When the debate was adjourned last night, I had started to elaborate, in an objective way, I hope, on what I feel should be done in relation to this motion. If the terms need broadening, or if the Minister feels that a different method of approach would be more feasible, everybody would be satisfied, as long as it was recognised that we have focused attention on what is rapidly becoming an amazingly serious national problem.
As I tried to explain to the Minister, this is a complex problem in its ramifications for the people in the employment of CIE, in the nature of the service, and in the nature of the return that people are getting. Above all, it has become something that we in this House must watch jealously because of its impact on the taxpayer. In this debate I am actuated by a motive to get away as far as possible from who was right and who was wrong in the past. We know that catastrophic mistakes have been made and that there have been all kinds of queer methods of recruitment. As I said when opening this debate, we know that for a very large number of people, CIE has become the hub of their universe in so far as they are conditioned not only to employment in it but also in so far as many of their families have come from the second and third generation ranks to serve in it. Over the years there have been difficulties about staff relations, considerable difficulty on the question of remuneration and, I would say, no company has a sorrier record in relation to pensions and other problems related to retired personnel than CIE.
I do not want to start into the details of the mistakes that were made or who made them. Rather I want to get the House down to the discharge of what I feel is its responsibility now, to get this Committee under way. If the Minister has a better alternative, then as long as he can provide a realistic approach to a resurveying of the position and a coming to grips with the problem, he will get the unanimous and wholehearted support of this House in his efforts to put this company right. Many years ago, even when a Government I supported were in office, I said that we would never get down to the basic problems of our transport system or solve them by bringing in alleged experts from outside to give us reports which only added confusion to the confusion already existing. It was indeed in circumstances in which one might have hoped for an escalation into a practical and successful company that CIE was born.
We all know that the Dublin transport company was a flourishing and effective company when it was amalgamated with CIE, that it had been able to manage its affairs in such a way as to be able to replace equipment, modernise its system and provide a good transport system for the people. We felt then that there might be some hope of making more effective savings in one direction, a more practical replacement of equipment in another, but all those bright hopes have ended in disaster and woe.
What are we going to do? What problem faces us in this House? It is very clearly pinpointed by this motion because we have a moral responsibility and duty to the people to see that they get the type of service to which they are entitled, particularly when they are paying a considerable amount by way of subsidy. We also have a bounden duty to give security to the people who have devoted their lives to the transport system. I feel that a proper investigation of CIE affairs will not reflect any discredit on the run-of-the-mill worker, whether he be bus driver, conductor or maintenance man. We will find that most of the waste of money is on a level above that, above the hardworking and exceptionally able types that we have in general in the manual grades, in the bus drivers and conductors. The wastage seems to be in remoter offices and area control stations and in what I would like to call cullable and prunable administration.
Whatever the cause, we have a duty to come to grips with it, to analyse the defects and postulate a solution. If we are led to believe that there are difficulties in the CIE freight section, that it is uneconomic and that the difficulties are virtually insurmountable, let us have a look at it and see is it practical to abandon it or what is the alternative. Let us see what security can be provided for the workers. If other section of CIE are in difficulties, let us have a frank appraisal of them. Let us use our collective intelligence and, on the evidence that can be made available to this Committee, let us find out in what direction we are going, where that direction must be changed and how we can build a better future.
If this matter is faced honestly and practically, if the workers are taken into our confidence and given a factual appraisal of the situation, they will give—as they always have—as much co-operation and understanding to the solution of the problem as any other section involved. I say that without fear or equivocation. We have had many unrealistic statements condemning the workers in CIE. My plea is not for recrimination or vexatious argument, whether the Minister was right to close down this or that branch line, or whether that Government were right or this Government were wrong; all I want is that we get down to an unbiased investigation of the situation.
I am sick to death of the kind of ministerial answer, the Pontius Pilate act of washing one's hands of one's problems because they are alleged to concern the day-to-day administration of the company. We are sitting here like caged chimpanzees looking at a situation we know is deteriorating. Since this House is subscribing a vast sum towards this company, we should not be told in a casual and callous way we have no right to information. If we are to pull the company out of the slough into which it has fallen, we will have to do it on the basis of a thorough investigation, the restoration of public confidence and the restoration between all concerned within the company of confidence and goodwill. The taxpayer will have to get a proper explanation of the use of the money provided to make good losses. The ordinary user of the system will have to get a proper service and an understanding of the limits of the service. The workers will have to understand the difficulties facing them.
Fundamentally, CIE — and I say this with a fair experience of travel— in so far as it is possible for it, is doing a first-class job. I say without hesitation that many of the mainline trains and main route buses and tourist buses have set a standard we can be proud of and give a service we are justified in claiming to be on a par with, if not better than, that of many of the countries around us. Try British railways or European railways at crowded periods and in times of difficulty and you will be very glad to come home and appreciate that CIE, in the circumstances, is doing a worthwhile job.
We have to get down to analysing these bulk costs and seeing where they can be pruned effectively without affecting the system itself. We have to get down to restoring confidence in the company. To have a general manager saying the company is bust and throwing cold water on the whole system is no help in this situation. It is no help to tell the workers they cannot get any increase in wages because the company is bust. It would be far better to get down to analysing the position, telling the workers what has happened and in what way they can co-operate in restoring the position and improving their future. If we do that—and, to my mind, this Committee would be the ideal way of getting an objective, non-political atmosphere into this reappraisal—we would be discharging our responsibility to the taxpayers.
There is a practical and sensible way out of the difficulty, if we look for it on the basis of getting the facts as they exist. We have in this Oireachtas people who would be ideal to conduct such an investigation. With the co-operation and goodwill of all sections of the House and of the public, we could get from that Committee a factual reappraisal of CIE that would enable us to talk sensibly about tackling the problem and to get away from this unreal atmosphere in which the Minister is apparently sitting on some throne or rostrum far away from reality and without any responsibility. As long as this House has to foot the bill, as it has to the extent of millions of pounds at present, we have a right to ensure that not only do we know what is going on but that we will not allow criminal carelessness, bad administration and even vicious attacks on the workers. We are not going to allow the company to be ground into dust and see a break-up that would cause hardship to many families and deprive pensioners of their security. We have a moral responsibility and we must discharge it.
I recommend earnestly that the Minister face this problem by taking the House into his confidence and setting up the type of all-Party Committee that could investigate fairly and objectively the whole issue. Having done that, let us ensure that we in our time do something to make certain we have the type of public transport the country needs, that it will be a worthwhile service and that the workers engaged in it and their children will have security through the stability and solidarity of the company.
