Transport Bill, 1970: Second Stage (Resumed).

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

Mr. Cooney

When we adjourned last night I was discussing the situation that faces CIE. From the Minister's statement introducing this Bill it is clear that the situation that faces CIE arises out of the appalling deficit on the railways side of the operation. I was discussing the steps CIE appear to be taking to remedy this position. It would appear that there is now a bankruptcy of ideas within CIE as they have adopted the last resort of bankrupt State bodies and have called in industrial consultants. I was criticising this business of consultancy as being a modern bluff science. I am disheartened to see CIE having to rely on these people to produce a report to get themselves out of their trouble. I do not for one second think that a report produced by this firm, an American-based firm of consultants, will solve this problem.

It would appear that losses on railways will be with us for a long time, possibly for ever, and we have to make up our minds whether we want to have railways and pay for them or cut them out and do away with this annual subsidy. I have no doubt that we should retain the railways even to the extent of their having to be heavily subsidised by this House. The Minister will have to come back here year after year seeking this subsidy. He will be met with complaints regarding CIE and their workings and complaints regarding the constantly increasing losses incurred by CIE in their railway operations. I do not think anyone in this House would have any objection to voting a subsidy if we were satisfied that the loss would be a constant figure instead of a continually increasing figure. I do not think anyone would expect CIE to turn the railways into a profitable operation since it is worldwide experience that railways incur losses. We would like to see the loss contained at a more or less consistent figure.

Some years ago—possibly it is ten years ago now—the railways were losing substantial sums of money and an investigation within CIE showed that the numbers employed on the railways were far greater than the numbers needed to operate the service. A very large number of employees were retired with pensions for life. I know several people in my town who had been working with CIE and who were retired at that time with a pension for life, men who were then in their twenties or early thirties. That such staffing problems were allowed to occur, that there should have been so many excess workers in that section of the operation, shows that something went wrong within CIE. One wonders what is the present staffing position. One hears criticism from the men on the line that the railway end of CIE is top heavy with executives and management staffs. One hears from the executives and management staffs that the problem of the railways is that there are too many men on the line and in the lower positions not pulling their weight. Whether it is a question of morale or spirit I do not know, but it is not the best situation for the part of the operation showing the biggest loss. However, I have no doubt we have to retain the railways and I would strongly urge that there should be no further chopping of the railway system. It is an essential social service and it must be maintained.

In some areas where the railways have been chopped, express bus services have been substituted. They are probably contributing to the healthy financial position of the provincial bus services. Nevertheless, for persons without private cars who have to make long journeys from remote parts of the country to the city it is quite a hardship to have to travel four to six hours on a bus and it is nearly an intolerable hardship if a person has to take small children or any amount of luggage. As Deputy Murphy—or perhaps it was Deputy Finn—indicated, the temptation then is for a number of people to come together and hire a motor car. The individual cost is not any greater that way and they can achieve comfort. This is the sort of service a railway is geared to provide and I would not like to see it being taken away from the remoter parts of Ireland where amenities should be increased rather than decreased. I would strongly urge the Minister to retain the railway system as it stands at present. I am apprehensive that the size of the losses will be used as justification for further chopping of the railway system. The Minister said :

A study in depth to establish what measures might be taken in the long term to achieve a reduction in ClE's losses will also be undertaken. Arising out of this study, which will outline the various alternatives....

And one of the possible alternatives mentioned is a reduction in services. I would be afraid that this could be the thin end of the wedge and that the consultants, advised by CIE, from whom they must get their advice, would come up with the obvious remedy : "Chop the railways; this is where the loss is." I would be afraid that the Minister would accept from a firm of consultants, whose base is outside this country and whose thinking would have nothing whatever to do with our problems, a solution reached purely on financial and economic terms without consideration of the social implications.

I know that within CIE there are people who have been trained in all the latest management skills. There is a very comprehensive management structure—too comprehensive, some people would say. It is disappointing that this structure and all these skills cannot devise a solution to their problem and that these outside consultants with their own particular brand of smooth gobbledegook have to be brought in to advise. That is the position and it is unfortunate it is so. I have no objection to this House voting money to support the railways, but I would like to know that the bill will not get bigger and bigger.

That the bill has got bigger this year is attributable to the fact that the profit coming from the Dublin city passenger services has fallen drastically. This year it is down to £61,000 from £177,000 last year. All the indications are that the factors which contributed to that drop are continuing and, it would appear, multiplying, so that one can guess that next year for the first time the road passenger services in Dublin will show an operating loss. The causes of this loss must give rise to serious urgent concern. It would appear that it is a mixture of two things—fares have increased but the number of passengers has dropped. Whether the latter is a direct consequence of the former I am unable to say. It has probably contributed to the latter. However, I would say the main reason for the drop in the number of passengers is the unsatisfactory nature of the service which CIE are able to provide in this city—not through any fault of theirs but primarily because of the traffic situation in the city. I have no doubt that if buses were able to travel speedily, particularly in the centre of the city, the number of passengers carried would increase, even with the present extremely high fares structure for short trips. At the moment, because of the slowness of the journey plus the expense of the journey, a great many people in the centre of the city are walking. It is speedier and it is cheaper.

As the Minister says, it is primarily a matter for his colleague in Local Government. CIE should put a lot of pressure, through the Minister, on his colleague in Local Government to take urgent remedial steps with regard to traffic congestion. It is ridiculous that private motorists should be entitled to come in and park in the most valuable space in Ireland for a shilling an hour and in many cases for nothing at all. Some steps will have to be taken to make the cost of bringing a car into this city completely prohibitive so that the people who would normally drive into the city would be directed to public transport while those around the centre of the city who might at present be inclined to use shanks's mare would go back to using public transport. It seems odd that, with the growth of this city and the constant increase in population, the city bus services should be on the verge of operating at a loss.

Deputy Dr. FitzGerald in an article in the Irish Times of November 5th, 1970, estimates that since 1965 Dublin bus fares have risen by 110 per cent. He points out that the increases in fares are greater than the increase in expenses and that the increases in fares would appear to be an attempt by CIE to increase revenue and increase operating profit and so decrease their overall deficit but it has had the opposite effect. It is a classic example of the operation of the basic law of economics, the law of diminishing returns.

Dr. O'Donovan

Pricing yourself out of the market.

Mr. Cooney

The Dublin commuter has been priced out of his own buses, but this has not had the effect of increasing profit on the service. On the contrary, the profit has dropped from £177,000 last year to £61,000 this year and with a continuation of the trends which produced that decrease unfortunately we must expect a loss next year. This House will then be asked to vote more money to subsidise the operations of CIE.

Another anomaly which Deputy Dr. FitzGerald points out in his article is that the shorter the journey the higher is the charge per mile. The minimum fare is 9d and it gives an average passenger journey of 1.35 miles, at an average rate of 7d per mile. On the 1s fare a passenger can travel for an average of 2.7 miles; for 1s 5d a passenger can travel 5.4 miles; for 1s 7d one can travel 8.1 miles; and for 2s 7d one can travel 15.75 miles.

The answer seems to be to clear certain routes into the city entirely of private motor cars. Certain areas in the centre should be banned to private cars and on these routes into the centre of the city CIE should have some type of vehicle, with standing room only, that would be fast and on Which the minimum fare would be 3d, 4d or 6d, irrespective of the length of the journey. By this means there would be a constant speedy service from points on the perimeter of the city, through the clear routes, to the centre. This does not involve banning cars from the entire city, but on certain arteries to the city cars should be banned and this should also apply to some strategic streets in the city. Until such action is taken the bus services will continue to deteriorate.

The provincial bus services show a happier situation in that their net profit has been maintained, at least in terms of a State-sponsored body. However, I do not know if the normal commercial implications of "net profit" can be applied in the case of the annual report of CIE. The report states there was a net profit of £632,000 this year as against £637,000 last year and one must compliment the people working in that section of CIE on this result. It is significant that the provincial buses are now one-man operated and one must pay tribute to the men and the unions for the present state of affairs.

However, there are gaps in the provincial bus services in that there are areas not served by CIE. In many of these areas there may be private operators who would be willing and able to fill the gaps. Unfortunately it is impossible for a private operator to obtain a licence from the Department to operate in these areas unless CIE indicate their approval. My experience is that CIE, for reasons of commercial competition, will not be prepared to approve of the issuing of licences to private operators.

If CIE are not prepared to run buses on routes they fear might be uneconomic they should not stand in the way of the private operator who is prepared to speculate in this regard. However, CIE have in mind that the private operator would increase his fleet and might well be in competition with them for charter business. CIE should be able to face this challenge with all their resources and, having regard to the quality of their coaches, I do not think they need fear the private operators.

One would like to see a more liberal policy adopted by CIE in their relations with the private operators because at the moment the relationship is not good, particularly in Dublin. As a result of the activities of CIE in the past there was a positive policy of harassment of private operators adopted by the Carriage Department. I know that at customs posts private operators frequently had the experience of guards from the Carriage Department boarding their buses and taking the names and addresses of the passengers while the CIE buses on similar journeys to Belfast went through without any delay. The private operators concerned were of opinion that the object of the exercise was to make travelling with the private operators less attractive.

This was part of the war by CIE against the private operators. I know that as part of this war by CIE an official of that company visited the United States to canvass business for tours in this country. An agent in the US who had connections with a licensed private operator in this country was told that many of the private operators here were carrying on illegal business, that if the visitors used the vehicles operated by private operators they might find themselves being halted by the gardaí and that the quality of the coaches was poor. All this was quite untrue and it shows a distressing attitude on the part of a State-sponsored body, subsidised by public moneys. It certainly is not to the credit of such an organisation that it should go to those lengths to denigrate a respectable, highly efficient private coach operator in this city.

It would be to the credit of CIE if they displayed more generosity towards the private bus operators. There are many remote areas that have not got a bus service and the provision of such a service would be a definite advantage to the people. In many of these areas there are private operators who would be prepared to operate a service if they could obtain a licence from the Department but a licence will not be granted unless CIE give their approval. Out of fear of competition CIE will not approve of the issue of licences and so the position remains the same.

I hope that the road passenger provincial services run by CIE continue to flourish. I am afraid, however, that because they are profitable there might be a temptation by CIE to milk them for more than they are able to give. Deputy Dr. FitzGerald, in the article I have referred to previously, when discussing the financial implications of the provincial services points out that there is a 20 per cent return on capital. He is disturbed by a recent 17½ per cent fare increase which he thinks was not really necessary because of the healthy financial position of the services. He added that one was forced to the conclusion that this increase was imposed to raise the profit produced by these services to help subsidise the less profitable part of the operation. This is what happened in the Dublin city services and we see the dangerous state they are in now. It would be a pity if the profitable provincial services were allowed to get into the same state, that this goose should be killed for its golden eggs.

Another aspect of ClE's operations to which I should like to refer is a loss account, the canals working account. The loss has gone from £73,000 in 1969 to £95,000 this year. I would urge the Minister to resist any temptation, or any suggestion by CIE, to close the canals and remove this figure from the company's accounts. The Minister is well aware of the need to keep the canal open in relation to boat traffic on the Shannon. I have no doubt he will resist any suggestion that might be made in that regard.

This annual report of CIE is highly decorative and pleasing to the eye but it contains very little information. For instance, in regard to the canals working account, one figure which shows a big increase over last year is under the heading "Maintenance of Buildings" which has risen from £2,200 to £11,800. The maintenance of waterworks has risen from £67,800 to £80,600. Not a word of explanation is given about how these increases arise. It is a ridiculous state of affairs that CIE should come into this House in the person of the Minister to ask for millions of pounds but yet in their annual report they give no explanation whatever about these large increases in expenditure from one year to another. The matter is quite absurd when you stop to consider it for a few moments.

I strongly support Deputy Murphy's plea that a committee of this House should be established to meet these semi-State bodies and find out from them the details which do not appear but which should appear in their annual reports. Glossy photographs of school buses and graphs which tell very little are no substitute for hard facts. This report is notably lacking in facts. One would like to know how these increases in expenses arise because there is the danger that a campaign will be mounted to close the canal on the grounds that it is a loss-maker and an increasing loss-maker.

We have, then, the final deficit of £95,000 for which there is no explanation as to how it arises or whether it could have been avoided. We have no explanation as to Whether there is an application of some particularly skilful piece of accountancy, which can happen, whereby a figure is taken from one section of an account and put into another section where it has a different effect and a different emphasis. An annual report of an operation involving so many millions of pounds should give a lot more detail. The introduction to the report mentions that operating revenue increased by over £3 million compared with the previous year and fares and rates of increases yielded an additional £1.9 million. There were other increases from the expansion of tours, the extension of the free transport scheme for children and the increased subsidy for free travel for old age pensioners.

If we look at the accounts themselves we see that there was not an increase in the road passenger tours, there was actually a decrease, but a different impression is given in the opening statement of the account where it says "Revenue improvements also resulted from the continued expansion of tours operations". Revenue increased but the net profit from the operation decreased and the opening statement is quite misleading when it gives the impression that this was part of the operation which was improving. It would appear in relation to the increase in operating revenue, when one deducts the increase consequent on fares, that the balance is provided by the State in the form of a subsidy for school transport. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister how much the State pays CIE for the school transport service and how much the State pays CIE for carrying old age pensioners. Those two figures will have to be added to the £2.65 million already being paid and the extra £2.98 million being asked for in this Bill. Only then will we have a true picture of the magnitude of the State subsidy.

On page 7 of the annual report it is stated that expenditure on the road passenger tours and private hire included an abnormal charge of £112,000 to write off obsolete coach bodies. With my limited knowledge of accountancy this seems to be a rather extraordinary statement without any more explanation. One would imagine that in the preparation of the accounts each year provision would be made for depreciation and it is surprising that as large a figure as £112,000 has to be taken into the accounts in this one year. It is rather extraordinary that that figure was not within the road passenger tours which did expand in their operations by showing an increased profit.

A further point about the operations of CIE which strikes me as odd is their continued investment in their hotel subsidiary. We are being asked to provide £2.98 million and when you are constantly hearing and reading about millions of pounds a million pounds begins to lose its impact but that £0.98 is almost another £1 million. In spite of the fact that CIE are being subsidised this year to the extent of more than £5 million, plus whatever the school transport scheme and whatever the old age pensioners scheme are costing, they have invested, by way of loan account, £989.000 to their hotel subsidiary. Obviously, they cannot seek repayment of this amount because to do so would mean bankruptcy for their hotel subsidiary. The investing of this loan raises the question as to why Aer Lingus, which also is under the aegis of the Minister's Department, did not invest in the CIE subsidiary at the time when they sought an investment in the hotel industry. In this way, badly needed capital would have been released back to CIE.

Mr. B. Lenihan

They have been very successful. Certainly they experience no difficulty in raising money.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

Mr. Cooney

When the Minister says that OIE have no trouble in raising capital, I take it he means by that that they have no difficulty in raising loans because the amount of loans as shown on the balance sheet is frightening. Of course, no semi-State body have any difficulty in raising loans from the banks because the banks know that the Government are the guarantor for any such loans. In other words, loans to semi-State bodies are gilt-edge investments as far as the banks are concerned. There is no element of risk whatsoever. Therefore, the criteria for determining the success of any semi-State body cannot be merely to say that that body has no difficulty in obtaining loans.

Mr. B. Lenihan

OIE are one of the most commercially successful operations we have.

Mr. Cooney

Their balance sheet would suggest the contrary. My reason for raising this point was that CIE have advanced a loan of almost £1 million to OIE when, in fact, CIE are not in a position to advance a loan to anybody. The capital for that subsidiary should have come from Aer Lingus.

Mr. P. Belton

It is a question of Peter paying Paul.

Dr. O'Donovan

Or of the broke lending to the broke with the help of the broker—the Government.

Mr. Power

Deputy O'Donovan has plenty of advice to offer but in spite of that he has no remedy to offer for his own party. Possibly CIE are in the same position.

Mr. Cooney

In conclusion, I wish to emphasise again that I would not wish to see the railway lines being chopped any further. It is essential that the rail service be retained.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I agree with the Deputy.

Mr. Cooney

However, it is equally essential that the losses be contained. I hope we will have the opportunity of reading the report of these consultants for whom we are paying. Deputy Tully has put the cost of compiling the report at £80,000 but it is my guess that this is a conservative figure. I hope I am wrong when I express doubts as to the efficacy of these people. I have no confidence in them. If CIE, with their sophisticated management structure, have failed to devise remedies for their problems I do not think that industrial consultants will provide the answer either.

I do not know what are the views of the Minister in relation to the Dublin city bus service. Neither do I know what policy the Government are adopting to deal with the traffic situation in Dublin city or whether there is any policy being devised to meet that situation. Until some policy is devised ClE's Dublin bus services will go into the red. From being a very healthy section of the board's operations a few years ago it has rapidly declined and is on the verge of making a loss. However, I hope the temptation to milk the provincial services for all they are worth is resisted.

A hint should be given to CIE to adopt a more liberal attitude in regard to the granting of passenger licences to private operators where a private operator is prepared to provide a service in an area where CIE will not do so.

Of course that has been its greatness over the years. The political spectrum of any party should be a broad, vast spectrum. Any socialist party who depend, as the Labour Party suggest they depend, for their support on one section of our community are making a number of mistakes. First of all, in regard to electoral appeal as a political party, if you appeal significantly to one section of the community, so much for your appeal to the other sections. When somebody mentioned the word "socialism" during Deputy Murphy's speech here last night he said : "I do not want to know about socialism" and it is important to have Deputy Murphy's remarks on the record.

One word that stands out starkly in the Minister's speech is the word "inflation". The reasons for inflation are many. Obviously the people who make projections in relation to CIE finances did not take into account the savage spiral of inflation which now besets our country. It is absolutely of no avail to criticise in this House the executives or administrative staff of CIE who make these projections. This is a situation which they did not know would occur, and this is basically the reason the company is in such a bad way financially.

There are many other reasons, apart from inflation, why CIE are showing a loss. One reason would be that time is money and, when the timetables of the Dublin city and county bus services are disrupted, it is no wonder CIE lose vast sums of money. The buses stagger from stop to stop behind queues of cars used by people who themselves could well use the buses. It is the old story of ten cars in a line with one person in each of these cars. That is really the reason traffic in Dublin is in such a chaotic state. It is no blame to CIE that their timetables, particularly at peak hours, go somewhat awry. It is no criticism of them if one of these gargantuan-type buses finds itself stuck in the middle of a traffic sprawl in the heart of Dublin at peak time. What can the bus company or the bus crew do about it?

Then there is the fact that the streets themselves were never built to take the type of traffic they are asked to take in 1970. Many of the streets in Dublin were built for horse-drawn traffic and some of the streets are extraordinarily narrow. If I may just pay this tribute to the Dublin city and county bus crews : bus drivers have a very difficult job and how they keep their patience when stuck in traffic jams I do not know. A bus conductor's job is equally difficult. I wonder how many miles a bus conductor walks each day in the course of his duty? How many people does he have to placate? A bus conductor is a public relations man as well as a collector of fares which are, to say the least of it, pretty steep. Inflation begets inflation and that is the position we find ourselves in.

In this connection I should like to mention a paragraph from the Minister's speech :

There has been a continuing de dine in the number of passengers using the Dublin city services—over seven million fewer passengers were carried in 1969-70 than in the preceding year; compared with the year 1964-65, the number of passengers carried in 1969-70 was down by almost 28 million.

Agreed.

Mr. Andrews

I am glad to learn that the consultants are the same ones as came into the ESB.

The Dublin Chamber of Commerce have suggested that employers should stagger working hours in an effort to relieve traffic congestion. If one tries to get in from Blackrock between 8.30 a.m. and 9.45 a.m. one finds it is impossible. There is a queue of traffic from Ballsbridge right back to Monkstown. The traffic crawls along at about three miles an hour. I know of some people who have to leave their homes at 7.40 a.m. in order to get to work by nine o'clock. The time they spend is wasted time and it is of great cost to the nation.

Mr. P. Belton

It also causes nervous breakdowns.

Mr. Andrews

Brian Inglis has written a book about bus crews, particularly drivers, and their proneness to nervous breakdowns. But drivers have the worst incidence of nervous breakdowns in the world. I cannot quite remember the name of the book, but it was very interesting reading on nervous disorders and the sections of the community which are afflicted by them. I am not talking about mental disorders now; I am talking about nervous disorders which afflict people as a result of the particular type of work they do. I have often wondered what nervous disorders afflict Deputies.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Andrews

The House has been critical of the whole position in CIE and quite rightly so. CIE could not, of course, provide for something they did not know would arise. The gist of the Minister's speech is summed up in the word "inflation". We are now paying the price of inflation and when I say "we", I mean the taxpayers. This serves as an example of what can happen—a very expensive lesson it is—in a grave inflationary situation. The Minister is compelled to come in and ask for a very considerable sum for the purpose of meeting this inflation. That is another reason some control must be placed on prices. As I have said, I was never satisfied that existing price control legislation was satisfactory. Basically the only people who can control prices are the people themselves provided they report excessive price increases. I think the existing machinery is pretty creaky. As well as that, we seem to be a little indifferent about the way we are treated where prices are concerned. There should be a national campaign.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Parliamentary Secretary is aware that we are getting away from the measure before the House.

Mr. Andrews

I was discussing inflation. I was discussing the position in which CIE finds itself and correlating that with inflation. It is because of inflation that CIE is in its present predicament. I do not say that is the only reason, but it is one reason and an important reason.

There are certain organisational difficulties too. My answer to them would be to split up CIE into independent groups, with a holding company, and let each group do what it can; but they should be independent of one another as far as possible, even though the services are interrelated. I make the suggestion. I do not pretend to be an expert but I think I have something to offer when it comes to reorganisation. This is just an idea. One throws out an idea, it is worked on and decisions are arrived at. It can be rejected or accepted. I throw out this idea to these consultants, if they have not already thought of it. I would ask them to take cognisance of it. I trust these consultants will report as a matter of urgency because the position of CIE is urgent. There is no question about that. The Minister might reveal the cost of bringing in these consultants. That is important too. These are matters on which we should have some reply from the Minister.

Mr. Malone

I join with other speakers in paying tribute to the workers, the bus crews, for the courtesy they extend at all times to other road users. As a road user I cannot praise too highly the manner in which these men treat their fellow road users and the obvious concern they have for the human cargoes they carry on their buses and the property of other people on their trucks. I am sure the record of safe driving in CIE must be one of the highest in the country and I hope that record will be maintained now that traffic on the roads is increasing at such a rapid rate.

I should like now to deal with the reason we are discussing here today a further financial transfusion to CIE to keep them on the road. Many arguments have been advanced. Traffic chaos in the cities has been one of them. I believe it is the people who draw up the timetables and who supply the services from an office desk who are largely at fault because if those who use the roads had an adequate bus service they would not use their own private cars to the extent they do. I have heard numerous complaints from city dwellers about the services. I have been told that people wait half-an-hour or three-quarters of an hour for a bus to take them into town to do a half-hour's shopping or have an evening out. The frustration of waiting for buses drives them back into using their own cars. They arrive in the city to find there is no place to park and they drive around in circles looking for somewhere to park, creating in the process traffic chaos which results in the slowing up of traffic generally.

The services offered to people in the off-peak period are not sufficient in this day and age. Waiting half-an-hour or three—quarters of an hour is not indicative of a proper service, in my opinion. There are numerous factors—weather conditions and so on—which must be taken into consideration. People are not prepared to stand now, in this so-called affluent society, waiting for a bus. If they have a car, they will take it out. From the experience all of us have had of traffic in the city, it is obvious that they would avoid taking out their cars if a reasonable bus service was available.

I would criticise those who draw up the timetable. They send out a bus in the morning to a factory, say, and because it is supposed to be the end of the rush hour, when it has unloaded the passengers, it goes back empty to the depot. Along the way, there are perhaps 30 or 40 people standing at bus stops waiting for a bus but the bus drives by. It is quite in order for the driver and the conductor to do so because their instructions are: "When you get to X, return to the depot." That is false economy and reflects on those who draw up the timetable. It shows how far removed they are from the facts of the situation as it affects the ordinary city dweller waiting on transport.

In this day and age, a service must be sold. If people are offered a service, and if it is made attractive enough to them, they will avail of it. I am not suggesting for one moment that CIE should offer Green Shield Stamps, for example, to everybody who might use their service but they should present it in an attractive form and not just in a multi-coloured brochure once a year and then, further on in the year, have to come to this House to look for more money to keep them going.

Business is to be found but you have to go and look for it. Take some country areas with which I am familiar and where plenty of business can be obtained. If a service were available, it would be very welcome. I have in mind one particular village, Straffan. On one side, it is a mile, or perhaps a little more, from the main road where a bus travels twice or maybe three times a day. If one of those buses went into that village for a few moments, morning and evening, it would find business there. It would find people ready to avail of the service. In this day and age, people are not going to walk or cycle that mile to the road to meet the service and maybe stand for God only knows how long—half an hour or maybe an hour—waiting for the bus to come along, in all types of weather.

I understand that the freight service is losing heavily. Yet, every time we go out we see huge trucks travelling between Dublin and Cork, Cork and Belfast, Dublin and Galway, and so on, cramming our roads and which, in themselves, are a traffic hazard. On narrow roads, you take your life in your hands when you try to pass them. They are carrying goods which normally should be put on the rail. What have CIE done to attract that type of business? What have CIE done to make it worth while for the community involved to avail of their service? To my mind, they have done very little. Instead, we have had a campaign—maybe "campaign " is not the right word—over a number of years to close the railways: they were uneconomic: they were not paying. That was done without any thought whatsoever being given to the alternative—the alternative we now know only too well of a huge volume of heavy traffic on roads which were never designed to carry that type of traffic. Consequently, every local authority at present have a colossal headache about finance and also about getting the personnel and the equipment and the labour to build the roads and to make them safe and suitable for the amount of heavy traffic which they have to carry now and which will in my opinion continue to grow over the years.

CIE sit back and do nothing whatsoever to try to attract this business and to offer a service which I am quite certain people would so readily avail of. Needless to say, I cannot offer the solution to the CIE problem. I am quite sure the Minister would welcome anybody who would come up with the ideal solution. I wish, however, to repeat what I said earlier, that a service must be sold and that, when it is presented to the people, it must be available. To my mind, the service is just not adequately available at the present time. If we continue as we have been carrying on for so many years, I suggest it is no solution to come to this House seeking more money to cover the losses of the service. How many private concerns could stay in business with the haphazard types of services that are offered to the public by CIE? We might all be very happy indeed if our business could be run on a haphazard line in the knowledge that, when things go wrong, somebody will give a financial transfusion to put it right again.

I should be extremely reluctant to vote further money to CIE or to any concern unless I had some guarantee that a service would be made available and that it would be properly presented to the people. If that is done, I am convinced the people will avail of it and that we shall not have a repetition of this exercise.

Mr. Briscoe

It is fair to say that everybody here is concerned about CIE and particularly about the increase in fares which, in my view, hits that section of the community least able to afford them. People in the upper income group have their own cars and are not affected by this, although I know it is the policy of CIE to encourage people to leave their cars outside the city and to travel in the buses.

I am glad to see in the Minister's brief that the Government have agreed to the engaging of consultants to examine the railway services. I hope they will also examine the financial policy of CIE at the present time because it appears to me that their policy is directed to trying to get as much as possible out of profitable areas to compensate for non-profitable areas. We see, for example, in Dublin the profit for last year was £61,000. This means that the citizens of Dublin have been paying a much higher rate than they should for the usage the buses get than their counterparts in other parts of the country. This cancels itself out because I see from the Minister's speech that the passenger figures last year fell by 7 million. In fact, comparing 1964-5 and 1969-70 the number of passengers carried fell by almost 28 million. It is obvious to anybody with an eye in his head, as Deputy Stevie Coughlan would say, that CIE are literally pricing themselves out of business in Dublin.

This is also true in other parts of the country. How do you get over this? We have heard talk from time to time about one-man buses but people are afraid to advocate this because they might be accused of trying to throw people out of work. I believe the time has come to examine this seriously. The trade unions must start putting aside their own interests and, instead of being fearful of losing membership with the advent of one-man buses, they should co-operate in getting alternative employment for the bus conductors who might be disemployed. Some of them could be trained as bus drivers and there are also other branches of CIE in which they could be absorbed. The working people whom the trade unions always purport to protect are the people who are hurt most by this policy of not allowing the one-man buses to be implemented. Fares are much higher as a result of this policy. The working people who use those buses are the people who have to pay the increased fares. We all have to pay something towards this £3 million subsidy to CIE. We have to pay increased income tax to meet this. The poorer section of the community have, therefore, to pay twice for this increased subsidy.

I believe I am the only person who complains about the width of the buses in Dublin. If I am not careful I will become known as a crank with regard to this. The buses which CIE are using at the moment are too wide and they are causing congestion. CIE answered this once before when I brought this charge up in Dublin Corporation and they said they were concerned with the comfort of their passengers. I believe this could best be served by their not having to wait so long in bad weather for a bus to come along. If they then got on a bus which was somewhat narrower they would be no less comfortable. My car is much narrower in width than a bus but it is quite comfortable to sit in. You do not have to put harder seats in narrower buses so I cannot see that this is a valid argument. If CIE went in for smaller, more mobile type buses, it would speed up traffic enormously.

Deputy Malone referred to buses being suddenly taken off. Two or three of them arrive together at a certain point and an inspector turns them back even though people have been waiting some time for a bus. Those people see several buses coming along but then find they are turned back. This is very annoying to members of the public. I am sure this is the most frequent complaint which CIE get.

We can overdo the business of having to operate on a profit. I often wonder if our bus services should not be run as a social service where there has to be give and take. I will give an example where CIE lost business which they need not have lost. Some years ago a factory in Kilcock, County Kildare, used CIE to transport their goods to the docks. The price quoted by CIE was 10s a ton higher than any private haulier. The only problem was there was no private haulier licensed to carry the freight. The result was that, when negotiations were entered into with CIE and complaints made that they were charging too much, knowing they had the monopoly they pared only a little off the original quotation. However, this company, conscious they were paying at least 10s a ton more than they should be paying, with a bill with CIE running in the region of about £6,000 a year, decided it would be more profitable to buy their own transport. CIE got nothing in this case. This is what I mean by trying to make more profitable sections pay for the less profitable sections. You cannot do this because you lose everything.

I am glad the railway system is to be examined although I think one of the most urgent matters is the re-laying of the Harcourt Street line. This is an urgent necessity and I think too much time has been lost here already. Traffic has virtually come to a standstill on the roads leading into Dublin in that direction. There is land available for building but no more will be allowed because the roads will not take any more traffic. If we had the Harcourt Street-Bray line reintroduced it would go a long way towards easing the traffic problem in that area. CIE should also keep an eye to the future in other cities like Cork, Limerick and Galway to see whether suburban services which they might contemplate cutting down on because they are not showing a profit might not within the next ten or 15 years be very much needed like the Harcourt Street-Bray line.

The Minister stated in his speech that, although the profit in 1969-70 was £61,000, there would be a loss of £280,000 in the current financial year on the Dublin services. Will that be so despite this extra grant? Perhaps the Minister would say in replying if they will have this loss despite the extra £2½ million that we are now voting.

I should like to pay tribute to the welfare section of CIE. Recently, I had cause to contact them and found that they had a genuine social conscience towards the employees. They were kind and sympathetic in their advice to a particular employee and I was very impressed because we frequently hear that semi-State companies do not take all the interest they might in their workers. I hope they will continue to show the humanity they demonstrated in the case I have in mind.

When this committee is set up to examine the operations of CIE I hope they will bear in mind that they are first of all a service to the people. Year after year we have advocated in this House a circular bus service because, as Deputy Dowling has said, at present in order to get out of town you have to go into town. We need a circular service badly. I also have a note of a recent complaint I had about the Rathfarnham area of county Dublin, that there was too much delay in the extension of bus services to newly built-up areas after the people have moved in. I hope that comment will be noted.

I know CIE are not having an easy time and I hope the comments I have made will be taken, as they are meant, in a constructive spirit. I also hope the trade unions will adopt a realistic stand in trying to help CIE to keep fares down, not by lowering wages but by co-operating in the training and retraining of bus conductors for other branches of the service. Let us gradually introduce one-man buses which could play a large part in keeping down rising costs for the people who most use the buses, the working people.

Mr. Sherwin

I support the Bill but I want in particular to refer to the Minister's statement regarding the financial position that, even with the increase in fares and rates which will bring in £3.5 million in the current financial year and £6.6 million in 1971-72, ClE's estimated net deficit in the 1970-71 and 1971-72 periods will amount to £5.6 million and £4.7 million respectively. These figures clearly show that no matter how CIE pressure the public into paying for the services provided unless a miracle happens CIE cannot pay their way. We must face that fact and therefore I see no justification for opposing a measure allowing more money to be given to CIE to balance their books. This does not say that none of us should criticise generally the conduct of affairs of CIE because the public are masters and they are not too happy with recent developments in CIE.

In regard to increased fares on Dublin city services the Minister tells us that over seven million fewer passengers were carried on the Dublin services in 1969-70 than in the previous year. He goes on to given other statistics of the drop in passenger traffic. This does not necessarily mean that because the increased fares are so excessive the number of people using buses has fallen. I rather think that the prosperity of the people in working-class areas, such as that which I represent, has resulted in greater use of cars and alternative transport. I do not think all of the reduction in the number of bus passenger is due to increases in fares but, in order to create an atmosphere in which the public generally accept fare increases for legitimate reasons, CIE must indicate their willingness to co-operate with demands for improvements made by the public. I wish to pay tribute to community and residents' associations who constantly meet local district managers and discuss with them problems of their areas. It is hoped the district managers will see that the demands for improved services are met.

One of the problems facing Dublin city bus services is the stipulation of running times for buses. The running time has been so finely adjusted that it puts great pressure on drivers and conductors trying to comply with it. Sometimes, because of traffic congestion, it is physically impossible to keep to the time-table but that does not seem to be an acceptable excuse to their superiors and frequently inspectors turn buses back in order to recover time. I think it is obvious with present-day traffic problems that CIE must extend the running time of buses so that pressure on bus drivers to comply with the printed time-table will be reduced and so that drivers will not have to pass people on the streets.

Deputy Cooney referred to the running time and to the congestion in the city. I should like to refer to freight and the problem of bringing large vehicles into the centre of the city. The Minister referred to the losses on the railways. On the Dublin south side we have a rail system which could and should be looked on as a likely area for the development of new rail services. The industrial estates on the south side are expanding. A number of the factories on the industrial estates export their produce. In one instance they are proposing to provide 18 or 20 trucks in the coming year. We know that these trucks have to leave the factory with the produce and travel into town to put it on the ships and the boats.

With the rail service so convenient to those industrial estates, CIE must see their way to spending some money on providing loading platforms at certain points. In time, they would recoup the initial expenditure involved. I went on a deputation to the Minister and I made the point that the Ballyfermot, Inchicore and Bluebell areas would be suitable for this development. The Minister wrote and informed me that because the level of the tracks was low in relation to the surrounding land this was not feasible, but on that side of the city there is plenty of land that could be bought and the approaches to the rail system could be staggered and then the rail system could be utilised.

Coupled with the problem of avoiding the necessity for some of the freight trucks coming into the city centre— and they would not need to come in if CIE provided an efficient alternative to their purchasing their own trucks— I see no reason why we could not have the same rail facilities used for passenger traffic from the Drimnagh, Crumlin, Ballyfermot and Bluebell areas and other new estates which it is proposed to build in the south side. This passenger traffic could avail of the rail facilities. I do not think this should be discounted as a feasible proposition because the rail is lower than the surrounding ground. Perhaps the Minister would suggest this to the consultants who are to be employed to try to improve the position in regard to rail traffic.

On the nasty question of the recent awarding of the contract for coaches to a firm across the water, ClE's treatment of their skilled workers and the wages and rates which they are paying them do not indicate to me that they are "with" the times. Some years ago—perhaps up to 20 years ago—CIE were one of the very few employers which could give steady and permanent employment. Others were the Office of Public Works and the Civil Service and then of course there were the different professions. In those days there were very few employments which could be termed permanent. The alternatives in industry were not as developed as they are now. Therefore, very skilled workers were employed in CIE. Rates of wages were much lower then than they are now.

Now that industry can offer permanent alternative employment to skilled workers, they have stolen the cream of the employees from CIE and they are now employed in factories. CIE have not faced up to this development. They have not seen the light. In order to maintain a high standard of tradesman and skilled worker they must give rates of pay which will encourage them to work for CIE. The ordinary worker is now well prepared to take the risk of being employed in a private firm as distinct from steady permanent work in a State-sponsored body. If he is to be attracted back to CIE he must get a more realistic rate of pay and the opportunity of overtime, and so on. This is a deficiency in CIE which has led to the situation that the Inchicore works were not in a position lo undertake the contracts for these coaches.

Another thing that is becoming evident in CIE in their permanent way and in other sections is that subcontracting is being encouraged. Previously they could do their own contracting work with their own permanent staff. To me this does not necessarily mean that CIE are anxious to get the most competitive price for the job. It indicates to me that they have lost tradesmen and skilled workers and therefore they cannot carry out the work themselves, and they think that the only thing to do is to subcontract it to outside contractors.

I should like to come back to the bus services and the increases in fares. The increased fares would be reasonably acceptable if CIE in turn played fair with the public. I would suggest that if the service is not as regular as we should all like it to be, or as any member of CIE would like it to be, bus shelters and other comforts should be provided in order that the would-be passenger would not be inconvenienced as he or she is at the moment in inclement weather. I understand that an advertising agency has undertaken to provide these shelters and maintain them at sites which are accepted by CIE as being suitable. There should be no limit to the number of bus shelters provided. There are certain stops which are more open than others and which have a heavy loading schedule. They should be provided with shelters first. The more comfort CIE can offer to the public, if they are to be inconvenienced at all, the more acceptable will any increased fares be to the public. A better service is by far the best incentive to encourage people to accept any increase.

It has been indicated to me that a problem which CIE face in the Dublin area is that of passengers getting away with half fare or no fare at all. With so many passengers coming on and off buses, conductors are not in a position effectively to recheck fares. I know that the bringing on of extra inspectors would realise a considerable amount of money but then the inspectors would have to be paid and perhaps the employment of extra inspectors would cost more than the amount lost at present.

Deputy Briscoe mentioned the introduction of the one-man bus service. I believe this must be on, and must be implemented very shortly. I have no doubt that CIE will retrain conductors and other employees to drive or to be part of the establishment in some way. I do not foresee very much, if any, redundancy arising from the introduction of one-man buses. One of the most awkward points to overcome in relation to this idea is that the drivers will have so much to do. As well as driving the bus he will have to deal with fares. I should like to emphasise the need for weekly tickets. Obviously reduced fares would ensue from these weekly tickets. I gather it is envisaged that when the one-man bus service is introduced weekly tickets will become readily available in supermarkets and stores of all descriptions. They will not be weekly tickets to a certain area but books of 1s tickets or 2s tickets and so on. Before the one-man bus is introduced these books of weekly tickets shall be brought in if possible. This might offset some of the antagonism to the recent increases in fares.

The size of buses has been mentioned. I have no crib about but indeed admiration for the Atlantean buses. Every area should have the services of the Atlantean buses. I know it is not possible to scrap all the existing buses and supplant them overnight but I cannot see why any area, working-class or otherwise, should be denied the facility and comfort of these new buses. Some of the Atlantean buses should be in service on all routes.

I suggest that a green indicator light should be obligatory on the back of all large vehicles—trucks or buses— to indicate to traffic at the rear that it is safe to overtake. Where roads are narrow it is not possible for people driving behind these large vehicles to see ahead. This green light is used fairly extensively on the Continent. Perhaps this is not a problem of the Minister for Transport and Power, it may come within the realm of Local Government. I suggest it would be a help.

Employees of State-sponsored bodies because they are not working for a private individual or sharing in the profits do not feel a part of the concern. This is a problem in all State-sponsored bodies and in the Civil Service, I suppose, to a lesser extent. In order to curb this attitude, CIE should turn over a new leaf and give the impression that they mean business, that they are as professional as a private transport company. This message should go out to all State sponsored bodies. They must be as competitive and as professional as any competitor. If it were seen that the attraction of business to CIE was the main concern of the hierarchy of CIE then the bus conductor, the bus driver, the person who cleans the buses, would feel part of a dynamic firm and enthusiastic about getting a better job done and would not have this attitude that it is just a permanent job for him and that he is not too worried if he leaves people behind at bus stops or if he does not get there on time. This attitude must be removed from the workers in CIE.

This increase in the subvention to CIE guarantees the employment, and perhaps increased employment, of workers in particular in the Dublin city services. The Minister said that the Bill must be enacted before the Christmas recess or otherwise CIE could run short of cash before the end of January. If this running short of cash would in any way endanger the livelihood of any worker on the Dublin city services or on any other services of CIE I would not be very happy about blocking the passing of this Bill. I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. Bruton

In relation to this Bill which involves an extension of the subsidy to CIE and, in particular, to the railway services, I support fully the idea that the railways should be subsidised. They are a social as well as an economic service and, as has been pointed out in the debate, they keep many vehicles off the roads by providing alternative transport. The carriage of heavy goods by railways obviates the need for large trucks passing through towns and this leads to an abatement of the noise problem. The operation of the railways also helps to reduce accidents on the roads. It is estimated that in 1970 some 400 people will die on our roads; to my knowledge, there have not been any deaths on the railways.

I shall deal with the problem of air pollution later but I would point out that the operation of the railways might well lead to a decrease of pollution. I realise that the engine of the train can cause some pollution but when one considers the number of trucks that would be required to transport the heavy loads carried by the trains one recognises the fact that there can be no comparison in the degree of pollution caused by both modes of transport.

Therefore, the railways are beneficial for the following reasons: they help to reduce accidents on the road; the volume of noise is reduced and there is a reduction of air pollution. In addition, trains can travel faster and there is not the problem that people travelling in private cars encounter of sitting for long periods in traffic jams. This latter problem raises allied questions in relation to the nervous disorders of people. Deputy Andrews, quite validly, referred to this point also. It is quite true that people suffer to some degree when they have to wait for very long periods in traffic jams. Travel by train is much more relaxing and is therefore more beneficial.

Mr. Tully

Judging by some of the traffic jams one sees in Dublin, it may be that people are able to read their newspapers in their cars.

Mr. Bruton

That may well be, but they could certainly read them in greater safety and comfort in trains. None of the points I have mentioned can be taken into account in the profit and loss sheet of CIE. They are not measurable in economic terms and CIE do not receive any revenue for the benefits that are given in these matters. The railways must be considered a social service and on that basis we should question whether the system is adequate at the moment. Are there lines that could be reopened or extra services that could be provided? Even if these measures do not make a profit initially in commercial terms they might be worthwhile from the social point of view and I hope to examine this point in greater detail.

If we give a subsidy on a social basis to the railways, in the interests of efficiency it should not be given as a bloc grant. The money should be given under specific heads. Part should be given towards relief of road congestion; part towards reducing the cost of freight in remote areas, such as the west of Ireland, in order to encourage industrialisation; and a specific figure should also be set aside for the other matters I have mentioned. If this is done people will work towards a target and they will know how much money can be spent on each project. In addition, this House will know precisely for what purpose it is voting the money and will be able to evaluate the different uses to which the money is being put. The House will be able to decide whether more or less should be given to CIE for certain projects.

Under the present system a bloc grant is given and money can be spent in any way. I do not know how the accounting system of CIE operates but I think the money could be spent by them in any way they wished. This does not lead to efficiency and gives too much independence to the management of CIE; they can act with too much freedom, not under the specific direction of this House. This is undesirable. It leads to inefficiency because, if money is given without a specific purpose being set, people can hide much inefficiency and misspending. I am not saying this is happening in this case. I do not know, because in regard to CIE the information is not available. However, the possibility of misspending exists under the present system. If we give a differentiated grant for different aspects of ClE's operations, particularly in relation to the social aspect where a subsidy is involved to offset commercial losses, this would lead to greater efficiency, as well as greater participation by this House in the running of our transport system.

A point was raised by Deputy Andrews with which I concur, namely, the question of splitting up the transport system into its component parts for administrative purposes. In other words, there would be one company for buses, one company for road haulage services, one company for trains and so on, with a general overall authority. This system is in operation in Northern Ireland and, as far as I know, each of the services there is making a profit. I do not know whether this is attributable to the system they have adopted, but this is quite likely. Where one organisation deals with all aspects of transport there is the danger that inefficiency may be hidden within that organisational structure. There may be men who are not carrying out their jobs efficiently and they are carried within this great, amorphous mass; any lack of efficiency is more obvious in the smaller organisation.

Deputy O'Donnell had a magazine with him recently which I think was entitled Nuacht—the magazine of Ireland's largest commercial undertaking. I think the wording tells us something. The organisation is probably too large to be efficient. The point I am making is that if we could split the company up into their component parts there would be a greater possibility of the company being efficient. I am not saying that we should have separate companies with an overall authority rather than one company; but it is unlikely—I will not go any further than that—that it would be as efficient in its present form as if it was pared down and worked on a smaller basis.

Another point which I should like to mention is that it became evident during the debate that the firm of management consultants being employed were the firm of McKinsey. It also emerged that the same firm were employed to do work for the ESB and from my own knowledge I know that McKinseys are also doing a job for the Department of Health in regard to the distribution of various services within the health service. I should like to know how many other consultancy jobs McKinseys are doing for the State. These are only three which I know about without having gone into the matter fully. Are we relying too much on the one firm, because obviously one firm will have a particular approach to management which other firms might not have? If we could spread it around a bit we would be likely to have a greater diversity of approach. It would be very bad if the whole system of management were to be based on the approach of McKinsey who obviously would have a distinctive approach of their own. If we could employ other consultancy firms as well in other areas— I am not saying we should scrap McKinseys because obviously they have proved to be effective or they would not be employed—it might be a good thing but it would not be a good thing if we were employing them almost to the exclusion of others. This, however, may not be the case. I may table a question to the Taoiseach some time to ascertain what other firms have been employed.

Returning to the railways, I mentioned the question of commuters trying to get into Dublin city to work. It is a fact that Dublin is expanding and will continue to expand. Despite all the prating we have had about regionalisation, I do not think regionalisation will prevent this. Indeed, the Government's failure to arrive at a decision in regard to the Buchanan Report is hardly helping the situation, but that is another matter.

The point is that Dublin is expanding and We will have traffic congestion on all roads leading into Dublin. The problem could be greatly alleviated if greater emphasis were put on the use of rail transport rather than on motor vehicle transport, either buses or motor cars, although buses are better than individual motor cars. You will carry more people on one train than you would on a bus and very many more than you would in a car, so obviously the congestion problem would be less if more people travelled by train. This possibly is a social advantage which is not measurable in commercial terms.

Certain aspects of ClE's policy could be improved in relation to this matter and they could relieve congestion by putting greater emphasis on rail transport for commuters. There is a very strong case to be made on social if not on economic grounds for reopening the Dublin-Bray railway line. Apart from that there are a number of other points I should like to mention. We have at present an existing permanent way for the railway from Dublin to the west, through Clonsilla, Maynooth, Kilcuck, Enfield, Hill of Down and Killucan. CIE have a surplus of rolling stock which you can see lying in the sidings. No trains come into Dublin from the west on that line before 10 a.m. so the line is idle for hours before that. At the same time you have a large number of people from Maynootn, Clonsilla, Dunboyne, Kilcock and Enfield, out as far as the borders of County Meath, and possibly Westmeath, driving to Dublin and causing traffic jams on the road to the west and to some extent on the road through Dunboyne. If CIE were to provide a commuter service from Kinnegad to Dublin these people would be taken off the roads to a certain extent. By a saving in time you would make it feasible for people in such places as the Hill of Down and Moyvalley to work in Dublin because the train would not take as long as a car to complete the journey. Why have CIE not considered this? Why have they not provided such a commuter service? It would have great social advantages; it would improve the employment position in the western part of my constituency because people would be able to travel to work more easily in Dublin than at present.

One reason people in these areas cannot go to work in Dublin is because of the time factor —the time spent on the road. If a rail service could be provided they would be able to go to work in Dublin, whereas at present they have to find employment locally which is possibly not as lucrative as the employment they would get in Dublin. This, as I said, is something which cannot be measured on ClE's balance sheet. It is not a commercially measurable factor, but it is important in social terms.

The former policy of CIE of closing down branch railway lines may well prove to have been unwise. One of the bad decisions which they made was to close the Kingscourt line from Navan through Dunboyne to Clonsilla. That line should be reopened as far as Dunboyne because anybody who knows anything about the development around Dunboyne knows that it will become a very highly populated area Within the next ten years. We have a school there which in terms of the Department of Education's standards is too small although at present it is only half full. It is too small because more and more people will be coming to live in Dunboyne. Dunboyne will become something like Clondalkin; it is going to mushroom. What will the road between Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart and Dunboyne be like then? That road is already extremely twisty and narrow, and what will it be like when you will have all these people driving into Dublin? It is one of the worst roads in Ireland catering for such a volume of traffic as already exists. Because the line from Clonsilla to Dunboyne was closed down the people have to travel by road. As I said, CIE should consider reopening this line, as far as Dunboyne anyway, to ensure that proper transport will be available for people who will be coming to live in Dunboyne in the next five or ten years. Any demographic forecast would tell you that.

I hope that CIE will consider this proposal and reopen that line so that transport will be provided for those people. This ties in with the line at Clonsilla and with the line I mentioned a few moments ago, the old west line. If a commuter service were made available on that line, it would be possible to provide a branch commuter service to Dunboyne from Clonsilla. The question of extending that line all the way to Navan might be considered also. There may be a real need for this in the future. That stretch of line between Clonsilla and Navan is closed but the line remains open between Navan and Kingscourt.

I hope sincerely that CIE are not contemplating the closing down of the stretch of line between Navan and Kingscourt. If they should do so, gypsum from the mines at Kingscourt Would be transported along the roads in heavy trucks so that there would be pollution as well as traffic chaos. Another ancillary benefit of keeping that line open is that it runs by the site of the new mining developments being carried out by the Tara Development Company at Navan so that minerals from those mines can be carried also by rail. When that mining company are in operation it will be necessary that they have a rail service for the transportation of their products whether it be to Drogheda or to Dublin; otherwise heavy trucks would be used and, consequently, there would be the problem of trucks passing through the town of Navan at all times of the night thereby keeping people awake. Trains, because they do not pass through the centre of a town and because they go less frequently as they carry more on each load, do not create this problem.

Incidentally, I understand that one of the big problems in the town of Drogheda at the moment is this question of noise, most of which is created by heavy trucks travelling on the Belfast road. In considering the question of the railway services, we must keep this noise factor in mind.

Air pollution is a matter I should like to discuss in some detail. The volume of air pollution is less in the case of rail traffic than it is in the case of any form of road traffic. This is another point which we must bear in mind. Apart from that, CIE should be the pioneer in the fight against pollution by ensuring that anti-pollution equipment is fitted to their vehicles. The major sources of air pollution arising from motor vehicles are boron and its compounds, carbon monoxide, hydro carbons——

Another point I should like to make is in relation to the school bus service. These school buses, which are very big and expensive vehicles, are used in the morning to carry children to school and again in the evening to carry them back from school but are not used at any other time at all. These buses which are the property of CIE are lying idle for long periods. There is a lack of public transport in some of the areas where these school buses are operating, and I wonder would there be any possibility of providing some sort of service in the evening or some other time when the buses would not be operating on school work to carry local residents for shopping or some other business. I understand that the difficulty at the moment in relation to this is that the buses are not insured for carrying the general public, but that is not an insurmountable difficulty. I would be interested to know if CIE would consider utilising these buses, because they are available and therefore the cost involved would not be very great.

I am sorry the Minister is not here because there is another matter to which I want to draw his personal attention. I hope my remarks will be conveyed to him. This is the case of a man, whose name I shall not mention in the House but which I will supply to the Minister in due course, who was employed by CIE initially on the school transport service. CIE decided to transfer the school transport service in the area to an independent transport contractor, which is not in itself a bad thing and I am not opposed to it. This employee was asked to transfer his employment from CIE direct to this contractor, and when he was leaving CIE he was given a verbal guarantee, which most people realise is not worth a lot, that he would have security in his job. He went in with the private contractor and he has since lost his job because this contractor started losing money and began to lay off people. He is now redundant and has been trying to get some compensation from CIE but apparently CIE are prepared to do nothing for him. I know, having met this man, that he is suffering hardship physically and mentally, and I sincerely hope that when I mention this case in greater detail to the Minister something will be done by CIE to compensate him.

Mr. Geoghegan

There is probably no job for him there, if he was the driver of a school bus.

Mr. Bruton

He would have had a job in CIE, but it was at ClE's suggestion that he transferred to a private concern with the verbal assurance that his job would be secure. Subsequently his job was not secure. I do not want to draw any general inference from this isolated case, but it is something the Minister should take up personally, and that is why I mention it to the House now.

Major de Valera

It is rather depressing that we have the same thing recurring over the last 50 years in regard to our public transport business. It is the old story : the public transport system is in trouble; more money has to be found; previous estimates did not work out; unforeseen circumstances. The whole thing is such a pattern that one could almost forgive a cynic for saying: " There it is again and it is no use talking about it." However, I think there is a point in discussing it. It is time we appreciated the realities in a situation like this. I have heard people here and outside blaming the management of CIE, blaming all sorts of things, for a situation which is really part of the surrounding circumstances which, whether we wish it or not, are likely to control it.

In the case of a transport organisation there are two separate problems, very fundamental and very intractable. The first problem is the use of the transport system we have. Is anyone prepared to ask what transport system we really want? The second is the cost involved. What are we willing to pay for it?

With regard to the first question the tendency has been to nationalise our transport system. Very cogent cases were made for lumping all forms of transport together, particularly by a previous Minister for Industry and Commerce. One then has to ask whether it would have been better to segregate the activities of CIE into workable units. This point was made by Deputy Bruton in another way and although I do not subscribe completely to his point of view I wonder whether a little rethinking about the organisation of CIE as a global body might not be a good idea.

There are definite areas of activity which might possibly be partitioned. There is the Dublin city bus service, the Cork city bus service and similar services in places like Limerick and Galway. The question of whether the regional or local transport system would not better serve the citizens of those cities might be looked at again. I am not advancing a case for doing so and I do not want to be taken as advancing one, but I think the question might well be looked into. One still hears the argument that Dublin city bus services were economic at one time but, because they were lumped in with other services which they did not succeed in keeping afloat, their own efficiency deteriorated.

There are the main line services to Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and places like that and it was thought possible that passenger traffic would increase on those main lines. For instance, the main line to the west, which Deputy Bruton was talking about—I am a little disturbed to hear it is falling off—so improved and was so satisfactory that people were availing of this service to places like Cork and Galway instead of travelling by car. It is only fair to acknowledge and compliment those responsible in Córas lompair Eireann for the efforts they made in this direction. This is something which can be developed because of congestion on the roads. Anyone who wants to go to Cork and back in a day would be well advised to travel by train instead of by road. The same would apply to Galway. They would be travelling in comfort, safety and speed.

There is now the development of specialised and localised goods traffic. I am referring to development in oil and mineral traffic. This is also related to the railways. There is then the whole freight service and the question of whether the railways alone or the railways plus a road freight transport service would be better.

With regard to the question of Dublin suburban traffic I remember when I was very new to this House representing Dublin North-West—it is not my constituency now—making the case that the looplines of the old Great Southern and Western and Midland Great Western Railways could be developed along the lines of the Westland Row and Harcourt Street lines. A commuter service would have been a convenience to the people in West Cabra and areas like that. The idea was not even seriously considered. The answer given was "Cost". It was assumed the thing would be inefficient and costly and that was the end of the matter. I have seen trains travelling to Dún Laoghaire at certain times of the day and they were pretty full.

We also have the sorry history of the Harcourt Street line. One can understand why the decision was made at the time but one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of public administration in this country was the indecent haste, once the line was closed, with which the rails were taken up so that the matter could not be reconsidered. That will remain a memorial to the Minister and the administrators of the company for all time. It is too late now to try to get it back but at the time we should have been prepared to consider the pros and cons of the situation, but the method and the procedures adopted then displayed a complete lack of appreciation of the fact that public representatives, whether in the highest or the lowest offices in Government or a back bencher like myself, and public officials are the servants and not the masters of the community.

To come back to the trend of my argument, I merely pose the question as to whether we should now consider regional transport organisations and whether in the long run this might not be the most economic evolution. I want to emphasise and I want it strictly understood—I am not foolish enough, I hope, to make an offhand argument for anything in a matter which demands detailed study, a study I have not done —that I am merely asking a question as to whether this might not be a solution at this point of time. Might it not be possible, for example, to have a regional transport system for Dublin? I am talking now of the passenger end of it. The losses might be less. The system might even be profitable if properly managed.

In those areas, then, in which losses are inevitable, in the case of the railway, for instance, the economic problems are so formidable that it seems to me subsidisation is necessary. Again, it might be more economic to limit the area. Even if a big subsidy were required in one particular area, on balance, with efficient organisation in other areas, might the result not be that the overall cost to the State and to the community would be less? I merely pose this as a question. The answer may be overwhelmingly one way or the other, or as is usual in such matters, it may be marginal. So much for that.

It has to be said about the railway end that it was with railways in mind that the present structure was built up. As far back as when the then Deputy Lemass was Minister for Industry and Commerce there was this approach to a national transport system. You had the same approach in the days of the first Coalition and again later when Mr. Lemass was once more Minister for Industry and Commerce. The origins of the present structure are based on this. It is all there on the record to be studied. Here we are today, at the end of it all, and they still want more money. It is the same old kettle of fish. Has the trial not been sufficiently long? None of the prophecies has been fulfilled. The policy has proved to be so much moonshine. Does the whole thing now need radical re-thinking? Will it be worth the trouble of looking at it again?

It must be remembered that there is another side to the problem. There is a traditional transport system. There is need for a public transport system. People, of course, want all sorts of things and there is the question of paying for those things. There is, too, the question of employment in such an organisation and the cost of that employment. I am glad Deputy Tully has come into the House.

Mr. Tully

He is nearly always in the House.

Major de Valera

I know that. I did not mean it the way the Deputy thinks. I am sorry. One has to go out for a moment. The Deputy is a very good attender. There are few better. I want to put that on the record. I apologise if the Deputy thought I was giving it a different complexion. What I was about to say is that Deputy Tully is one of the Deputies with whom I should like to talk on a matter like this and I am glad he is here because I want quite seriously to touch on the question of the cost of employment. When criticising employment or criticising the money spent on employment one does not want to create the impression that the social side of the problem is being forgotten. Indeed there are two social sides to this problem which should not be forgotten. One is the public amenity aspect and the other is the employment given. These are basic right through.

We would not be considering this matter at all if we were considering it merely on the basis of business efficiency. The problem would have solved itself long ago if that were the criteria. We are involved here with the social requirements of the community and with the employment provided. In the days when it was difficult to find industries with a large employment content—it was all to easy to attract industry with a small employment content—public transport provided employment for a great many and the provision and maintenance of employment was a major factor. From that point of view no apology has to be made for the fact that in approaching this problem in the past the provision and maintenance of employment was a major factor. Having said that, I am compelled to point out that we are now subsidising CIE more and more. Let us realise what we are doing. We are subsidising employment. I invite Deputy Tully to correct me if I appear to state the case wrongly.

Mr. Tully

The Deputy is on the right lines. If they are not employed by CIE and if they have to sign on at the labour exchanges that will almost certainly cost the State as much as the subsidy.

Major de Valera

That is the point. I will not try to break down the figures but a great deal of this subsidy is required to maintain the wage structure, and so on, in CIE pari passu with the rest of the community. I do not object to that, but that leads me to this point : it is time we all realised what is involved in what the Minister called "inflation". Inflation has been given here as an excuse, so to speak, for a great many things. I do not think it is quite as simple as that, but I cannot go into it on this measure. The effect of the increase in salaries and wages is that this money must now be provided by this House, which means that everybody in the community is paying. That is just one isolated example. I wish we could get people to understand—it does not matter whether they are very well off or very poor—that things have to be paid for and, although inflationary values may appear to increase pay packets, in the last analysis we all pay.

This money that will be paid to subsidise CIE in this regard will be collected back from these very same CIE men themselves. I do not want to single them out, as such. It is merely that this is the opportunity for making this remark. The sad part about this kind of subsidy is that this will all be taken back, with net losses of efficiency, costs, and so on, in the process. With the rest of the community, they will pay this back in terms of high prices, taxation, and there will be a very big debit. CIE, on this basis, would not be paying tax. Any attempt to collect tax from companies with employment will have its own repercussion. No matter what devices we use, no matter what Bills of this nature, or any of these things, are brought before the House, the hard fact remains that it is the people and all of us who pay all the same. I do not think Deputy Tully will object to that remark. I leave that as a preliminary to our discussions perhaps on another measure that will come.

When we are asking to have various things re-examined and making criticism about what CIE should and should not do, and so on, let us realise that there is one thing the board and the management of CIE cannot do and that is to work miracles. A miracle would be needed to escape the simple law that I have adverted to. I feel a little impatient sometimes when I hear vague suggestions that the fault is through the personal inefficiency of anyone—it is usually not stated who. One hears : "Oh people"—whether in the public service or in anyone else's service. One hears various suggestions that it is through the inefficiency of people that things are not as well as they should be.

Deputy Bruton suggested that there might be somebody somewhere who was not as efficient as he ought to be. He was making it as a case that the organisation was too big. I do not think that gets anyone very far. My own experience is that people in that category—in the middle management category and the executives generally —are the most hard-working and the most worrying members of the whole community in every organisation. It seems to have become popular to say things about them. By and large, I think it is a very unjustified thing to say. The trouble is not attributable to any deficiencies of that nature. The trouble is in the problem. People can only do their best, particularly people making decisions. We may disagree with the decision. Personally, I think some decisions have been very short-sighted but I have not the responsibility for doing it. We do not help if we start that kind of criticism. Criticise a fact all right and express your opinion; I have no objection to that. But these vague and general charges of inefficiency or anything else are, I think, unworthy and indeed harmful in a debate of this nature. I am saying that in the full realisation that I have criticised in regard to one matter in this debate today but in doing so I had something specific to go on and I am prepared to take the answer.

I do not know how one is going to avoid this subsidy. It does show you that all the bright dreaming we cherished on so many occasions in this House before, and the dreams, went down in disaster and woe. I cannot be enthusiastic about anything anybody tells me about the future—management consultants or anything else. The only thing I want to say is that every effort will still have to be made to limit this expenditure because, in the next budget and thereafter, and in various indirect ways, too, we shall have to pay for it.

On the other side, how is CIE going in general terms to try to meet these problems because, in general terms, it has the same type of problem that practically all commercial undertakings in this country have at the moment. CIE—and it is not alone in any public or private undertaking in this country—has to face what the Minister has called inflation. To put it in plain language, if it employs people, it has to pay much more for employing them. If it is buying materials, it has to pay more for these materials, particularly from abroad. Remember that this problem is not merely local. If it were, it would be more tractable. This is a problem in the western world today. It is a problem in our immediate environment. If you are buying raw materials for production or installations, the prices have gone up and your wages have gone up and salaries have gone up. It is becoming very difficult to make a profit. Remember, for businesses that have not the facility CIE has to come in here and get the money, there will be only one answer and that will be an answer in employment, too, That money has to be found.

Now, a very serious thing has been happening and it is this. Up to now, up to this last wage round, the 12th round, by and large, businesses and commercial undertakings were able to recover their additional costs by increasing their revenues which, in plain language, simply means that they put up their prices. It is as simple as this. But, up to now because these costs— of wages, first; wages started it—shoved up the cost of raw materials and the cost of wages and raw materials together put up the cost of every industry that had any content of either or both, they in turn put up their prices. So here you have increased personnel costs, increased other costs and increased costs of services including the service provided by the State; the State puts up its services. Up to this, there was cover. Now, the disturbing thing about this year 1970 is that the indications are that, in a very large number of businesses, the point of diminishing return has been reached and even if people attempt to put up their prices or attempt to recoup increased costs in that way they are not getting a return.

There is even an indication of the same type of thing happening here in CIE. I notice that the reduction in passenger traffic is being attributed to traffic congestion or to people using cars, but how much is attributable to the increase in fares? The increase in fares, as the Minister tells us, is attributable to the increase in wages. This is a practical example of what is happening. Many businesses outside are at the stage where, even if there was no Prices and Incomes Bill in the offing, they would be worried as how to meet costs. If this type of thing does not stop you will have further liquidation, further unemployment and the beginning of a depression. Let me not be misunderstood as painting a very dark picture for this country. The situation is same in our whole environment. In the Bill we are extending a lifebuoy to a State company. I want to bring that point home. There may be repercussions even for this company and its revenue in this situation.

I am discussing this matter merely on the question of costs against expenditure, in the ordinary way of companies generally, and I did not mention two vital points which may not fully affect CIE. Not only are businesses and enterprises outside facing this problem but, as they face it, taxation becomes an extremely serious load. Without going into figures I know of companies where the ratio of taxation is out of all proportion to income in traditional terms and this at a time when pressures are great otherwise. I am not making a case for boards of directors or companies; I am making the case I should make for the community and the employed because if anything goes wrong in these enterprises it is not the chairman or members of the board that suffer but the ordinary individuals, something like the case Deputy Bruton mentioned. In a matter like this one must really fight for the interests of the majority of the community.

Turnover tax and other taxes are becoming an almost intolerable burden to business and at the same time we must remember in passing this subsidy now we are, in effect, adding another burden which will have to be met in the same way. I am not an Opposition speaker; I am supporting the Minister and the Government in this matter and I shall not disagree about paying this subsidy and I do not want to talk in that way but we must understand what we are doing. We are giving a lifeline to CIE and doing an important job. That is why I mentioned the social aspects of it and I join with Deputy Tully in saying that it is far better to pay people in wages rather than pay them in doles. In that I agree with Deputy Tully but I would also ask him and those on that side to co-operate in trying to preserve the balance of the economy and I would not be slow to ask for restraint where restraint is needed.

Taxation comes directly into this subsidy. I do not know what CIE's tax liability will be but it would be a book transaction in any case. For everybody outside CIE it would be a tax. The State services themselves have been putting up costs. CIE has put up fares and we all know what happened with postage and telephones and so on. This is the inflation we have. To ensure that there is no misunderstanding of my argument I repeat that I subscribe completely to the social aspects of CIE but nevertheless, one may ask: " What would have happened—to take the opposite extreme—if the Minister had come in here and said: `CIE is in the red. We cannot give any more money because it would mean more taxation '?" Again, for the purposes of this hypothesis I am excluding the social aspects. If the Minister said: " We shall not pay them any more. They must work out their problems themselves," what would be the situation? That would be a logical occurrence in view of past statements that CIE was being put on its feet for all time at a cost of 60 many millions. If the Minister were to pursue that policy and say: " No more money for CIE " and if CIE took the normal commercial measures to maintain itself or even faced going broke, in other words, if it were to survive commercially or to pack up, what reception would there be for that policy?

When put that way you see what is involved in this Bill which is a lifeline in the current economic context which shows up the whole problem not only in the public but also in the private sector. I can say that without going into the very vexed question of the structure of State companies but perhaps en passant I should express this view: I am a little tired of people who talk of socialism in a certain way, as if you could go back to the good old days of private enterprise. The fact is that we must all be socialists today. Socialism involves the State in every activity of the community and it is part of the natural growth of human society accentuated by present day communications and organisation and present day interdependence of all elements in the community, commercial, administrative, private and public. I have no time for hypothetical discussions as to whether CIE or the ESB or any of these should be State companies. All these big undertakings must be State enterprises in principle and will have to be supported by the State and, to some extent, their running must be supervised by the State for the benefit of the people. That implies some payment on the part of the State and if the State must pay the State should call the tune. We may be trying to have a little bit of both ways here, setting up State companies which get State money and then set these off to run as private companies, not answerable to anyone but the Minister and the Minister will not answer to the House very often.

It is time Parliament asserted itself in some way. I am speaking very generally here. You can put me out if 1 am disorderly. I want to say if you have Parliament behaving as Parliament have behaved, I will not blame people outside for saying things about Parliament. If we were responsible people and if the publicity and our competition for votes did not lead us into foolish and extravagant performances in the illusion that some people have that they are fooling somebody we would see the wisdom of doing what I say.

The time has come to set up a Committee of Members of this House to look into CIE. I know the public servants and the Government will not want this because they consider it a nuisance. A committee such as this would be out of the light of publicity which seems to draw on the antics of some people who seem to think of nothing more than how many votes they can get as their limit of public service. A public committee system where responsible members of the Government and the Opposition came together and looked into the working of CIE might be able to contribute and supply a counterbalance which would help the particular Minister in office.

This lack of counterbalance can too easily result in a situation where a Minister has not always the balance of information to enable him to function. I would like this whole problem which I have outlined to go to such a committee. I am not talking from inexperience in regard to this. I have in company with many Deputies in this House worked on series of Parliamentary committees. There was no publicity or no kudos attached to those committees. I recall particularly the Committee on the Income Tax Bill where really first class work was done. Nobody heard much about that committee. The results came into the House although very often after some of those committee reports you had the same hot air in this House about some aspects of them. Very good work was done by Parliamentarians on those committees.

When I speak about those committees I do not intend to run down anybody but if we had such a committee to deal with this problem it would be a great help to the Minister in addition to whatever consultative experience he would enlist. I always remember the Committee on the Income Tax Bill for the frank, trusting and helpful attitude of the officers of the Revenue Commissioners on that committee, quite apart from the fact that their staff work was absolutely superb. It was much superior to any I have ever experienced in the State service or in business. This evoked the same responsibility and understanding from the various parliamentary members of the committee.

I know this is no time to make a case for this but I think the time has come when this committee system will have to be considered. I raised a couple of questions at various times about the structure of CIE on which a committee of that type could do very useful work. A lot of talk which many Deputies in this House indulge in, and which has caused me in recent years to speak very little in the House, can do more harm than good because we speak without sufficient information and without adequate study. This could all be remedied if the staff work were to be available to a special committee. The Minister's use of the word " inflation " has caused me to say all I have said. I felt it was no harm to ask exactly what it meant.

They never are. I want to take this opportunity to say something which I think should be said. Perhaps one of the greatest menaces to the stability of the worker is the company that is doing so well that it will not dispute a situation. That is a peculiar statement. Let me explain what I mean. If you have some company in the community that is out of line with the rest and will settle for any money——

The employers always want to bargain.

Mr. P. Belton

We are on the Transport Bill.

Major de Valera

I agree, but strikes and labour relations are involved here. The very fact which the Deputy has made that managements are getting tough is a big red light reinforcing what is here in the Minister's statement. They are getting tough because their backs are to the wall. It is as simple as that. The workers should realise that. If managements were not to face up to their responsibilities the workers might have very little problem in dealing with managements because there would not be any to be dealt with. What Deputy Tully has said highlights what is stated in the Minister's statement, that the situation is now serious.

I apologise to the Chair. I seem to have got off on to a general economic debate.

Mr. P. Belton

On prices and incomes.

Mr. Tully

It does not look as if we will get an opportunity of discussing that today.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Is that right?

Mr. Tally

Have the Government made up their mind to withdraw it, because the boys in Liberty Hall are waiting until they do before making a decision?

Major de Valera

A question came up here about the Dublin traffic and the Dublin bus services. I mentioned the fares as a contributory factor and it is undoubtedly true that we have a traffic problem. Anybody who drives through Dublin could have nothing but the greatest sympathy for the bus drivers. Many years ago I was critical of our utter disregard for traffic regulations. The bus drivers in this city deserve a great deal of consideration and a great deal of praise. Their task is extremely difficult. They drive very well. They have to contend with an utter lack of discipline on the part of other road users and an utter lack of organisation in our traffic.

I am now bordering on the Estimates for two different Departments when I say this, the Department of Local Government and the Department of Justice, and particularly the latter. Who in the name of heavens is making all the orders about speed limits? Nobody is observing them because the Department of Justice are not in a position to enforce them. I have not mentioned the Garda. One of the reasons I kept my mouth shut for so long is that it is always thrown back on the Garda. They are always blamed. It is not their fault. The Garda cannot cope. It is high time we had a separate traffic police system. It is high time some consideration was given to the making of these orders. Somebody just bangs out an order in the Department of Local Government. A few years ago there was an accident at Kill and we got a blanket speed limit straight away. Who observes that speed limit? There is a stretch of the Stillorgan Road, which constitutes a big problem for the buses now that the university is out there, which is marked as a 30 m.p.h. speed limit. If you had three Garda cars on that stretch of road permanently, you could not control the traffic there. Complaints have been made and rightly so. In fact, someone was killed there. Of course the answer is to stick up a 30 m.p.h. notice, forgetting that it will not work for the purpose for which it is intended and also that it will work most unfairly against the ordinary citizen because some poor Joe Soap will be caught some day, although many people who are worse than him are getting off scot free every day.

It is not the fault of the Garda. There are far too few gardaí for ordinary police duties and it would be a gross injustice to blame individual gardaí or the Garda Síochána generally. I blame the people sitting on their chairs in an office writing out orders without the slightest regard to the reality of the situation.

The same thing applies to parking laws. Even at the gate of Leinster House the two " No Parking " signs were completely ignored until recently when parking has been stopped. There is an utter lack of discipline on the part of the public fostered by an utter lack of reasonable and proper developing control in here and in the Department. I do not blame the present Minister for the deficiencies in this regard. Unfortunately due to the combination of the increase in fares and this matter there is a falling off in CIE passenger traffic. I wonder whether the Dublin regional area is a separate transport problem and even within itself whether there are two separate problems—the commuter problem and the general transport problem. Communication with the country is involved also.

The disturbing thing is that there is no indication that the actual business of CIE, quite apart from costs, will improve, that the volume of their acti vities will increase. The indications are rather disturbingly in the opposite direction.

We are to have an inter-departmental committee. I have made a suggestion for another type of committee. A combination of the two ideas might not be any harm. The Minister says:

A study in depth to establish what measures might be taken in the long term to achieve a reduction in CIE's losses will also be undertaken...

How many times have we had this kind of thing in regard to transport over the years? I will be pardoned, I hope, for not being very elated by that statement. All the efforts that were made in the past to turn CIE into a paying operation have failed. We are now asked to vote another subsidy which is simply to make up its losses.

Mr. Tully

All that committee means is that more branch lines will be closed.

Major de Valera

I deliberately refrained from going into this except on one thing because from my point of view there may be some cases which are justified and some which are not. I shall not go into the details of that.

The fact before us here is that we are to vote more money for CIE. There is nothing more to it, stripped of all the dressings and all the explanations. All these great schemes have failed. We are still at the old game of voting annual sums to keep the enterprise going and remember that what this Bill provides today will be recovered in taxation when it comes to Budget time.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I have not a great deal to say on this Bill although the scope of the Bill opens a very wide discussion. The proposal is to provide an additional subsidy not exceeding £2.98 million for CIE. It is a very considerable sum of money to ask the taxpayer to put up for an undertaking that is supposed to pay its way, taking one year with another. However, there is an obligation on the State to provide transport and if it were run purely on an economic basis there would be vast portions of the country left completely without transport.

I should like to direct the attention of the House for a few moments to staff relations within CIE. During the years the public have been held up to strikes and have suffered serious inconvenience as a result of those strikes. The Minister in charge should arrange things so that the staff employed by CIE would be reasonably happy and would be unlikely to resort to drastic strike action. In doing that they are subjecting the people, especially the less well-off classes, to great inconveniences. There is no doubt that all is not well within CIE. Various sections of the staff consider that they have causes for complaint. There is one section who, although they have ceased to be active servants or employees of the company, deserve consideration. I refer to the people who have retired. They are very badly treated. They are left on the equivalent of an old age pension. The old age pension is really something that is meant to keep body and soul together, something that prevents people from being destitute.

I know of one man in Cavan, his name is Frank Fitzpatrick, who was given a reference on 6th January, 1909, when he was applying for a position with the Great Northern Railway Co. (Ireland) and on 12th January, 1909, he was informed in a letter from the Great Northern Railway Co. (Ireland):

Sir, you are hereby appointed boy porter at Cavan goods station, subject to the rules and regulations of the company, at wages of 8s per week, with a suit of uniform per annum, and you will please arrange to report yourself to the company's agent at that station on 18th inst. who will instruct you as to your duties....

That was 12th January, 1909. That man was employed as a boy porter at 8s a week. The next communication I have regarding the man is dated some 50 years later—17th May, 1958. It is not signed but it is from the Great Northern Railway Co. (Ireland). It says:

I would refer to the Agreement which you signed when you reached 65 years of age on the 8th January, 1957, in which you expressed a desire to be continued in the service after that date.

The contraction of the Board's services unfortunately requires a lesser number of staff and I have no alternative now but to advise that you will be retired from the service after the completion of your rostered turn of duty on Saturday, 7th June, 1958.

I would take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation of your long and faithful service, and trust that you may be long spared to enjoy your well-earned retirement.

If this man enjoys his well-earned retirement it will not be due to any generous pension given to him by the successors of the Great Northern Railway Company because his weekly pension would not amount to much more than the 8s per week at which he was employed as a boy porter in 1909. The GNR and the GSR companies were taken over by CIE and I appeal to the Minister to see that these faithful employees are treated in a better manner. In that way the serving employees of the company would have less grounds for complaint and would feel more secure.

I know that the matter of traffic congestion as it affects Dublin has been dealt with already, but this is becoming a problem in the provincial towns also. Twenty years ago there were two railway stations in Cavan town—the Great Southern Company and the Great Northern Company. They dealt with the haulage of heavy goods into and out of the town. They were situated about one mile outside the town but both stations have been closed. The passenger and goods traffic must now be dealt with at a bottleneck near the centre of the town. This is causing serious traffic congestion near the principal boys' primary school and the Protestant national school and some steps must be taken to relieve the congestion. CIE are a State-sponsored body and they should give a good example. If an ordinary taxpayer was responsible for the congestion and obstruction that some State-sponsored bodies create they would be prosecuted under the Road Traffic Act for dangerous parking or obstruction of traffic. However, the State-sponsored bodies are apparently immune to prosecution in the eyes of the Garda, perhaps under direction. I am sure the situation that obtains in Cavan is typical of what is happening throughout the country.

In relation to this Bill, I assume that the figure of £2.98 million is by way of subsidy to the entire undertaking of CIE, including hotels. If that is the case, may I comment that many people think these hotels are pricing us out of the tourist market. This is a matter that merits consideration by the Minister and those directly concerned.

It is essential that CIE be managed efficiently. If a private individual runs his business inefficiently that business will fail and he will be replaced by an efficient operator. In this case the taxpayers must put their hands in their pockets and make good the losses of the company. We were led to believe some years ago that CIE would pay their way and be self-sufficient. That hope was not realised and apparently there is no likelihood that the company will reach the point where they can pay their way.

The board have an annual grant of £2.65 million and the Bill now before us provides for an additional subsidy of almost £3 million. This is alarming, and I suggest that we ascertain how much it will cost to run CIE each year and get an accurate budget from the company. This subsidy is in addition to the staggering increase in passenger fares in the last few months and, notwithstanding that very considerable increase, the company must now come to the taxpayers and tell them that they need another £3 million.

A searching investigation of the company should be carried out and a full report should be given to the House. Having regard to the depopulation in rural Ireland it is understandable that the transport system cannot pay its way in all parts of the country. It must be run in places which are sparsely populated, where they are not likely to attract paying loads of passengers. However, there are other places, like the city of Dublin, parts of Leinster and built-up areas, where there are lots of work to be done by CIE but notwithstanding that the undertaking as a whole is losing money hand over fist. I suppose the Estimate for the Department of Transport and Power might provide a better opportunity for discussing this kind of thing but we are being asked to provide this large sum of money by way of an additional subsidy and it would be wrong to let this Bill go through as a matter of form and without drawing attention to these matters.

The taxpayer, so to speak, is paying the fiddler and in return the least we are entitled to expect is an efficiently run undertaking and that staff relations would be organised in such a way that strikes would be practically unheard of. Perhaps that is expecting too much. CIE, like the ESB, the cement company and other companies of this sort are monopolies and they do not have opposition to compete with. The Minister in charge of an undertaking like CIE has a very serious obligation to the taxpayers to ensure that they get reasonable value for their money, that they get an efficiently run undertaking and that they get continuous service. It may be that once in a while strikes may be inevitable until we reach the stage at which we have the ideal system of employer-staff relations which will avoid that but certainly the Minister should ensure that the taxpayer who is providing the money will get a good return and a reasonable service.

Mr. Tunney

Cosúil leis na Teachtaí eile, ní thugann sé aon áthas dom eirí annseo agus lucht CIE a cháineadh ach, os guth na ndaoine muidne, agus os rud é go gcloisim taobh amuigh den Teach roinnt mhaith do na daoine go bhfuil cómhnaí othra im cheanntar-sa ag caitheamh anuas ar CIE comh fada agus a bhaineann sé leo, glacaim go bhfuil dualgas orm a laghad na tuairimí sin a noctú annseo. Seans go mbeidh dul amú ar dhaoine, seans nach fáilteoídh daoine roimh na tuairimí sin, pé scéal é, táimse chun iad a noctú.

Like other Deputies it gives me no pleasure to rise here to criticise CIE but there is an obligation on every Deputy, as a Deputy is the voice of the people in his constituency, to refer to any matter which is agitating the minds of his constituents. The emphasis of what I have to say will be on the Dublin city bus services and I hope what I have to say will be taken as my honest approach to the matter. Nobody is happy when it appears that he is criticising the character or the nature of another worker.

As I am a worker myself I am not opposed to anybody criticising my shortcomings and I take unto myself the same right in reverse. Every week I get complaints from my constituents regarding the service and I feel an obligation to present those complaints here. Indeed, this is the proper place for the expression of such complaints. I will base my criticism on a situation which arose within the last few months. People in a certain area complained to me that on one occasion four double-decker buses arrived in their area within half an hour. At the final drop out place the crews rested. Passengers are not allowed board the bus at this point but must board it at a point 100 yards away. When the buses moved off they passed the stop at which 25 people were waiting and did not pick up one of them.

I consulted CIE on the matter and their reply indicated that the buses left in or around the time at which they were required to leave. The reply was based more or less on that side of the complaint. For reasons best known to themselves they ignored the complaint that these four buses had moved off without picking up these 25 passengers. This is an example of the problem that exists in Dublin. We may talk about economy and efficiency but think of the investment in four double-decker buses —put it at around £6,000 each—think of the investment in maintenance and in the crews of those buses and yet they would pass by passengers who are subsidising them and whom we are asking to subsidise them further, and for whom the service was intended. I am not so foolish as to think that one example proves everything. I could quote other examples of ladies who in the mornings would like to go into Dublin to do their shopping but cannot do so. There was a case of a lady with a child who was waiting for a bus. When the bus arrived it was empty except for two or three passengers but because there was one perambulator on the bus the conductor refused to take this lady and her child.

I am sorry for people, especially at this time of the year, when I see them standing at bus stops. I see people who are blue in the face waiting for buses. No doubt they have been doing this for years. I see people suffering from various types of disability waiting for a bus to come, a bus which often when it does come will be full and at other times half filled with schoolchildren. These are the people we are asking to increase the subsidy for CIE. I might mention that most of those 25 people to whom I have referred eventually telephoned for taxis. It is evident that people are turning more and more to a taxi service. This is understandable since the taxi service is faster and better than the service provided by CIE and when one considers present bus fares, it is almost as cheap.

In his contribution, Deputy de Valera referred to CIE as being a social service. In developing that point the Deputy said that, if people were not employed by CIE, they would probably be on the dole. That is a negative and an appalling attitude. It is not the true position because, if these people were receiving the dole, they could not possibly enjoy the same standard of living as they now enjoy. In that case we would have to consider how this £5½ million might be otherwise employed. There is an onus on all of us to examine the situation and to ascertain whether the service now being provided could be provided more efficiently and whether there would be a saving of perhaps £1½ million, which amount could be directed to some other area where new employment would be generated. I should not wish the idea to go from this House that we regard CIE as an alternative to the dole. I cannot see how anybody could contend that it is such.

The crews of buses operating in the city of Dublin have a very difficult task. However, having regard to that difficulty, it will be seen that it is absolutely necessary to recruit people who are suitable for what will be expected of them, in particular, people who are patient. Having recruited the right type of person it is necessary that he be paid adequately, possibly that he will be paid to the extent of one and a half times that which he is now paid. Then, it would be reasonable to expect that he would discharge his duties in a courageous and in an efficient manner. Of course, he will be subject to superior officers who will direct him but it would appear that there has been a breakdown in the field of human relations within CIE.

I would be prepared to come in here at any time and defend the bus crews in relation to their difficulties in running to schedule if those difficulties arise because of an effort on the part of a man to attend to the needs of his passengers. For example, he might have to help an elderly person or a lady with a number of children. At other times he may be delayed because of the carrying out of road repairs. He should not be obliged to adhere to schedule for schedule's sake. He should be allowed a certain amount of latitude and if his failure to adhere to schedule results from his concern for passengers or intending passengers, he should be condoned for his concern. It would be my wish that this type of person be promoted.

Very often one might spend half an hour at a bus stop to find that after that length of time his bus would arrive but that it would be followed by about three other buses each of which might be carrying only a few passengers. I know there are difficulties arising from traffic congestion and so on. In this connection, I wonder if it would not be better to have less cross city bus services. The Cabra bus, for instance, travels from Cabra across the city to the other side. It is enough that the crews have to contend with the traffic problems between Cabra and the centre of town but of course they must contend also with the problems on the other side. Therefore, it will be seen that the service provided for the people of Cabra or of Finglas will be less efficient than if the bus did not have to go across town. I wonder, too, whether it is necessary during valley periods to have double-decker buses travelling with perhaps not more than four or five passengers. Perhaps a smaller bus would be adequate at these times of the day.

I would agree with what Deputy Fitzpatrick said in regard to CIE pensioners. I am aware that the Minister has shown great sympathy towards deputations received by him on behalf of these people. I understand that certain sections of them have been dealt with very sympathetically but there is still one category of pensioners whose case has not been dealt with. I ask the Minister to extend his fullest sympathy to those people whose pensions range between £2 and £4 10s. per week. I am not suggesting that the money should come from the subsidy but that it should come from the fund already there.

It may appear that I am making a case for the people of Dublin but that is what is required of me. In relation to the school bus service, Dublin parents are aware that while they must pay for their children's transport to and from school, they are paying also for a service for children in other parts of the country whose parents do not have to pay. That is not fair.

In relation to traffic, I see no reason why the railways might not be utilised to a greater extent. There is a line through my area to the west but it is very seldom that there are any trains on that line. If these lines were utilised to the full there would be much less traffic congestion on the roads. There would be a consequent saving on road construction and repairs and it might be said also that there would be a saving of lives. I do not know why there has not been greater development of the rail service in respect of freight. Again it should be borne in mind that the railway line together with the canal there are already contributing to the traffic congestion to be found in that area.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann debate - Friday, 11 Dec 1970