That may be so, but so far as I am aware, most of the damage is done by people returning from late night functions and who have had some intoxicating liquor to drink. I have suggested to the Minister before that, perhaps, in outlying areas at least where kiosks are damaged so frequently, a type of almost indestructible unit might be erected. I wonder whether there is any possibility of doing this. It appears to be very easy to wreck the kiosks in use at present. There is no reason why, for instance, perspex could not be substituted for glass. Perspex could not be broken very easily and its use would result in a large saving to the post office. Perhaps part of the kiosks could be made from concrete which would render them more difficult to wreck.
For years I have been advocating that telephones be taken out of local post offices and put in kiosks outside. I am glad that these local post offices now have a half-day or a day off each week. One can always find people to complain about the service not being available on a particular day but usually those who complain are the very people who ensure that they have a day off and become annoyed only because the post office does not remain open when they are free.
I had an extraordinary experience in respect of a public telephone in one area. It was pointed out to me that the post office in that area had been closed down but that the telephone remained inside. I submitted a request to the Minister to have the telephone transferred from the building but the request was not granted on the grounds that there was no demand there for a telephone. I do not know whether the Minister was suggesting housebreaking because nobody could have used the telephone without first breaking a door or a window of the building. So far as I know that is still the position. The area I refer to is Greenanstown, near Stamullen. There is no other telephone within any reasonable distance of the post office building.
From time to time I am approached by elderly persons asking whether there is any chance of a telephone kiosk being erected in their areas. I may have to point out to them that in their particular area there would be a danger of vandalism, but they remind me that it is not unknown for a kiosk to be erected in the garden or the yard of a private house. This has been done to a large extent across the Border and has been done in certain areas in this part of the country too. The people concerned offer to guard the kiosk. The idea is a good one because it is important that elderly people have access to a telephone so that they can call a doctor if necessary, and nowadays doctors tend to live in close proximity to the area where the majority of their patients live. It is not good enough to say that some of the neighbours have telephones because some of these neighbours may be hard of hearing if there is a knock on their door, although in my part of the country one can hardly blame people for not opening their doors at night when they do not know who is there.
Many times I have asked the Minister to speed up the erection of buildings to be used as post offices and to improve facilities in the various post offices throughout the country. I am glad that the work seems to be in progress. Perhaps, when the Minister is replying, he will be good enough to let me have a further list of what progress is likely to be made. It is a matter in which many people are interested.
Recently a number of people saw fit to prosecute the Minister because of inadequate facilities in post office buildings. I have no wish to take sides either way except to say that if the State, by legislation, lays down minimum facilities, these minimum facilities at least should be available in any State-owned building.
Regarding the Post Office letter service, postmen throughout the country are doing a very good job. Last year I asked that some effort be made to persuade local authorities not to be repetitive when naming roads—for instance, that there would not be a Limerick Street, a Limerick Drive, a Limerick Hill and a Limerick Avenue. This repetition makes it almost impossible for a postman to do his work, and it makes matters difficult also for those of us who try to find an address in any such area. The Minister promised to make some recommendation to the local authorities in this matter and I wonder whether he has done so.
Another matter in which there appears to be some neglect is in respect of newly built-up areas in rural districts. For example, I live in the Laytown-Bettystown district and that area has grown tremendously during the past 20 years, and during the last four or five years in particular the population has increased greatly. Despite that there is almost the same system of postal delivery in operation now as there was 25 or 30 years ago. Only this morning, while I was in the local post office, I saw a postman preparing his deliveries which he intended taking out on a bicycle. The delivery included about 20 large parcels together with much referendum literature and hundreds of letters. He had to deliver those over two fairly large built-up areas. People at the lower end of the area complain to me that their postal delivery is late and ask why their mail should not be delivered as early as other people get theirs. If they make inquiries at the post office, they may be told that it is not possible to cover the area with a van because of shortage of vehicles and, therefore, it is not possible to send out even the parcel delivery other than by the present means.
If postmen were paid very well one might understand the difficulty of employing extra men. In our area there have been at least six different postmen during the past couple of years. The reason for this is that no one wishes to stay in a job that is both difficult and badly paid. No doubt there are many other areas where the local post office officials seem to wish to forget that their areas have grown enormously and, therefore, require a greater service than in the past. I hope the Minister will endeavour to have the services improved, in particular, the one in the area I have mentioned.
For many years, too, I found it necessary to raise here the question of overtime payment for work done at Christmas time. I am glad to see that much progress has been made in this regard and I hope that this year the position will be even better. The solution arrived at is not the ideal one. There is a link between this and the matter to which I have been referring. There is a tendency towards the idea that, although an area grows in size and population, a postman should be able to cover it in the same number of hours as he covered it, say, ten years ago. This is not a correct attitude. During my student days I worked as a temporary postman on one occasion in order to acquire some very necessary pocket money. I found in the post office where I worked that a couple of weeks before Christmas a series of documents arrived setting out the arrangements for Christmas. They were printed on five sheets of paper when they could have fitted on one sheet. I do not know whether this practice is in operation today but it struck me as being extraordinary that it should have been carried on by the Post Office, of all people.
Another matter which would be of interest to people in this House concerns letters posted to us at this address. Recently I received a letter from a gentleman who had not put a stamp on the envelope. When this happens I always pay the fee, but I write to the person subsequently pointing out that letters to us should be stamped. In the particular instance I refer to the gentleman very kindly refunded the 8p to me, which I subsequently returned to him; but he told me that, on inquiring at the counter at the GPO as to whether letters to Members of the Oireachtas should be stamped, he was told that letters addressed to us here are free of postage. I queried this by telephone call and got the same reply. When I pointed out that this is not the position, I was told that heads of Departments are entitled to free postage and in some way they equated the head of a Department with a Member of this House. Explicit instructions should be given that nobody in this House, other than Ministers, is entitled to receive a letter that has not been stamped without first paying the fee due. If one is receiving a dozen or so of these letters in a period of a couple of days, the matter becomes more than a minor one. We have free postage out and this tends to confuse people. I make the point because it is a simple matter which can very easily be dealt with.
I mentioned to the Minister last year, and he was kind enough to say he would do something about it, the type of letterbox local authorities are providing, particularly in the case of new houses. It has been pointed out to me that a postman would run the risk of injury to his finger if he were to push a letter through one of these letterboxes. Those who manufacture these letterboxes do not seem to care.
Complaints have been made and will continue to be made about the cost of the postal services. One never hears a complaint about the Department of Finance costing too much. The Department of Finance never seem to have to defend their existence. The officials of the Department of Finance never have to blush by reason of an increased tax caused by some increase that they have got. It is terribly unfair that the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, which gives such good service, should be blamed when the cost of administration goes up. Postmen are told that they have got a few shillings extra and that as a result the price of stamps has increased. This stupid nonsense was started by a predecessor of the Minister who defended his Department by claiming that because of wage increases it had been necessary to increase postage rates. It is wrong that the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is expected to pay its way. The Department is a social service in a big way, apart from being a business requirement.
Is there any hope of political freedom being given to the officials of the Department, at least up to a certain grade? It is not sufficient to say that the matter is under consideration. I have been listening to that reply for a long time. Numerous discussions have taken place, to no avail. The Minister would be advised to do something about it. As was pointed out to him, the man who climbs the telegraph pole should have the same right as the man who climbs the ESB pole. It does not seem right that one should have liberty to join a political party while the other is debarred from doing so. Many of them do join political parties. It would be a sad day for Ireland if they did not. In doing so, however, they run the risk of losing their jobs. It is a fact of life that these people consider that they have a political right. They are intelligent people and they are entitled to have a political view and should be entitled to work for it. This right has been conceded in Britain. I do not hold up everything British as being right, but this is an example which we should follow. The Minister can find a way of dealing with at least some part of this problem and the situation could be improved in time.
I heard some of my colleagues knocking the radio and television service in a big way and I heard Deputy Crowley knocking Deputy Cruise-O'Brien and Senator Kelly in a bigger way. He is a big man. The tendency has developed for those who do not appear on radio and television to be jealous of those who do. I am sure that if Deputy Crowley were to write a book worth reading and discussing, he would get £1,000 worth of free advertising. He should leave it at that. It is a characteristic of the Irish to knock someone who is getting on.
I do not agree with those who say that if there were a choice of channels we would switch off Telefís Éireann and look at some other programme. I have a choice of four or five stations and the remarkable thing is that for most of the time it is RTE that is switched on. Let us be fair about this. There are programmes on RTE which I do not look at because they are not my type of programme. If RTE were to screen a programme to please everybody, what kind of programme would that be? RTE have to cater for everybody and they do that to the best of their ability. If there is a programme on television or radio with which one does not agree that does not mean that the station is a bad station. We should be a little bigger in our attitude. There are excellent programmes on the BBC, on ITV, UTV and BBC2 but they are no more excellent than one will get on RTE If a viewer selects a particularly good BBC programme he will tell everybody about the great station that it is. People will say that RTE is no good because it has only one good programme. I cannot follow that reasoning. Some programmes that I have seen from any one of the stations make me see red. In that event, I do not break the set, I just switch off. I would advise those who are so critical of RTE to do the same.
It is unfair that in some parts of the country where there is no television reception the people have to pay the same licence fee as applies in areas where there is good reception. We cater for undeveloped areas under various headings. There is no reason why we should not cater especially for areas where there is no TV reception by providing that persons in these areas will get television completely free until an adequate service can be made available to them. This would not apply in my constituency. It is unfair to ask persons who do not get the service to pay the same licence fee as those who get reception not only from RTE but from other stations.
The Minister let the cat out of the bag when Deputy Treacy was needling him this morning, when he said that he only did what RTE recommended. The RTE Authority are completely wrong if they try to stop, as they appear to be doing, the extension of piped television. I hope to live to see the day when everybody will be able to get many stations and when an aerial of about three inches long will enable one to get all stations. I fail to understand why this has not been done in the case of television. There was a neighbour of mine who did not believe in paying a television licence fee and he had an aerial in what we call the cockloft. He got the same reception as I did, or better, because weather conditions did not affect his reception. He has gone to his reward and has quite good viewing where he is now without having to pay a licence fee.
To suggest that only 500 can be connected to piped television is absolutely ludicrous. There should be a very big extension given and, if the Minister wants to make some regulation whereby he can charge for connections and make something out of them, I do not think that would be resented too much. What is resented is the fact that certain local authorities are making it a condition of tenancy that no aerials be erected. They say that piped television will come along eventually. The position is that someone who has left a bad house in which there was television reception now finds himself in a new house, for which a high rent has to be paid, without any television. This is altogether wrong. Not only is it wrong but I think it would be very difficult for any local authority to sustain an action against a tenant because he committed the crime of attempting to deceive Telefís Éireann. This is a matter which the Department and local authorities will have to have out one of these days. Under no circumstances may an aerial be erected anywhere in the precincts of the house.
Some piped television companies promise to erect an aerial within a reasonable time and they then let the whole thing drag on for months. Eventually, when the aerial is erected, the agreement is so wide that, every time a payment is being made, the renter finds that the payment has increased. This is something which will have to be controlled. It will have to be controlled by the Department. The people find themselves paying through the nose to those who put up the aerial. This is utterly wrong. The Minister says that he believes there will be perfect reception at some stage, perhaps in ten years' time. I wonder where, in ten years' time, the Minister and I and many other people will be. I should like to see this happening in our time and I believe our time is much less than ten years.
Everything possible should be done to improve reception. The narrowminded view that allowing what was referred to here as a "foreign influence" in through television is a lot of damn nonsense. Indeed, I think it is now recognised as such because some of the programmes, particularly those from Northern Ireland, show a far higher degree of Irish culture than anything put on by RTE. If someone does not want to look at a programme he can turn it off. To imagine that the people down in the south are not as intelligent as those more fortunately placed is a very grave mistake.
Radio is vastly underrated. It has a tremendous influence and a very large listening public. I think radio does a very good job and it should be accepted as a very important medium of communication. I have one particular comment to make with regard to the news. At 9 o'clock one gets the news bulletins. I do not agree with those who allege that the news readers read too quickly. I think they do a pretty good job. If the news in Irish is read a bit rapidly I have difficulty in following it, but that is probably my fault and not the fault of the news reader.
With regard to the news generally, at 7.30 a.m. one gets the news headlines. At eight o'clock one gets the news again. So it goes on right throughout the day; it is a rehash of the 7.30 a.m. news right through and it is no longer news. An effort should be made to make the news as up to date as possible. Surely it should be possible to vary the news. Things change rapidly and surely we could have more up-to-date news. I do not know who is responsible. We had the recent highjacking in the USA ad nauseum, not alone on radio but also on television. Even the next day, when everyone knew what had happened, we had all the travels of these poor people depicted, from America to Cuba, from Cuba back into America, and back into Cuba again. This is absolutely wrong. Someone does not seem to understand that we do not need a tedious repetition of all the gory details. We want to hear about it, certainly, but let that be an end of it.
Could we not get more Irish news, local news? We want to hear what is happening in the world but we would also like a little more information about what is happening at home. Possibly some members on the Press Gallery will say tomorrow morning that all we want to hear is about somebody's pig being knocked down by a car or a pump going out of action. That is not the kind of thing I mean. There are important things happening in the country.
Again, must we get the chronic repetition of what is happening across the Border? In a ten minute news bulletin seven minutes were devoted to what was happening across the Border. It is not good news but, as the Minister for Health said on one occasion, good news does not seem to be news. We all know that these things are happening. We cannot pretend they are not happening. The Ceann Comhairle and I, who live close to the Border, know that a great many things are happening which do not reach the news at all. Why the incessant interviewing of people in Belfast and Derry? That is not my idea of disseminating news. Perhaps I am a little critical of a station which is, I believe, doing a good job, but these are practical points and these are points which should receive attention.
Could an effort not be made to get Radio Éireann into London and other areas in Britain? The only way one can get Radio Éireann in London is by going into a very quiet room and holding a radio up to one's ear, in the hope that something will leak through. This will cost money but there are a great many of our own people in Britain who would love to hear Radio Éireann. Many of them contributed a great deal to this country before they went to Britain. If we are really serious in all the talk about the Irish abroad we should at least give them the opportunity of hearing the home station.
It is possible on occasions to get Telefís Éireann in Newry. Beyond that one does not get it. Surely we should make an effort to throw it across into Northern Ireland. I meet a great many people in that area who tell me they cannot get Telefís Éireann. An effort should be made to improve reception. I understand this is quite possible with radio and, while it may cost money, it would be money well spent.
Deputy Burke spoke at length, and very well indeed, in Gaelic on Radio na Gaeltachta. I said at the beginning that I do not propose to speak in Irish because my Irish is not fluent enough to carry on the same type of discussion as Deputy Burke engaged in. I do not believe the investment in Radio na Gaeltachta was a good one. The transmission time is short and the range is very poor. We have two Gaeltacht areas in County Meath and they have no hope of getting anything from Radio na Gaeltachta. I believe the range is about 30 miles. If that is so there has been bad planning. The Gaeltacht people are entitled to a programme but there is no point in giving the impression that something is being given at high expense which in reality is not being given. If we are going to do something let us do it properly; if not, let us not do it at all. I consider it is wrong that we tend to put a gloss on things by pretending we are doing something which is not being done.
I happen to be lucky enough to live in an area where we can get excellent colour television. Colour adds a new dimension to television. The higher costs of colour television are coming within reasonable limits. Colour makes a tremendous difference. Sports events on colour television are almost as real as if one were present. I could not get a ticket for Croke Park recently and I watched the match on television and saw much more of it than if I had been sitting in the stand. This is the experience of most people. In shows from across the water the colours are really out of this world. I know colour television will cost a great deal if RTE introduce it but, apparently, it is not known that they have been using a good deal of canned television. I heard one of my colleagues commenting on "canned" television as if it were something not to be mentioned in polite company. I do not agree. We get some excellent "canned" television from abroad and the colour film particularly which Telefís Éireann is using is very good. Some of the films which in black and white would be terrible really look something in colour. There is no reason why every effort should not be made to use as much colour as possible on RTE.
From time to time we have been putting politicians on the television screen and around election time the tendency is that no matter what happens a Minister must appear at least once in every news transmission. That is not such a bad thing provided it is not overdone. There is another type of programme where the man seems to live in the studio. Again, I suppose the powers-that-be are entitled to use whatever they can. I shall leave this thought with the Minister: it might not be a bad idea to have more sensible discussions—and it has been proved that this can be done—on sensible subjects in RTE. The Minister should remember that even in this country Governments change and it is not a good thing for something could and must be done to a Government to give all the edge to its own side and it might be better if they would spread it around more. I am certainly not blaming the cameramen or news staff or anybody sent along to record the smallest thing a Minister does but it is important to remember that everybody in the country is a politician—that is my personal experience—and all have their own political views. It might be a good idea if they were given an opportunity of seeing some of the people in the Opposition as well as Ministers.
Finally, it has been said by Deputy Crowley that RTE seem to select people who appear again and again. They select the people they think are important but perhaps we should try a system that has been adopted in other countries where the backbenchers, the people who never take much part in debates, are brought to the fore. It might not do them much good and some of them might be better if this did not happen, but it would give them an opportunity and show them that we could be broadminded and that there is no privileged group from which people are being selected. It might be wise to allow this to be done. Very few people would then be able to criticise what happens in RTE.
