Under this Bill, CIE require to be further subsidised to the tune of almost £3 million or, to be absolutely precise, £2,980,000. In his statement the Minister outlined the necessity for this which basically comes down to the fact that in the past several years the position of the railways has been declining rather badly.
For the period ended 31st March last, according to the annual report of CIE, the railways lost a total of £4,212,000 which was an increase of £1,100,000 over the previous year. The only other losses sustained in that year were on the operation of canals which lost £95,000, an increase of £23,000 on the previous year, and on the operation of vessels which lost £30,000 which was £3,000 less than the deficit for the year ended 31st March, 1969.
On all other operations, city bus services, provincial bus services, tours, road freight and hotels, the accounts to the end of March of this year show a profit. It is true to say that even though profits were made on the city bus services, they had declined markedly from £177,000 to £61,000. Only on the provincial bus service was the profit maintained up to the level of the previous year's operations and there there was a substantial £632,000 profit shown for the year. Smaller profits were made for the other operations but hotel profits were up for that year and apart from the railway operations and canals and vessels there was a profit in that year. The Minister suggests that for the present year, as a result of inflation, which takes the form mainly of increases in wages, city bus services will show a loss of about £¼ million on the current operation. I do not recall whether he mentioned what will happen to the provincial services. I imagine their profits too will be affected, as will tour buses.
People using the bus service in the last year have been asked to pay very substantial increases in fares. I should like to know from the Minister whether this is a further subsidy towards the railways being paid by the people who use buses. Deputy O'Donovan mentioned that here in the city of Dublin very sharp increases in fares have been imposed on passengers on buses for very short runs. This has also affected rural travellers for either long or short distances.
In my constituency the provincial service and the city bus service operate. The city bus service operates into Bray and as far south as Kilcoole so we are affected under both headings by the increases. The increases in the city fares particularly have been noted and the hazards involved in city travel are causing problems for commuters on the busy roads north and south of the city. If there is to be a continuous fall off in travel, then the problems involved will have to be grappled with, the problem of parking in the city, particularly, where the motor car seems to be taking up an increasing amount of the available space at the expense of travellers on buses. An extra bridge or two bridges are necessary here to provide for a free flow of traffic over the Liffey from north to south and vice versa. This problem will have to be tackled very soon or for long periods of each working day traffic will come to a complete halt.
For as long as I can remember the time taken to travel from Wicklow to Dublin was 1½ hours. This was the position for anything up to 20 years. In spite of the fact that a great deal of road straightening and widening work has been done between Wicklow and Bray, the journey now takes between 1½ and two hours so not only is bus travel becoming increasingly more costly but it is also becoming much more difficult to arrive on time for work or appointments in the city of Dublin in the mornings or to get out of Dublin between 5 and 7 in the evening.
The Minister said he intends to bring in consultants to look at the railways. Judging by the losses sustained on the railways, a very hard look will have to be taken at their operations. I can see clearly in my own town why people do not travel by train. The passenger station for Wicklow town is situated 1½ miles from the town centre so one must get a taxi or some other form of transport to reach the train. Recently, due to pressure from local organisations, CIE started a passenger service from the goods station which is almost in the centre of Wicklow town. This has proved a great boon to commuters. It has enabled them to make the trip from Wicklow to Dublin inside an hour and also to get back to Wicklow in the evening by about 6.30. It now takes less time to travel from Dublin to Wicklow by train than to travel by bus from Dublin to Bray which is 20 miles nearer to the City. If all passenger services were to be shunted into the goods station in Wicklow I believe by that one small act the popularity of the passenger service would increase immensely. I do not know if there are many places with this problem but this is one area where great pressure could be taken off a very busy road-the Dublin-Bray road—if commuters in the Wicklow area were to have all trains leave from the goods station in Wicklow.
I make no apology for introducing another local issue—the bus service from Bray. Deputy O'Donovan mentioned that the Harcourt Street line was closed some years ago because it was not being used enough and was incurring a loss of something in the region of £50,000 or £60,000 annually. That now seems very little but in those days it appeared to be quite a large sum. A bus service to facilitate the people who used that line was put on between Bray and Dublin. It was the number 86 bus and it went from Bray to Dublin via Cabinteely and Dundrum. Recently a decision was taken to curtail the distance travelled by this bus and the terminus on the Wicklow side is now Cabinteely which means that people from Bray are unable to make one journey from Bray to Dundrum. and areas on that side of the country. Because of the necessity to make two journeys the fare has gone up by something like 1s 5d a journey. It costs Is 7d to travel now to Cabinteely and a further 1s 9d from Cabinteely to Dundrum whereas it was 1s 9d for the whole way through previously. It is possible to buy a weekly ticket at no extra cost but it is unfair, having first of all removed the railways, to curtail the bus service further so that people who regularly if not daily make the journey between Bray and areas such as Dundrum and into Dublin are no longer able to do so. I have been in touch with the office of the city traffic manager and although I have been treated with courtesy in this matter I have been unable to get what the people of Bray want, namely, that transport be provided at the same fare as on the previous service. This is a reasonable request by those who formerly travelled on the No. 86 bus.
Perhaps the Minister would have a word with CIE to see if this service can be provided at the previous rate. There cannot be any great saving achieved in curtailing the journey by three miles and I do not think the decision in this case has been a wise one. The excuse given was that the bus was not used very much but if the service is to be maintained for most of the route the extension of three miles to Bray will not cost very much.
I realise that all of us can see the problems that exist in the various bus services. The area of north Wicklow provides a large number of workers for Dublin city but no inquiry has been made regarding how the workers are commuting to the city. In this way CIE are losing considerable revenue by not revising their timetables. The working day is becoming shorter—in many factories the termination hour is 4.30 or 5 p.m.—but the transport services are not being adapted to cope with the changed working schedule.
The number of people working in the Bray area who travel from Ashford and Kilcoole each day is considerably increased but there has been no change in the bus timetables for those areas. To illustrate this point, I would mention people who work in an electrical appliance factory in Bray. They finish work at 5 p.m. but the bus from Bray towards the Wicklow areas leaves at 4.45 p.m. The next bus arrives in Bray at 6.30 p.m. and shortly afterwards three buses to Arklow, Wexford and Wicklow town arrive practically together. However, from 5 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. there is no service available for the factory workers; they have to wait around in Bray or else try to get a lift. CIE should cater for these people who are in need of transport. By their failure to do this they are losing considerable revenue.
There is an overlap in this area between city and rural transport and it may be that one management is leaving it to the other to do the job. However, I shall take up the matter with the traffic manager again although nothing was done in regard to my previous representations. In the areas I have mentioned there are several hundred people involved and this case illustrates just one area where revenue could be increased if CIE had local information regarding the numbers who need transport facilities and the changes in the working schedules of people. I hope the Minister will take up this matter because I have not been successful in getting any changes in the bus timetable.
Most of us would not like to see the railways closed, or any further closures being carried out, and this is not only from the point of view of profit but also for sentimental reasons. The growing loss that is met each year by taxpayers must be a cause for concern. Nevertheless, as has been illustrated by the closure of the Harcourt Street line, the removal of bridges and the selling of land along the line, this is a dubious procedure to adopt without taking into account the long-term prospects. The Harcourt Street line could be very profitable had it been kept in operation. Those of us who travel daily on the Bray road would be much happier to go by train if this service were available at suitable hours, and I am sure people living in the area between Bray and Dublin would travel by train if the service were available.
There is a social necessity, particularly in the western parts of the country, for railways and it is difficult to judge in monetary terms the advantage of railway stations being located in those areas. In addition, some provincial bus services are necessary because people in outlying areas have not any other means of transport. There is much talk about the losses incurred by CIE and such losses must be considered when one sees the bill that is presented to taxpayers each year. However, it would be a grave disadvantage to have any further rail closures. We must ask ourselves if we are prepared to continue meeting this mounting deficit or whether we want our railway system completely closed. The Minister more or less hinted at this in his document——
