Regrettably, I find it necessary to seek time on the Adjournment to focus attention on what has become now a national scandal. I refer to the continuing disruption of the postal and telecommunications system.
A fortnight ago we had a debate on this matter on the Adjournment when we appealed to the Minister, as the Minister responsible for maintaining the country's vital communications system, to take some initiative, some step, or make some gesture which would have the effect of restoring normal services. In the fortnight that has elapsed the situation has worsened. I referred on a previous occasion to the very severe disruption, inconvenience, hardship, and loss of business, indeed the manner in which the continued disruption of the postal and telecommunications services is affecting industry, commerce, business, tourism and so on.
In the past fortnight a new dimension has entered into the situation. I refer to the appalling hardship being suffered by hundreds of thousands of social welfare recipients. I am conscious that something like 100,000 old age pensioners will be expecting to receive their pension books in the next week or ten days. With the continuation of the present impasse, these unfortunate people, the poorest and least privileged section of our community, will be faced with very severe hardship. The situation has now reached the stage where it is nothing short of a national scandal. That it should be allowed to continue and the apparent failure of the Minister to take any initiative is absolutely incomprehensible.
In seeking permission to raise this matter on the Adjournment this evening I am hopeful that the Minister will accede to our appeal, putting it simply, to do something to break this deadlock and have normal services restored. I could outline at length the number of cases brought to my attention over the past couple of weeks of businesses being completely disrupted, of inconvenience being suffered, and I am very concerned at the appalling hardship being suffered by social welfare recipients. I have seen it in my own constituency in Limerick city in recent weeks when in very inclement weather these people have had to queue for long periods only to find that their social welfare payments have not arrived. They come across to my office but I cannot telephone the Department of Social Welfare because there is nobody there to respond to telephone calls.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the adverse effects of this prolonged dispute and disruption in the country's vital telecommunications and postal services. The whole country is waiting for the Minister to take some initiative in an endeavour to resolve this problem.
I do not wish to delay the House. My colleague, Deputy Cluskey, the Leader of the Labour Party, wishes to speak also and I will give way to him in a moment. The point I want to get across here this evening is that there is an obligation on the Minister to take some step now to bring to an end immediately this situation with which we have lived not merely in recent weeks but for over a year, when scarcely a day or a week passes that telephones are not working and there is disruption of telephone and postal services.
Again I want to emphasise the appalling hardship being suffered by social welfare recipients, the possible immense hardship that will be suffered by old age pensioners in the next few weeks because they will be unable to get their pension books. In the city of Limerick this coming weekend there is to be a world sporting event. At present teams from all over the world are arriving in Limerick, accompanied by press corps from various countries, some as far away as New Zealand. It will not be possible for them to send their reports back to their newspapers. I am sure that will give us a nice name abroad and will prove a good way of advertising our attractions for tourism and industry. I demand that the Minister take action immediately to restore this vital communication service.