The scope of the debate, because of the responsibility which reposes in the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is probably restricted to telephones, postal services and the broadcasting media and I shall not enlarge much on that. I have a few hard things to say about all three, not because I want to be critical but because I believe they are true and by saying what is true something may be done to remedy the position.
The telephone system is as is illustrated by the story of the man who decided to emigrate because of it. The particular story that was headlined in the newspapers may be exaggerated but it is not far from true. Speaking from purely personal experience if I am ever driven around the bend it will be through the telephone system. This service does not really exist although we pay very dearly for it. Peculiarly, this is particularly true out of Dublin. Naturally, because I represent far-away rural constituencies I have frequent recourse night and day to our trunk service and to get an answer from an operator at 12 noon or midnight at the Dublin end is quite an achievement. I have spoken to these people and asked them why and I have been told there is not sufficient staff. I have pursued it and asked why do they not get sufficient staff and what about their unions. I was told the union was no good. That may be fair or unfair comment but as a subscriber, using trunk lines out of Dublin to many parts of the country and particularly to the north-west, I find the service diabolical.
The most frustrating and maddening aspect of it was brought about by the cessation of the call-back system whereby if a number or line was unobtainable, when sought through the local exchange, a tab would be set beside the operator and in turn as the calls were worked off, that subscriber would be rung and told his call was on the line. Whether that took an hour or five hours one could at least go about other business without being preoccupied as one must now be in calling back every five or ten minutes wasting one's own time and absorbing far more of the manual operator's time than if the operator were allowed to work as in the horse-and-buggy days when the operator took note of the call and rang you back when your line was free and the number sought disengaged.
I have questioned the Minister in the House about this. I do not doubt he replied in good faith; he seemed to be convinced in a belief, no doubt handed down by his advisers, that because of our overloaded system and the difficulty in providing anything like adequate service and lines for the ever-increasing demand, this method of no call-back on the trunk system is more efficient. I maintain that this is utter nonsense and cannot be otherwise. If the public, who are largely bearing the cost of this service, are to be served, their time taken into account and added to the time of the operators, who may have to take five calls from a subscriber before getting a line instead of taking one and ringing back when they get time, there cannot be any economic or financial basis for deciding that the new system is an improvement and makes for better utilisation of our inadequate system as it exists at present. The Minister should take another searching look at the assessment that led to that conclusion. At some point a very grave error must have occured that led to his being given the information on which this decision was made and sustained for the last couple of years.
As regards local calls, there should be no question of unlimited time being given for the minimum 3p charge. If we have too few phones, inadequate lines and service surely it is draft to have public or private phones with coin boxes left on for periods of up to 30 or 35 minutes, as is not unusual. The Minister may well say that is not so. I know there is the odd call where that does not arise and where the pips will come at the end of three minutes, as they should. All I say is that since our service is so limited and so overtaxed, let those who want more than three minutes pay for it and let the general suffering public for whom three minutes is adequate in 99 cases out of 100 have better access to the limited service we have. The Minister should consider this. Many Deputies and thousands of people outside the House are aware of this crazy situation that could be alleviated to some degree and at the same time give better utilisation of existing lines by limiting local 3p calls to three minutes and by requiring extra money for each additional minute or whatever period is decided on. If this were done, coin boxes would be available more frequently to more people than at present when they appear to be monopolised by a few — that is where they are allowed to operate at all.
Seeing the evidence of the vandalism that is repeated to such an extent in and around Dublin particularly, in regard to public kiosks, I wonder if it is not due to frustration that much of the vandalism persists. Incidentally, since the transfer to the new coinage there is no doubt that there is something mechanically lacking or some defect in the mechanism because time without number I find that the 2p slot is jammed. It does not operate even though the other two slots work perfectly. If it is said that the box is overloaded or too full, it should be emptied more frequently. I do not think that is really the problem. I have heard many people discussing this and they all thought that the mechanism was faulty since the changeover to the new coinage and particularly the new 2p coin slot.
Generally, in regard to telephone services, there is not uniformity of availability of public call boxes throughout the country. I travel widely in all directions, and particularly west, south and east, and because of the poor supply of public kiosks in my own constituency I am very conscious of the distribution of these kiosks in other parts of the country. There is no uniformity. I am not advocating that those located in areas where they are not justified according to the book should be taken away. Rather, I am pointing out that remote areas such as my own, should be given even enhanced treatment in this respect over and above the best serviced areas.
The Minister may say that this service must be self-sustaining. Is the postal service self-sustaining? Did we ever at any time contemplate the nondelivery of letters, the taking away of post offices and of postmen merely because on a particular postman's route he might not have ten letters to deliver on a particular day and the cost per letter would be astronomical? If we want to apply that sort of economics let us apply it across the board and then we will see what a barren, desolate rural Ireland we will create. If that economic thinking is not to apply to the postal service how was the conclusion arrived at that the telephone service must be dealt with on a different basis and that the telephone service must be self-sustaining financially or else it is just not on? Which is the more important— the maintenance of the overall social fabric in the entire country or the economics of telephone kiosks? Anybody who asked that question will get the answer that people are the more important factor. The more remote the area in which people live the more justification there is for public funds and subsidies for them, even at the expense of other sectors, so as to provide a service that will at least make their lives tolerable and will induce them to remain in those areas. Too many have already drifted away from these areas and if that drift continues we will soon find ourselves with vast expenses of desolate areas in which nothing moves except the wild life and the sportsmen chasing it in due season.
As far back as I can recall being in the city of Dublin the postal service in Donegal was twice as fast as it is today. Do not try to excuse the present service on the basis of the troubles in the Six Counties as of now. Before there were any troubles there a letter posted in the GPO up to 6 p.m. would be delivered in Donegal at 9 a.m. on the following day. That was the position in the late thirties and forties. In order to achieve that result today one would have to hire a helicopter or have the letter delivered by road. One certainly could not be assured of this service with any sort of regularity under the present system. I do not know what is wrong but that is the level of deterioration that has taken place. One would be lucky to get a letter in Donegal on the 3rd day after it had been posted in Dublin. I would ask the Minister to take a serious look at this matter and to try to improve postal deliveries, particularly in the north-west.
May I ask the Minister to investigate with his technical advisers the condition of the coaxial cable from here through Sligo to Donegal? On average it is completely out of action once a month. This has been going on for years. The cable was installed during the very short period that I was in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and that was a long time ago. If there is something radically wrong with it it should be ripped up and relaid, or else the overhead lines should be restored. We would know what was wrong with them. This breakdown happens so frequently that it is no longer a joke. If there were a bookie in the House he could lay odds on the likelihood of a breakdown each month. Unfortunately, when the cable goes out of order we are totally cut off. In the old days when the lines were down they were quickly restored and there was some service within a matter of hours. Now one may have to wait for hours on end without any communication whatsoever. I would ask the Minister to try to remedy the situation. The pattern is crazy. The records will bear out that I am not being over-critical in my description of it.
In regard to broadcasting there is very little comment I can make on the quality of radio or television broadcasts. I seldom see or hear much of them. I do know that so far as our overall national aims are concerned, in so far as the overall giving of news and views on the Six Counties problem is concerned, there is not a fair deal nor has there been a fair deal given to a point of view other than the point of view of the establishment, whether it is this Government or whether it was the last Government. I do not know what the whole lot of you around this House on both sides are afraid of. I do not know why it is possible to deny the view of the minority, if it is a minority view. Is the fear there that if what is regarded as the minority view, or what is hoped to be the minority view, were given a fair share of time and publicity not only on the TV and radio networks but through the newspapers who are also silenced, the minority view might prove to be the majority view? Is this the fear that has been allowed to silence the media, particularly radio and television, over recent weeks? Whether it is or not is a matter of speculation but what there can be no speculation about is that there has not been a fair crack of the whip given to the view that does not conform to the so-called bi-partisan approach of the two major parties in this House, whichever of them is in Government.
I would ask the Minister to take into account that each and every view in this country is entitled in its own place and its own time to be given a fair hearing. This surely is what democracy should be about. This surely is what a State service above all should be about. It galls me above all other things to find that the wildmen from the extreme right in the Six Counties can be quoted at length while the so-called wildmen from the left extreme in the Six Counties are taboo so far as Montrose is concerned. Why should this be so? Why should they not at least be treated equally? Why should both not be silenced? Why should we have the view of one extreme given at length when in fact there is another view on the extreme left of that that is not allowed to be given? Why should that view be scrubbed, if any reporter has the temerity to report it, by his editors and sub-editors, before it can see the light of day? That is happening in the newspapers although that is no concern of the Minister whose Estimate we are discussing today.
Getting down to cases in this House, I have already used the terms left and right and I do not mean by that description anything other than the purely physical left and right as I stand here today. So long as the views that are being expressed from both left and right in this House are given their total time and all the time that there is on "Today in the Dáil" and other such political programmes, everything in the garden is rosy. However, when a discordant voice is raised, as mine occasionally is, great trouble is taken by someone, somewhere, to ensure that the discord does not reach the public.
