people as against foreigners. If they follow their argument to its logical conclusion, then they will give the post to the best, be he Irish or foreign. In regard to CIE, I believe the attitude of the Minister is the correct one and that anyone who applies for a position with CIE will not suffer any disadvantage in regard to a knowledge of Irish.

I regret it has been found necessary to vote this further sum to CIE. Indeed in the future it may be necessary to vote more sums because if we are to retain CIE, as we must, we shall certainly have to pay for it. It is my hope that, with the growing population which Government policy has brought about and with greater industrialisation which has also been the policy of this Government and if we look forward over the next 40 years instead of looking back over the past 40 years, one day a case can be made for the retention of the rail services. The day may come when it may not be necessary to have Bills put through this House to finance the running of CIE.

Mr. Mullen

I appreciate that this is a very important Bill but I want to protest against the manner in which it was circulated and presented by the Minister. I cannot understand why an explanatory memorandum did not accompany the Bill. It is typical of the attitude this Minister has adopted in relation to questions put to him concerning the running of his Department. I find it necessary, therefore, to seek certain information on a number of matters because of the absence of a White Paper explaining the Bill. I have in mind, for instance, section 3 of the Bill.

I must also have regard to statements previously made by the Minister in the matter of the operation of CIE. Towards the end of last year—on 18th December, 1963—when addressing the Irish section of the Institute of Transport, the Minister said that the fact that public transport must be orientated to the social as well as the purely commercial obligation to the tourist industry meant that the Government must reserve the right to determine the appropriate legislation for the overall direction of transport policy. Public transport could not be governed solely by the rules of supply and demand as in the case of a commercial concern, he said. He went on to say:

It has become clear that the railways cannot be made pay under the conditions which exist at present, even allowing for the most favourable economic expansion. However, this should be seen against the background of railway deficits in Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Scandinavian countries.

Taking that into consideration and bearing in mind section 3 of the Bill, I should like to ascertain from the Minister whether that section precludes the Board from planning, say, 25 years ahead. I should like an answer to that because it is something which is agitating the minds of people who work for the Board. It is only natural that they are worried about it. I should also like to know, having regard to that section, what he means when he refers to an efficient undertaking. We need to know where we are going in matters of this kind. Perhaps the Minister would reassure us about the future of the railways. Is it possible at this stage to have included in the Bill a definite provision that it would not be in the public interest to have the railways eliminated?

There is another aspect I should like to refer to particularly on page 3 of the Minister's speech. Towards the end, on page 3, the Minister says:

The steep decline in 1963/64 was due to the May, 1963, bus strike, the net cost of which, as I have already indicated, was £342,000, but with the continued growth of private transport it is possible that road passenger services may not in future be as profitable as in the past.

Surely the Minister realises that the cost of that dispute was a result of CIE Board policy? They decided to introduce one-man buses and that brought about the dispute. Arising from the dispute, settlements were brought about providing for compensation for certain people. I notice there is a marked absence in the Bill of provision for compensation for this purpose.

In section 9, the Minister refers to compensation but seems to exclude road workers, road freight workers and bus workers. In that respect we must bear in mind that the CIE acknowledged plan is to introduce more and more one-man buses, postulating more and more redundancy. This is a situation in which approximately one-third of CIE employees engaged on road services have already been compensated. What is the trade union movement to do now? Are they to say that the remaining two-thirds of the Board's employees will be declared redundant and are not to obtain compensation? I am making this point because I realise that the Bill aims at the provision of money for the running of CIE.

If the Minister does not take this problem into account, he will force the trade unions into the situation where they will have to take it from the company and no arrangements will be made. On page 15 of the Minister's speech, paragraph 30, he says—

The fixed subsidy of £2 million per annum, which will be subject to alteration in the light of circumstances at the end of five years, has been calculated after careful examination of estimates supplied by CIE.

I should like to be assured that the Minister is satisfied with the estimates and I am anxious to ascertain the manner in which they were calculated. I should also like to know what the situation is likely to be in a few years' time. Does the Minister propose to make any provision for that? I should also like to know whether we can have an assurance from the Minister that the amount of subsidy in the Bill will be sufficient to maintain public transport, say, in the third, fourth and fifth years to come. The people working in CIE would like an answer to that because of this nightmare of unemployment amongst the people who work in CIE.

I should also like to ascertain from the Minister—I appreciate that one is limited in what one may say on this Bill—whether it is not possible for him to consult with CIE with a view to ensuring that the receipts from the services will grow. It is perfectly obvious the opportunity is there but very often, certainly in Dublin, the people find themselves in a position of having to complain about the services and, having made suggestions, they find nothing is done about them. When matters were raised in this House, we were told that it was not a matter for the House but a matter for CIE. If it is a matter for CIE, can the Minister not devise a means by which people can have complaints attended to?

I join in other Deputies' appeals to have the city services improved. One service crying out for such improvement is that which provides for taking children to and from school. I hope the Minister will explore the possibility of introducing all-in tickets. Countless people have to travel from Finglas and find it necessary to get three buses to reach a destination. That is no small proportion of their outlay each week. It is one of the problems crying out for remedy because it affects the very people who have made CIE services in Dublin pay. Each one of them must, in present circumstances, pay serious regard to every penny of their outlay each week.

I conclude by entreating the Minister to avail of the opportunity still open to him to ensure that people employed in the road services of CIE will not be precluded from obtaining compensation should further redundancies be declared in that section. If this is not done, CIE will run into another head-on clash, because the trade unions will have no option but to demand compensation. CIE will not get away with the reply: "You cannot get compensation, but the other fellow, suffering the same disability, was given compensation".

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): This Bill is perhaps not the last but the penultimate chapter of a long, sad, sorry story. Any of us who has read up the past history of CIE and the tremendous enthusiasm with which its inception was greeted must now be rather amused at the postion to which we have come. One may recall that so great was the optimism and the propaganda from Deputies opposite many years ago when the GSR were taken over by the State that a public inquiry was held on the basis that there had been a leakage of confidential State information.

Those who were in a position to obtain prior knowledge of Government purposes at that time were under suspicion of having utilised that knowledge to secure financial reward for themselves. Such was the propaganda and such was the faith whcih the Fianna Fáil Party at that time succeeded in imbuing into the public mind. It is possible that the rank and file of the Party actually believed that there was pending a tremendous era in Irish transport—that it was to be a wonderful economic success once it was taken over and harnessed by the dynamic Party, the same Party as have come before us today, will tomorrow and did yesterday, speaking of their energy, their dynamic. We can recall that at that time Ministers of State went before the special tribunal to offer evidence that members of their families who had bought shares and they themselves did not pass confidential information.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

How does this arise on the Transport Bill ?

General MacEoin

To show how the same enthusiasm exists today.

Mr. Childers

Is the Deputy suggesting that members of the Government in 1944 were guilty of corruption in share dealing? There is no evidence——

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): The Minister should have listened carefully to what I said and not attempt to put words into my mouth.

Mr. Childers

I am sorry; I withdraw. I understood the Deputy was making some conceivable charge against Ministers of that time.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): In 1958 a little more commonsense had begun to permeate into the minds of the Government members. The tremendous enthusiasm of their younger, earlier days had partially evaporated. They had found through the years that they could not operate an economic railway system, and in 1958 they decided to have another look at the matter. They did, and they introduced a new Bill.

The 1958 Act provided certain fundamental things. It provided, first, for an annual grant over the five years of £1 million. That was slightly augmented due to changing conditions, but the basic figure allowed was £1 million per year. It also wrote off the not inconsiderable liability of £16.6 million. It also gave CIE the right to enter the market as a free commercial concern in which they could fix their own rates and fares. It also gave them a very fundamental right which has caused considerable trouble ever since—the right to eliminate uneconomic railway services, subject to certain restrictions. It also entitled CIE to secure from the Exchequer recoupment of any losses that might be incurred on redundancies due to closures of uneconomic railway lines.

They were six basic, fundamental points which were calculated to make this insolvent concern solvent in the first five-year period. It might also be mentioned that in effect, in regard to their commercial operations, the concern enjoyed a virtual monopoly from the point of view of road freightage, with the exception of the odd plate people happened to have had over a number of years and, of course, of the occasional one for which a prohibitive price would have to be paid—the odd 32-county plate or the odd regional plate or the odd county plate which they still had. With the exception of those, CIE got a virtual monopoly of road lorry work. Every private lorry owner, every farmer, was being tormented——

Mr. Crotty

Hounded.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary):——for breaches of transport regulations, day after day. Yet, with all the privileges, all the help, the Minister now comes before us with a new Bill in which he admits, I think for the first time, he is prepared to accept the situation that an Irish transport system can never be made a solvent proposition, that we must accept for all time, presumably that it is to be run as a State semi-social service. He comes here and, unlike the six points of the 1958 Bill, presents us with four basic requirements. First, there is to be an annual subsidy of £2 million which, I think, is subject to review after a number of years. The basic requirement is an annual subsidy of £2 million to the Board for capital purposes and further provision for payment of redundancy compensation. The Bill also provides for writing off advances totalling £1 million made to the Board under section 13 of the 1963 Act. This is a strange ending to the chapter which began with such happy and high hopes.

The Minister gives us the losses for the past five or six years: 1958/59, £1,950,000; 1959/60, £709,000, an improvement; 1960/61, £246,000; 1961/62, £1,696,000; 1962/63, £1,760,000 and 1963/64, an estimated figure of £1,618,000. I cannot help feeling that that estimated loss for 1963/64 might be rather an optimistic figure. However, time will tell. These losses by the CIE Board are mostly on railways. I am not clear from the Minister's statement whether these are what they like to call working losses—or do they include financial charges?

Mr. Childers

Mr. Childers

You must take into account the 621 miles of line closed.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): I am taking into account the tremendous jump from 326 to 331, a little more than one per cent, and over a five year period, .2 per cent. That is the significant improvement the Minister talks about. With that in mind, you come back to the sentence stating that generally the pattern is that rail passenger traffic has been well maintained. The Minister says how well it is maintained, that there was a decline from 11.7 million in 1958-59 to 9.8 million in 1963-64. That is how rail passenger traffic was maintained at a a time when more people than ever before are travelling.

Has the railway got its share of the increase in public travelling which is undoubtedly taking place? It has not even maintained its proportion. Each year there is a considerable increase in travelling and yet we find our railway figures show that passenger traffic has fallen between 1958-59 and 1963-64. Whoever wrote the typescript for the Minister had the audacity to say that generally the pattern is that rail passenger traffic has been well maintained.

Mr. A. Barry

It is a good job it did not go back.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): It was “well maintained”. In regard to the carriage of livestock by our railways although, naturally, we do not know the figures, everybody appreciated there was a progressive decline. We all can recall the days of the fairs, the loading of cattle in the early hours of the morning at railway stations. The fairs have gone. The loading of the cattle has to a significant extent gone and we are all familiar nowadays with large trucks carrying cattle on the roads.

The Minister mentions the decline in livestock transport on the rails. He mentions that the carriage of livestock by CIE road services over the same period, that is, from 1958-59 up to the present time, has increased from 214,000 in 1958-59 to 320,000 in 1963-64—an increase of 50 per cent. That would be very commendable by any standard if that had been achieved in the face of fair, open, honest competition but when we consider that the 50 per cent. increase has been achieved (a) at a loss to the railway service and (b) because of the position that CIE has been given a practical transport monopoly and that private persons could not put their lorries on the road to compete with CIE, the 50 per cent increase has to be measured exactly as a very poor achievement, indeed.

This does not show any particular enterprise on the part of the Minister or CIE. I wonder if the ordinary commercial houses, the ordinary garages, the ordinary farmers, the ordinary truck and lorry owners were allowed full freedom on the roads would this figure which the Minister has quoted here of a jump of 214,000 in 1958-59 to 320,000 in 1963-64 have occurred? I am quite sure it would not. This is not a measure of efficiency; it is merely a measure of monopoly.

Yet, the Minister on the next page continues:

Apart from the saving of £700,000 per annum from terminating uneconomic rail services, the Board has shown considerable commercial drive, with results on passenger and freight traffic already noted.

The results which I have recounted, which the Minister has given on the previous pages, merit the description that "the Board has shown considerable commercial drive". The Minister continued:

The management structure has been overhauled and decentralised and there has been a notable increase in the efficiency and consequently in the public image of CIE.

I do not know whether the Minister or his script-writers live in Ireland or in cloud cuckooland. Has there ever been a good public image of CIE? Ask any man you meet in any part of the country, go into any pub, meet anybody in the street and discuss CIE. The inevitable reaction is one of amusement at a bankrupt, insolvent, incompetent concern. That is the general public feeling. How right it is or how wrong it is, the Minister has tried to explain here. He is quite satisfied, with all these losses and declining business, even, in some cases, under monopoly conditions, that it still merits the description of a Board which has shown considerable commercial drive, and so on, and that it has a wonderful public image.

Indeed, the Minister goes further, into fields more speculative and states that were it not for its considerable commercial drive the Board's total loss would now be over £3 million per annum. I hope this is not an invitation to greater losses in future. I hope the Minister will be able to sustain and encourage the Board in this considerable commercial drive to which he has drawn attention here.

Then, finally, he draws the great conclusion:

The experience over the five years has demonstrated in a practical way that the hopes of breaking even are unrealisable.

Surely, the Minister must have realised long before now that the hopes of making CIE a solvent concern were unrealisable? In spite of the importation of tremendous capital, in spite of monopoly conditions, in spite of legislation introduced in 1958 calculated to bolster up the company, it must have been obvious to him before May, 1964, that insolvency would become a permanent characteristic of Córas Iompair Éireann.

It has always been a grievance of Dublin representatives in this House that the Dublin section of our transport services was subsidising the rest of the country. I suppose, from the point of view of a Dublin Deputy, there was sufficient reason for grievance. At one time the Dublin transport service was a closed entity. It was just the Dublin tramways and nothing else.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 26th May, 1964.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 21 May 1964