asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs when it is proposed to convert Knockraha, County Cork, sub-post office to the automatic telephone service.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Telephone Service.
6.
The conversion date is dependent upon completion of an exchange building extension at Glanmire. The Commissioners of Public Works hope to have the building extension completed in about three months. In that event conversion would take a further nine months approximately.
7.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will consider the erection of a telephone kiosk in Calderwood Court, Douglas, Cork to provide a badly needed service for the residents of the area.
Not at present. If however, use of the existing kiosk at Shamrock Lawn which serves the area shows a significant increase, the matter will be reconsidered.
Can the Minister say what is the distance from Shamrock Lawn to Calderwood Court?
The distance from Shamrock Lawn to the nearest part of the Calderwood Estate is about 700 yards and it is about 1,000 yards to the part furthest from Shamrock Lawn.
8.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs when a telephone will be installed for a person (name supplied) in County Kildare who paid a deposit in January, 1974; and the reason for the delay.
It is hoped to provide service for the applicant in question within the next four months. The delay has been due to pressure of engineering work in the area. A refund in the meantime of the advance payment is being arranged.
Is the Minister aware that although this man has not been provided with a telephone there have been a number of installations in his area recently?
My information is that the reason for the other telephones being installed earlier was that they represented earlier applications. There are considerable arrears of work in the engineering area, including the provisions of urgently needed trunk conjunction circuits and the installation of service for applicants who applied earlier than the applicant to whom the Deputy refers. These earlier cases and the work of meeting this applicant's application have had to be fitted into a revised works programme following the disruption of the normal programme as a result of the January storms.
This applicant made his advance payment in January. Surely the Department would have known at that stage that these other telephones were to have been installed in the area, and would it not have been reasonable to expect that the service would have been provided at the same time for this man?
The information before me is that the demands of these applicants were met in chronological order—in accordance with the date of application—and subject to such normal priorities as exist. If the Deputy has any information to the contrary I should be glad if he would supply me with it.
Perhaps the Minister would be prepared to have another look at the matter.
I am always prepared.
9.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will have a telephone kiosk erected at Parteen, County Clare.
My Department are not at present providing telephone kiosks in areas such as Parteen where there is no post office.
Is it the policy of the Minister's Department to give priority to the erection of telephone kiosks in rural areas as against urban areas?
I cannot allow a broadening of this question. This is a specific question relating to Parteen, County Clare.