I move:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the increased postal, telephone and telex charges which will give rise to increased costs in business and industry and a general rise in the cost of living.
These charges follow swiftly on increases brought in last autumn. As early as 1 August 1979 we had increases in postal rates and as late as 1 October 1979 we had increases in telephone rates. We regard these charges as being too great and unnecessary, particularly as the services are not operated properly by the governing body, that is the Government, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and the Minister.
I cannot let this occasion pass without protesting that these increases were not presented to the National Prices Commission for scrutiny and for a report, as is normal in such cases. I would like the Minister to explain specifically why the National Prices Commission were not asked to comment, to report and to sanction the increases in question. Increases introduced by the Coalition and previous Governments had to be scrutinised by the commission. I understand they were not even informed that these increases were being imposed, other than by the information which we and the public received last February when the Minister for Finance made his Financial Statement.
It is our intention to move that legislation be brought in to make it obligatory that such price increases be vetted by the commission and that there will be no side-stepping of the issues involved. It appears that this procedure was adopted because of the probability of severe criticism for the way these services are being managed. In recent years we heard criticism of the way these services have deteriorated while costs have risen sharply. It is time a halt was called to the continuing price rises and that the public get an improved service. These two factors are a cause of great concern.
We read of major losses by the postal and telephone services in recent years where previously a reasonable financial position was attained. What was the cause of these major losses? We can only pass the blame back to the Minister who has overall responsibility for the operation of those services.
Why do the Department not submit annual accounts to let us know where and why the losses are being incurred. As spokesman for Fine Gael I have never seen a statement of account from that Department. I do not have a break down of the losses in question. On what services are these losses incurred? As the ultimate body, in terms of responsibility, we should be entitled to that information. Again, I ask the Minister to tell us why annual accounts are not furnished by his Department. How can we examine the weak factors in the Department, or how can we pinpoint the loss-making areas if accounts are not presented?
Every semi-State body are obliged to print their annual accounts, although some of them are quite slow in doing so. We hear objections about these delays from time to time and in one case we had a delay in excess of a year. Despite this, at least their reports are published. If an annual report of the Department were published, we would be familiar with the activities and the loss-making areas in the Department.
I firmly believe that when a business is losing money, it can be put down to the management and operation of the firm, rather than any other reason, such as a basic non-profitability venture. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs should be a profit-making concern. Our commercial banks are reputed to have a licence for printing money but the Department operate three very potentially profit-making operations—the post office, the telephone service and the telex system.
These are all potential money markers. Why are they losing so much and why are the losses increasing annually? As late as 1977 the postal service was making a profit. The prediction for 1980 is that losses will be heavy. The estimate given by some sources in the Department is that it will be around £14 million. The loss in 1979 was given as £12 million. It was an extraordinary change from 1977 when the postal service made a profit to the loss making situation in 1979 where there was a loss of £12 million. I am aware that 1979 was a difficult year. The difficulties were extreme in that we had a protracted and very unnecessary postal strike. But that is not the whole story because, according to the information given out here during Question Time, the strike cost the Post Office a total of £13 million in revenue but the savings as a result of the strike due to non-payment of wages and salaries amounted to £10 million. So the nett loss appears to be £3 million but the loss was actually £12 million.
The losses have a predictable trend. In relation to the whole telecommunications system, together with the postal service, the losses ranged from £19 million in 1978 to £29 million in 1979 and it is estimated that the loss will be as high as £33 million in 1980. According to a recent report from the Government Information Services, losses are expected to continue at a higher rate in 1981 unless increases such as those at present proposed by the Minister are introduced. In relation to that point there is one thing which irks me and other Members on this side of the House although it may seem petty; that is that this press release was issued last Friday week, 16 May, and it was not at any stage on that date or since made available to Opposition Deputies. It is the least the Minister might do, as a matter of courtesy, to let us have the relevant press release immediately it is made available to the press, especially when it concerns an area in which we are spokesmen.
We condemn these increases for the reasons that I have outlined. We fail to see why services which were profit-making three years ago when we were in Government have now become heavy loss makers. We have had nothing during the past three years from successive Fiannna Fáil Ministers except promises that the service is going to be improved, that we are in for a new era in the posts and telegraphs sector. These promises have not been fulfilled. The telephone and postal service are in a worse state today than they have been at any time during the past three years. As late as last Saturday, 24 May, we read headlines such as "Post Office Workers Morale at Lowest Ebb", in the Irish Independent, and “Morale in Post Office Lowest Ever”, in The Irish Times. The outgoing president of the Post Office Staffs Association, Mr. G.W. Biddulph, at their annual conference in Wexford said that last year's Post Office strike was the inevitable result of unrealistic industrial relations in a public service which has been brought to a point of collapse by uncaring people in positions of authority. That statement is very pertinent. He said also that this reflected an attitude of political rigidity by the responsible Government Ministers of the time towards pay in the Public Sector. He said that the terms under which the dispute had been settled had done little to redress the sense of grievance and hostility nurtured by the strikers during the 19 weeks of the dispute. That statement, while it may appear to be very strong, sums up the problem within the Department in a succinct manner. It is probably the underlying reason why the loss making situation within the Depart-ment which has increased over the past two years, would, were it not for these enormous increases of 20 and 25 per cent, continue to increase more and more as the years go on. Have we any guarantees that with these increases the losses will not continue at a greater rate than has been the case over the past three years?
There is an alarming trend which was brought home to us here last week at Question Time and that trend is the reducton in revenue within the Post Office. That reduction in revenue could very well be due to the increases which were brought in in recent years, the latest on 1 August and on 1 October last. Is there consumer resistance to the charges being made by the Post Office? That may well be the case. In reply to a Dáil Question here last week we were told that the revenue from the sale of stamps in 1978 was £40.5 million and that that had been reduced in 1979 to £30.6 million, a decrease of £10 million. I know there was a strike but, with increased rates in the Post Office and the subpost offices not being directly involved, we would have felt that the decrease in revenue from stamps sales would not have been of that magnitude, 33? per cent. Is there a tendency for the public to use the postal services here at a lesser rate than was previously the case? It may well be that that is correct and if it is it is an alarming situation because up to a couple of years ago we were proud to have the best postal service in the world. But, as was admitted in recent weeks by Mr. F. Quinn, the man who was put in charge of the interim board, An Bord Phoist, to look into the operations of the postal service, the public have lost confidence in the postal service.
The drastic delays which have been evident since the postal strike have given rise to a loss of confidence and consequent reduction in the usage of these services by the public. This is a very sad situation which has arisen because of inefficiency at the top and a lack of leadership and motivation. The Minister must heed the public who are saying more and more loudly that all we have had from this Minister and his predecessor are promises. There has been no improvement in the postal, telephone and telex services and the greatest deterioration has been in the telephone sector.
I am not dealing with fools and idiots and I will not insult their intelligence by describing how bad the telephone service is. We all know it is chronic. We wish the Minister to make a clear statement of his intentions with regard to improvements and to live up to that statement. Since the manifesto was published more than three years ago we have had nothing but promises of major improvements, but the reality is that the service has gone from bad to worse. As spokesman in this area for the Fine Gael Party I receive an ever-increasing number of complaints about the poor quality of service or the complete lack of service. If the Minister looks at today's Order Paper he will see a series of questions from Deputies representing a large number of constituencies regarding unsatisfactory telephone services, inconvenience being caused to industry and the public, and business being disrupted because of the poor quality of the telephone service. Some of these questions have been put down by Deputies from the Minister's side of the House.
There is no sign of an end to the deterioration which has been occurring. The Minister should state how he intends to arrest that deterioration and improve services. We are fed up hearing about the £650 million to which the Minister refers in his amendment. We have not seen any evidence of that money being spent. People working in the Minister's Department say that they have not adequate stores and cannot even get ordinary cabling wire used to connect a telephone to an exchange. They cannot even get telephone instruments. In many cases there are delays of up to six months and then they may not receive goods they have ordered. There seems to be a work-to-rule within certain sections of the Department which further accentuates these delays. The Minister must step in and improve morale and provide the necessary funds.
The Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, Deputy Killilea, told me last week in the course of replies to a number of questions that in one small rural area there was a waiting list of 440. In reply to another question we were told that the average waiting time was two years.