(Dublin South-Central): I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 21 and 22 together.
I am aware that the standard of service in Donegal and in some other western counties has been unsatisfactory. Several schemes designed to improve substantially the service in these areas are, however, in progress and at the advanced planning stage. For example, Letterkenny exchange was converted to automatic working on 24 October. It is planned to convert progressively 44 other manual exchanges in County Donegal to automatic working over the period to the end of 1981 and conversion of the remaining 22 exchanges in the county will follow over a period of about two years afterwards.
Work on the provision of a new key trunk exchange at Sligo is also in progress and the exchange is expected to be available in 1982. A new microwave link between Dublin and Sligo and Letterkenny is also being installed at present and should be ready for service in mid-1980. When the link is in service the capacity of the existing co-axial cable between Dublin and Sligo will be increased from 960 to 2,700 circuits. The provision of the link and the increased capacity of the co-axial cable to Sligo will not only lead to a much better trunk service in normal course but will also enable satisfactory communication to be maintained should either the co-axial cable or the microwave link be out of order for any reason. These three schemes will raise substantially the standard of service in the north-west generally. In addition, 20 other schemes to improve the trunk service in County Donegal are also in progress or planned.
There are many other improvement schemes in progress and planned in the north-west and west but the few examples I have given will serve to show what is being done to raise the standard of service in these areas. The Deputy is, I am sure, aware that the Government have approved an accelerated telephone development programme costing £650 million to provide a high quality of telephone service nationally over a period of about five years. Action to implement this programme is already being taken and it will be pressed forward in every way possible.
23.