The Deputy was less than considerate of the views of the people when he agreed to the siting of the new post office. I want to redress that omission.
The Deputy was disappointed because he felt the issue of the Hoban stamp did not receive enough publicity. This was the first joint issue between ourselves and the US Post Office. Perhaps he was disappointed that it did not receive more attention from the media but there was a lot of publicity in the specialised stamp collecting world. There were advertisements in magazines in Canada, Great Britain and Germany and this was additional to the normal publicity regarding new stamps. Colour transparencies were sent to the three major television networks in the US and to RTE and black and white photographs, together with a press release, were sent to the major US newspapers. A special presentation album containing the Irish Hoban stamp was sent to the Irish Ambassador in America for presentation to the wife of the President and the US Postmaster General at a special ceremony in the White House. Special bulletins were also sent in connection with the Irish promotion in a New York store. It was unfortunate that the US Post Office were not able to issue their stamp simultaneously with ours.
I would like to take issue with the Deputy regarding the visit here of the US Postmaster General. We are very pleased to have such a distinguished visitor and I should like to put on record our appreciation of his assistance in this joint stamp project and in the postal scene generally. He is making his experience and advice available to the new postal board, for which we are very grateful. He was accorded the proper welcome according to normal protocol. I had the pleasure of showing him hospitality. He was also a guest here in the House for a formal presentation. Therefore, I have to reject the Deputy's suggestion that he did not receive the honour he was entitled to.
The Deputy asked about the postal museum. It is proposed to open it next year. Obviously, benefits will flow from that. Both he and Deputy Reynolds raised the question of stores. They said there had been a cutback on the issue of stores for the telephone development programme. I am glad to tell the Deputy that stores are freely available. The position is much better than it was. Obviously one cannot have an immense amount of equipment in all stores at all times because that would tie up a huge amount of money. Shortage of money to buy stores has not been a problem, though occasionally there will be shortages of particular items in particular stores. Because of the size of the operation that is nearly inevitable, but there is no overall shortage or squeezing in the important area of stores. Stores are basic to the speedy and orderly development of the telephone expansion programme, and this Supplementary Estimate is designed to ensure that.
One public demonstration of this will take place in Athlone in a couple of weeks when the new digital exchange will be opened, followed by another such exchange in Kells. Thereafter, there is a planned programme of digital exchanges to be opened through 1982. These exchanges, which will provide the very latest in telephone technology, will bring immense improvement in the variety and sophistication of the services that will be available to the public. The development this will bring will be immediately perceptible. I hope that from now on the perceptible improvement in our telephone service will do a lot to restore confidence.
Deputy Reynolds asked about mobile radio telephone. I am glad to tell him that tenders were invited some time ago. We are awaiting the closing of the tender date after which tenders will be examined and a contract awarded in due course. The same Deputy asked about a computerised directory inquiry service. There were industrial problems in this area but I am glad to say these appear to have been cleared up and I hope that the computerised directory inquiry service will be in operation in two to three weeks. It will bring immense commercial benefits with it and it will be a relief to staff because instead of having to pull out the directory and thumb through it they will be able to press a button and the information will be flashed on a screen and will be available immediately for subscribers.
Deputy Reynolds criticised the second paragraph of my statement in which I referred to the general financial context in which the Supplementary Estimate was required. He said it was unnecessary. I felt it was necessary to refer to the current deficit situation last July so that a Supplementary Estimate involving an important piece of financial expenditure could be seen in the overall context. The Deputy queried it as being merely a propaganda statement inserted gratuitously. That is not so. It was necessary to set the financial scene in which we are now coming to the House for money, and I was just explaining to the House why it was necessary.
As I said in my opening statement, the current deficit at the end of July — the borrowing for current purposes — had reached £457 million. That was almost 90 per cent of the target for the whole year. Deputy Reynolds wanted to know where the figure of more than £900 million for the whole year had come from. Clearly, if you have £557 million gone by 21 July, and that is 90 per cent of your target for the whole year, you must ask what will you be doing for the rest of the year. It is a fair assumption that if you did not do anything about it you would have to borrow the same amount again in the second half of the year, unless corrective action was taken. That corrective action was taken by the people in the election, and having regard to that mandate for the Government, that corrective action has had the effect of curtailing spending and it has also had to encompass some taxation, unfortunately, so that the runaway ship of the nation's finances could be brought under control again.
Deputies Reynolds and Killilea said that Supplementary Estimates are not new in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, a big spending Department. I take that point which has a certain validity, but there are items in this Supplementary Estimate that do not come within a contingency character. They are items which should have been foreseen because they had occurred year after year for many years. For example, the biggest item is in Subhead A which deals with salaries, wages and allowances. We are seeking an extra £20.6 million under that heading. I would point out to the Deputies that £20 million was cut from the Estimate originally presented at the beginning of 1981. When the 1981 budget was brought before the House the sum of £20 million had been cut in respect of salaries, wages and allowances. There is no provision in it for special payments even though, if the history of previous years had been looked at, it would have been quite clear to the Minister at the time and to the Minister for Finance at the time that that figure would be necessary.
That £20 million included £10 million for overtime. Overtime is not something new in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The Deputies were aware then that there is a heavy incidence of overtime in the Post Office, necessitated by the need to continue the expansion of the postal and telephone services and to deal with contingencies of the type Deputy Reynolds referred to, such as the incident in Clare Street some time ago when Dublin Corporation flooded the underground ducts and put the telephones out of action, and a large-scale operation had to be undertaken to get them repaired, involving a lot of heavy overtime. That was not something new and it should not have been any surprise to my predecessor and his Minister of State. They should have known that the cutting of £10 million from the Estimate would have meant that the Estimate presented to the House would be, to put it in the most charitable terms, less than realistic.
Subhead B deals with travelling and incidental expenses. We require £3.75 million under this subhead because of higher costs of travelling and subsistence. I would remind the Deputies that new subsistence rates had been agreed before the Estimate but were not calculated in the Estimate. The Deputy will notice that we are looking at an original Estimate figure of £7.9 million and we are now looking for an increase of £3.5 million, 40 per cent to 50 per cent. That is not just an unforeseen contingency. It is due to deliberate underestimation. As the Minister for Finance has pointed out at regular intervals, this feature of underestimation appears through every Department and must throw a lot of doubt on the financial probity of this year's first budget.
There are interesting figures in subhead D, which covers the conveyancing of mail. The figure which was provided in the 1981 Estimate was £5.18 million. We have to compare that with the figure which was the outturn under the same heading in 1980. In 1980, the figure was £5.09 million. So, in other words, when the 1981 Estimate came to be framed the Minister was aware that the outturn in 1980 was £5.09 million and yet all that was provided for 1981 was an extra £90,000. Having regard to the increased costs for the conveyance of mails by road, rail and air it must have been quite clear that it was an unrealistic figure and, in fact, a sum of £5.4 million was sought but this was cut back. So, again, we are looking now to restore more than was originally cut back. Under that subhead also the figure in the 1981 budget in last January, February or March, whenever it was, was unrealistic.
Under subhead E — Postal and General Stores, which encompasses within it the provision for buying post office vans — the amount we are seeking is £2.2 million and the amount that was sought at the beginning of the year was cut by £2.1 million, much the same as what we now have to come in and look for. Again, this was a figure that was, to be charitable, less than real. The estimate for 1981 under this heading was £7.3 million. The previous year, the outturn was £8.1 million. So, for 1981 under this critical heading of postal vans and other postal stores, the amount was actually reduced. That was hardly realistic budgeting and certainly I will not take criticism or worries from the Deputy opposite or from his colleague Deputy Reynolds, about our intentions towards keeping the postal service and telephone service going when they actually budgeted for a reduction of expenditure in this critical period.
We go then to subhead F where we are looking for an extra £7.3 million for increased expenditure on engineering stores. This subhead is complicated because it epitomises the point made by Deputy Reynolds: what should be capital and what should be vote? I agree with Deputy Reynolds that the Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is confused in that regard and that there are many items in the current Estimate which should be in capital. Deputy Reynolds said he was disappointed that it was not clarified and, of course, I too was disappointed. No doubt, there were good administrative reasons why it did not happen in the 1981 budget but hopefully we will be able to have this distinction made and the estimate position clarified for the 1982 budget. But, again, whether it is capital or vote, there is still a shortfall of £7.3 million, which is a substantial amount of money under the heading for engineering stores and equipment. Again, I think it is ironic that the Deputies should be expressing worry about my bona fides and my intentions towards the expansion of the telephone service when they deliberately left their own estimates short by these pretty substantial sums and when they knew they were leaving them short and presented the estimates as being real estimates. I must say they have totally destroyed their entitlement to criticise anybody else in regard to the development of the telecommunications services.
Again, referring to subhead K.3, which is only a small item by comparison with the other subheads—Office Machinery and Other Supplies—as I stated in the opening statement we need an extra £231,000 in order to meet increased rental on data processing machines and the purchase and lease of extra machines required for the extension of computerisation. Deputy Reynolds made great play about all the services being offered and the modernisation programme of the Post Office but, again, that rings hollow when we see this subhead, designed to improve the efficiency of the Post Office by making use of modern computer technology, being underestimated. It was actually cut by £270,000. The figure that the Department advised was necessary was cut by £270,000 at the beginning of the year and we are now in the position of coming in here for a supplementary estimate to restore that. We are now looking for £231,000. So as to counter Deputy Reynold's argument that the references in my opening statement to the fact that not enough was provided were political and merely designed for propaganda purposes, I have shown conclusively that they are factual, and as to his defence of the supplementary estimate on the basis that contingencies always occur—I admit that they do—I have demonstrated that the areas of shortfall in this Supplementary Estimate could not be put under the heading of contingencies, that is, something unforeseen. These were matters of historical experience that any Minister would know and indeed, his Department would have advised him, would have to be spent during the year, that these were commitments that would have to be met and yet, notwithstanding that knowledge and advice, the Estimate was cut and, again to use a charitable word, an unreal Estimate was presented to this House. That is why I am here this afternoon asking the House now to approve of these extra expenditures so that we can continue to expand and maintain the postal and telecommunications services.
