Last night I referred to the fact that it was made clear in the February report of the National Prices Commission relating to CIE that the 16th round wage increase was not taken into account in computing the increases for CIE although the ESB included it in their application. The 16th round is the highest wage increase ever given in the history of the State and it is conservatively estimated that over a period of 12 months it will work out at 25 per cent. Without that CIE still achieve an increase of 33? per cent. The Minister for Transport and Power informed the House that the proportion of CIE's costs which goes in wages is 66 per cent and on the basis that the increase will be 25 per cent it means an increase across the board of 16? per cent in costs for wages alone for that company.
To this must be added the higher cost CIE will incur for electricity, vehicles and replacement of locomotives and the inevitable decline in business which must arise as a result of these savage increases. Those increases will put those who have any option about travelling by CIE off travelling by that system. They will find some other method of travelling. Adding a couple of percentage points to the 16? per cent one can conservatively estimate that, in addition to the increase already approved, about the middle of the coming wages year —about the end of October—there will be a further increase across the board in CIE rates, charges and fares of 18 or 19 per cent. With the way inflation is going it may make 20 per cent.
The ESB have given notice that they will be applying for a further increase from 1st September. We have no way of estimating, from the information they gave the National Prices Commission, what that increase will be. The Minister for Transport and Power tried to side step the problem posed by this motion. He announced the setting up of a parliamentary committee to look into the affairs of semi-State bodies, not just CIE and the ESB but the 30 or so other bodies for whom that Minister is responsible. In its own way this is a commendable move from the point of view of trying to get some accountability from semi-State bodies which, in many instances, have grown rather arrogant in their approach in recent times.
It is no harm that there will be some kind of public accountability but it will be public accountability for certain types of expenditure long after it is expended. That may be of some value but it is of no value at all in so far as the problems our people are facing, the vicious increases that have taken place and the prospect, in the case of CIE, of another 18 or 20 per cent before the end of the year, are concerned.
Setting up a committee of this House, on much the same basis as the Committee of Public Accounts which looks into the expenditure incurred by Departments, can do nothing to reduce the increases imposed on the people now or the increases that will be imposed before the end of the year by CIE and the ESB. From the Minister's point of view it has the beneficial effect of diverting attention. In some way it gets the Government out of the firing line and spreads the load. When there is an all-party committee questioning, for instance, the chairman of CIE or the chief executive of the ESB, in some vague way in the public mind the responsibility of the Government in relation to those bodies will become a little clouded. It will be looked on in a vague way by the public that Dáil Éireann is the overlord of these semi-State bodies. Dáil Éireann or the committee of it dealing with these matters will have no say about policy; expenditure will be looked into in the same way as the Committee of Public Accounts looks into the expenditure of Departments. Of course that committee has no control whatever over departmental policy. They can only look back on departmental expenditure, one, two or three years after it has taken place.
It is worth noting that the Minister for Transport and Power never mentioned a word about the hardship being inflicted by these increases, particularly on the poorer members of our community who have to have daily resort to CIE. For a worker, his wife or any member of his family to travel from a Limerick corporation housing estate, Southill, which is a mile and three-quarters from the city, by CIE will now cost 12p or 2s. 5d. in old money. How are the less well off people supposed to be able to put up with that? They now have to pay 12p for less than two miles. In Dublin some of the top rates are now 24p, almost 5s. in old money, for an internal bus ride in the city. A couple of years ago one could have got a taxi for that amount. We did not hear a word of concern from the Minister for those people even though our motion called on the Government to take steps to counteract the hardship and damage to the economy caused by the increases.
We did not hear a word from the Minister about the damage to the economy which is self-evident. The Government arranged a strange amendment to an amendment on the part of Deputy O'Connell in order to give them the opportunity of making this announcement and so that attention would be diverted from the actual increases that are the subject of this debate. The establishment of the committee is something we support but it has nothing to do with the problem of people who are now spending 3s. or 4s. on each bus journey they undertake between their home and place of business. Is it any wonder that the workers look for huge increases in wages when this is being inflicted on them by the Government? The Government, in their amendment, try to argue that they have no option but to sanction whatever increases are sought on the grounds that to refuse to do so would result either in subsidisation or lowering of service. I gave four examples of where the Government did not accept the recommendations. In some cases they gave greater increases than recommended and in other cases they gave less.
Surely those factors if valid then are valid now. The Government are contradictory in this matter. If they slavishly have to grant every increase now why did they not give them on previous occasions? Surely the same principles apply. I should like to refer to The Irish Independent of Saturday, 3rd May and to an article by the Business Editor, Mr. Colm Rapple, in which he points out that the increases in CIE fares and freight rates will add £70 million to industries wages bill. An economist calculated that the increases in the ESB granted by the Government will add £20 million. That is £90 million extra in wages in one year because of this. Do the Government realise the serious consequence of what they are doing? Mr. Rapple pointed out:
The postponement for a week of the fare increases highlights a Government ineptness in even recognising the problem. If they were put off for two days further their impact would be transferred into the May-August index rise.
The charges were announced last Monday. Had they been announced tomorrow one-quarter of that £90 million would have been saved in inflation. That saving would have been effected if the Government had their eyes open. I realise my time is up but there is a great deal more I should like to say about this matter and I hope that I will have an opportunity to do so on a future occasion.