Vol. 309 No. 1
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is aware of the difficulties experienced by residents in Clonmel, County Tipperary, in relation to securing telephone connections; the number of people in the area awaiting service and the likely date of connection; and his plans for the development and expansion of the Clonmel exchange.
2.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is aware of the inadequacy and unreliability of the telephone service in Clonmel, County Tipperary; that this is causing great inconvenience and hampering industrial development in the area; and the steps he proposes to take to rectify the situation.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together.
I am aware of the position at Clonmel. There are some 120 waiting applications in the area. About 20 of these will be attended to within the next few months and it is expected that the balance will be attended to about the middle of next year when extra equipment to meet these and any further applications will have been provided. New priority applications will also be met in the meantime.
An interim extension of the exchange building is at present in progress. Further building work at present in the planning stage in the Office of Public Works will cater for future expansion.
The quality of service in the exchange has not been as satisfactory as it should be because of difficulties affecting the service generally to which I referred in reply to previous questions. The causes of these difficulties do not lie in Clonmel exchange itself.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, is he not aware that a serious situation has now arisen in Clonmel and that many of its leading citizens have been refused telephone connections? I refer to persons who could normally claim priority such as the manager of one of our leading stores, the owner/operator of a continental transport service, nurses, businessmen, commercial travellers and the aged who live alone. In this situation, can the Minister give me a better assurance that the capital town of a premier county will not be disadvantaged in this important matter?
Let me assure the Deputy that it is the intention to connect all applicants for phones as rapidly as possible. As the Deputy is aware, there have been abnormal difficulties in the provision of telephones in recent months. As I indicated in the reply, it is the intention that priority applications will be dealt with as a matter of urgency, that about 20 of these will be attended to in the near future.
Could the Minister indicate the priorities he has in mind? I referred to the manager of one of our leading stores as having been refused a telephone service and I referred to other important categories.
It is recognised that there are always a number of priority applications in any area, including business people and other obvious priority categories. In so far as local circumstances permit, such priority cases are dealt with urgently.
Would the Minister not agree that a crisis situation has been reached in Clonmel and would he not deal with it on an emergency basis?
As I indicated, some steps are being taken to expand facilities in the area and to improve the general quality of the service. As I also indicated, many of the difficulties do not originate in the Clonmel area itself and therefore cannot be remedied by specifically local measures.
I take it that the Minister will repeat all the questions.
3.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if there is a continuing shortage of staff in this country's manual exchanges; and if there are any proposals to remedy the situation.
Adequate operating staff is provided in the manual exchanges to maintain a good service in normal conditions. However, since the strike by the Irish Post Office Engineering Union conditions have been abnormal; there have been shortages of trunk circuits and problems with the trunk network leading to difficulties in making STD calls. As a result, there have been delays in answering calls in many areas despite the best efforts of the operating staff.
Additional operating staff have been recruited recently and will continue to be recruited as required.
Is the Minister aware that the situation existed before there was any strike and that there is no indication in recent weeks of an improvement? Is there a shortage of staff? I have been assured by members of the staff that there is a shortage of staff and that this has been the case for a considerable time.
As I indicated, steps are being taken to improve the staffing. Something of the order of 100 additional staff have recently been recruited for provincial exchanges and are undergoing training at present. When their training is completed they will help to improve the overall level of service.
The situation has not improved so far.
It is very difficult to measure the precise impact in any one area. It should be recognised that the operating staff have had to deal with a very difficult situation in recent months and have made great efforts to cope with it.
Can we expect a significant improvement when the additional staff are operating?
When their training is completed there should be a noticeable improvement.
4.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is aware that no new telephone subscribers have been connected in the Letterkenny area of central Donegal for the past four years; and if he is in a position to give any indication of improvement in this situation.
I am not so aware. In fact, 324 new connections have been made in the period mentioned. However, because of an equipment shortage in the Letterkenny exchange, connection of new subscribers has had to be restricted to high priority cases during the past two years. Service will be provided for the waiting applicants when the new automatic exchange at Letterkenny is brought into service next year.
What constitutes a priority application?
That is a separate question.
An applicant with 20 employees is waiting for more than a year for a telephone connection and still has not a snowball's chance of getting one.
I am not familiar with the details of any one case. As I indicated earlier, there are attempts to deal with various priority categories which would include business people, doctors, and other people in services of that nature. There have been a number of connections in the Letterkenny area in each of the past four years and priority connections are continuing to be made. If there is one specific case, I suggest it would be more appropriate to put down a question to the Minister.
While I appreciate the Minister's answer, may I ask him if he is aware that no additional lines have been available in Letterkenny for the past four years, that the only line available for a new applicant would be a ceased line? Ceased lines are like gold dust because of the present demand in the area. The Department are aware of the case to which I referred and there are other cases of employers of 20, which is a fair number for a provincial town, that have not made any progress in the matter. I should like to know when lines will be available in the Letterkenny exchange area? I understand that there are no lines.
The Deputy should not make a speech on the matter.
Any major improvement in the connection rate must await the installation of the new exchange, and that is scheduled to come into service next year. In the interim obviously it is more important that the staff in the area should press ahead with the work associated with the installation of that new equipment so that a service may be provided at the earliest possible date to all applicants on the waiting list.
I would ask the Minister to bear in mind that this happy event of the new switchboard mechanism to be installed in Letterkenny is two or three years overdue already. While the Minister, no doubt in good faith, tells us that it will be available next year, I wonder if that will be the position? Is the Minister aware that we have been promised the new exchange for the past three years, that a building was erected for it but when they tried to install the equipment it did not fit? The building was changed and it did not take the equipment that was bought for it.
I must confess I am not familiar with the history of the Letterkenny exchange. The information indicates that the new exchange should be available for service next year.
5.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if the poor telephone service is aggravated by a shortage of maintenance staff; and if there are any proposals to remedy this situation.
In general, there is no shortage of maintenance staff to meet normal requirements. Temporary shortages affecting the maintenance of the service can occur from time to time as a result of local conditions such as storm or flood damage, but these are generally met by the working of additional overtime or by diversion of staff from installation work. The staff is, of course, being built up to meet the future needs of the service and since July 1977, over 650 trainees have been recruited, and a further 500 will be recruited over the next few months.
6.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs why telephone applicants in Monalea Park and Grove, Dublin have not yet received a connection despite the Department's unequivocable promise to provide them by mid-summer 1978.
No such promise was given. Some applicants in the earliest developed parts of the Monalea Estate were given service in 1976-77. At that stage development of the rest of the estate was not sufficiently advanced to allow cabling of it to be un-dertaken. The local resident's association was informed in November 1977 that the indications at that time were that cabling to serve those sections of the estate which had not yet got service would not be completed before mid-1978. In April this year the association were informed that because of the engineering dispute and the consequent backlog of urgent work it was unlikely that the cabling could be completed for some time but that every effort would be made to do so as soon as possible after restoration of normal working conditions.
7.
(Cavan-Monaghan) asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is aware that the telephone service in Clones, County Monaghan is very unsatisfactory due to the inadequacy of telephone lines; and if he will take steps to provide additional telephone lines as a matter of urgency.
The answer to the first part of the question is yes. The situation is due, in part, to general difficulties being experienced since the industrial action earlier this year and, in part, to the need for additional trunk cir-cuits. Some additional circuits will be provided before the end of this year and the remainder which will be provided on a cross-Border route in co-operation with the British Post Office by the middle of next year.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Will the Minister give an in-dication of the waiting time for a new telephone line in Clones? Will he give an indication of how many new trunk lines will be provided and when they will be provided, and will he also tell the House when the exchange will go automatic?
I do not have information on these matters.
It is a separate question. The Deputy should put down a question on the matters.
(Cavan-Monaghan): It arises out of the un-satisfactory state——
It does not arise now.
I was about to say in reply that I do not have information on the precise delays in the Clones area. However, it is expected that 18 additional circuits in the Dublin-Dundalk network will be brought into service before the end of this year and this will improve considerably the con-nections in the Clones area. The additional circuits, including those in conjunction with the British Post Office, are expected to be available in the early part of 1979.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Does the Minister accept that the present position is intolerable and that it is causing a considerable loss to various sectors of the economy?
It is recognised that there have been a number of difficulties in the provision of a telephone service in recent times, and it is our intention to remedy those dif-ficulties as quickly as possible.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Will the Minister ask his colleague to look into the matter and to get the work done?
I will.
There are many sub-exchanges routed through Clones. Would it be possible to have some of those sub-exchanges re-routed elsewhere where there is less demand?
The Minister would require notice of such a technical question.
I understand that where it is possible to divert or reroute calls through other parts of the network this is being done. The best prospects for improving the service in the immediate future are through the measures I have indicated, mainly the addition of circuits on the Dundalk route and the further steps with regard to the cross-Border route.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Smithboro' is one of the sub-exchanges that is operated through Clones——
That is not the same question. We cannot have a chat about the Clones telephone service.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I am told that Smithboro', which operates through Clones, has not sufficient lines. Will the Minister do something about that?
I will have the matter investigated.
8.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the number of people in Cork city who applied for telephones in each three month period from 1 October 1977 to 30 September 1978; and the number of these telephones which have been installed.
The number of applications were approximately as follows: October-December 1977, 450; January-March 1978, 640; April-June 1978, 600; July-September 1978, 580. Telephones have been installed in 820 of these cases.
9.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the number of people who have applied for the installa-tion of a "free" telephone, that is to say, a telephone for which the Department of Social Welfare pay the charge in (a) Cork city; (b) Munster; and (c) the entire country; and the number of these which have been installed.
As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement, I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to circulate it with the Official Report.
Following is the statement:
Applications for Telephones under Free Telephone Rental Allowance Scheme
|
Area (approximate area in the case of Cork city and Munster |
Number of applications |
Number installed or in the course of installation |
|
(a) Cork city |
180 |
20 |
|
(b) Munster |
1,000 |
150 |
|
(c) The entire country |
4,500 |
600 |
Note:
The Department of Social Welfare are paying the rental for some 3,900 other subscribers who had service when the scheme was introduced, as well as the 600 who got service since then.
Does not the Minister accept that there is no such thing as a free telephone? This is a misnomer in that it is only the rental that is reimbursed to the person in the social welfare class who is entitled to the service. It does not affect the installation and other charges.
That is so. It was made clear at the time that this was a scheme to provide a telephone service without any rental charge. In fact, 3,900 existing subscribers benefited from the introduction of the scheme and some 600 new installations have been made to people who have benefited from the abolition of the rental charge.
It is not in respect of the installation of a telephone?
That is correct.
