I move:
That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.
I have heard the Minister's explanation and I can assure him that we do not expect him to have anything very new to say at this juncture. He has been in office for only a very short period. However, his predecessor on 10th March last referred to the outstanding numbers of people who were waiting for telephones and it is in relation to telephones and the telephone service that we move to refer back this vote.
Telephones are a vital part of the machinery of the business community and of the country generally. It is because of that that we have taken a rather serious view of the Vote on this occasion. We want to pinpoint and drive home to the new Minister and to the Department that the country generally is not getting from the Post Office the service it should get where telephones are concerned. We are experiencing a big commercial drive and we want to ensure that this new drive is adequately backed by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs from the point of view of telephone connections and the telephone service generally.
What I have to say will, I think, strengthen the Minister's hand ultimately in his dealings with Finance from the point of view of getting a really adequate sum for capital expenditure on telephones generally. On March 10th last the Minister's predecessor gave a number of figures, in cluding a figure of 1,173 people waiting for telephones for over six months. One could see that fairly energetic steps were being taken to deal with the situation, but, nevertheless, not quite energetic enough.
A couple of weeks ago a number of Deputies visited Shannon. They saw certain new industries, some just opened and some on the point of opening. I was interested in one entirely new industry employing Irish girls and some young men. This firm deals in computers. As far as I could gather, the stuff is fed into computers in England and then sent to Shannon to be processed. This is material with regard to wages and complicated matters like that. When this firm is in full production, I understand the United States will be one of the suppliers. Some of the big companies, it is expected, will send stuff and this will go back to America and the final figures will then go back to England also. The point I am making is that an industry like that is entirely dependent on speed of communications and the accuracy of our telephone and telegraph services. An inefficient telephone system can have very bad effects on a country.
There are too many people in the queue for telephones. Telephones are not being installed fast enough. I know the Department have a technical problem of training engineers and so on but that must be faced in a really big way so that the backlog can be dealt with. There is a number of complaints about delays in getting answers and about trunk calls. I constantly get complaints about delays and about difficulty in dialling the various services: people do not get a response quickly enough. I have personal experience of inaccuracies and of telephones that either give an engaged tone or appear to ring so that it seems that nobody is bothering to answer. Quite frequently one finds that no call was received at the other end. That is very frustrating and I appeal to the Minister to ensure that this type of technical fault is cut down to a minimum. It has a very unfortunate effect on business when a firm is blamed for not answering a telephone which, in fact, did not ring.
I was interested in some comparative figures for the number of telephones in relation to the populations of different countries in 1964. Ireland has 67.8 telephones per 1,000 of the population. The United Kingdom has 174.1 and Sweden which has one of the highest in the world has 422.5. What is of interest is that we have one of the lowest rates per 1,000 in Europe. I am sure that the Minister will wish to see that position altered as rapidly as possible. Without unduly labouring the matter, we need more telephones and we need a very close watch kept to see that the technical standards in regard to the telephone service are of the highest order. I also appeal to the Minister to do here what is done in other countries—make a considerable reduction in telephone charges on Sundays and/or make a considerable reduction after 6 o'clock in the evenings. In the long run that would help the telephone service. If people are encouraged to instal telephones they will not use them exclusively in the cheap periods. I should be glad to hear from the Minister on that subject.
Turning to the radio and television side of the Department, these services continue to instruct and entertain us. Both in television and radio those concerned do a very good job considering the limited amount of money available. Compared with what big countries can spend on broadcasting, we are really doing it on a shoestring. Taking that into consideration we put on very good shows. I should first like to speak of the Radio Éireann Orchestra which is under the baton of Mr. Tibor Paul. It delights us with a very fine variety of classical programmes. The Sunday night concerts are always completely booked out in the Gaiety Theatre. That is a very good thing and it shows the support a classical orchestra can get in Dublin. I should also like to refer to Mr. Eimear Ó Broin, a very able and gifted young man, who does a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes on that orchestra. I congratulate all concerned, the musicians and the Department generally, on never lowering either the standard of the performance or the choice of programmes. One can lower somewhat the standard of a big orchestra by not attempting the most ambitious pieces but the Radio Éireann Orchestra has been built up to rank as one of the first-class European orchestras.
That goes for the light music section also. The Light Orchestra is very good and I congratulate it also, because it is no easier to play much of the light music than it is to play what is called very classical music. Light music is not necessarily any easier or any simpler to play. I would say that we have orchestras which, when the Kennedy Hall is opened, will be worthy to play in a hall dedicated to the memory of that very great man.
I will not deal with television programmes in any great detail but I should like to see as much use as possible made of our local talent, both in regard to music and in regard to plays, our actors and actresses. We are very fortunate in this country in being one of the places in the entire English speaking world which probably produces more first-rate artistes per thousand of the population than anywhere else. Our figures may be a bit low with regard to telephones per thousand but I would say that they are pretty high on first-class actors and actresses. I am glad to see that television gives these people the chance of earning a living in their own country and I should like to see more and more home produced plays and as little as possible of imported films.
That is not to say that some of the imported films are necessarily objectionable but these canned features are not good. One thing which I find especially ridiculous is the canned applause. A joke which might raise a smile but no more on the face of an average Irish person seems to rock these simple souls in the audience who were present when the film was being made—but, of course, in fact the applause is added afterwards and very often it gives a very unreal effect.
With regard to plays on television and other features, I would like to say that advertising time must be watched. In other words, you can break up a programme, whether it be a play or a film, too much by putting in too many intervals for advertising. I know that advertising revenue is of importance but one has to watch that the entertainment and interest of the viewers is not sacrificed to the revenue from advertising. After all, each owner of a set is paying £4 a year now and he or she is entitled to the maximum amount of clear viewing without having to watch too many advertisements. I noticed that in other countries advertising time is very closely watched by the parliaments concerned and by groups of people and I would suggest that the Minister should advise the Television Authority to keep a very watchful eye to see that these times are not exceeded. Radio Éireann does good work in its own way also. It, of course, has not now the popular appeal that television has but it is very good in its own way. There are many first class artistes of various sorts working for Radio Éireann and giving us very good entertainment on a very limited budget.
I turn now to postal facilities, the question of letters, parcels and so on. In the city we have, of course, more deliveries than in the country areas but we still have a very small number — I think there are only two — of deliveries per day. I would ask the Minister and his Department always to bear in mind that the post is very much the handmaiden of industry; it is not just a question of facilitating private individuals communicating with each other, just as it is not, on the telephone side, a case of the housewife or the private individual who wants to ring up a friend, although there is nothing wrong with that, and it is a very important part of both the postal deliveries and of the telephone service. These two sections have an enormous impact on business. Postal charges, as we know, have gone up a great deal and one of the difficulties about the price of letters is that it has cut into a type of business, namely circularising, of which a lot of businesses did a great deal in the past. Now it has become increasingly difficult, because of the expense, to use circulars as much as industry would like.
I have been looking back on the telegraph and postal and telephone services over the last number of years and apparently the telephone services have always seemed to pay, the post used pay but does not pay now, and the telegraph services apparently always lose and still continue to lose. It would be interesting to hear if the Minister has any comment which would throw fresh light on that situation in the Department.
I do not wish to hold up the House unduly. The services are improving but the telephone service has not improved from the point of view of the backlog of individuals awaiting telephones. When I say "individuals," I include businesses. It is much more serious for them to have to wait. I would urge on the Minister the urgency of dealing with this backlog and the great importance of ensuring that the standard of service is kept as high as possible because, of course, everybody who dials a number and does not get through instantly gets very annoyed. I tried to ring a Garda station a couple of nights ago and it took me five minutes to get through.
