asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will consider extending the licensing period for citizen band radio on 27 MHZAM to 31 December 1983 in order to afford users the opportunity of eliminating interference on this frequency; and the estimated cost to his Department of operating the licensing system for CB radio.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Citizen Band Radio.
11.
The answer to the first part of the question is no and I would refer the Deputy to my reply to the debate on the Supplementary Estimate for my Department on 12 November (Vol. 330 No. 11 Col. 1975).
The answer to the second part of the question is £300,000 per annum (approximately).
How does the Minister propose to supervise and implement his proposals in relation to the licensing of CB radio when there is a generally accepted figure of 40,000 to 50,000 sets in the country whose owners, I am sure he knows, do not accept the regulations he is proposing? How does he, with the small staff available to him, hope to supervise it?
The Deputy asked me what was the cost of operating the licensing system. I indicated the cost which would include a system of inspecting which will obviously have to be made of the apparatus in use. I imagine the people operating this apparatus are law-abiding citizens who will not seek to evade their legal obligations, will not seek deliberately to break the law and will co-operate with the officers of the Department. I am sure Deputy Reynolds is at one with me in urging that co-operation.
Would the Minister accept it is a physical impossibility for his staff to supervise this operation? Would it not be more logical to go along with the system which I introduced and which he reversed, to give a two-year transition period with full co-operation from the CB users who number 40,000 to 50,000 to try to get a better solution than the one he is now proposing? His solution is bureaucratic; it was proposed to me earlier on and I did not accept it for the reasons I am now stating. If this system is going to be self-financing at a cost of £20 per annum for a licence, and he expects all CB users to get a licence, that will yield about £800,000 to £1 million. Where is the half million gap?
I consider the two-year extension for AM is unduly long, having regard to the high level of significant interference being experienced by a great number of people from the present use of AM sets. They are interfering with telephones, television and licensed radio telephones. Because of that, I do not think it right that something which is essentially a hobby should be given an extended life. Consequently, I have decided that there should only be a one-year transitional period. I expect the people who are using these sets to dispose of them within the year. It is a generous length of time and that year will be used by my Department for policing and inspecting sets in operation. The scheme will be self-financing and, as the Deputy said, the monitoring of the scheme may be a larger task than first envisaged. In that event, any extra funds will be very useful to pay for extra inspectors if we do not get the co-operation which I hope will come from users of this equipment.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, we all accept that there is interference there, but there is also interference on the FM system. I am sure the Minister has studied the technical reports that are there. Would he accept that there is interference on FM but that initial reports show that AM is slightly worse? Would he also accept that much of the interference is caused by bad connections on piped television and surely it was a more logical approach to have the two-year transitional period there so that most of the interference could be eliminated to give the opportunity to CB users to prove that AM does not cause any more interference than FM? I know the staff which is available to the Minister in trying to monitor that licensing system and I know he will not have the resources at his disposal to do that. I hope he will use the half million pounds extra to recruit extra technical staff into that area rather than pass it on as revenue to the Exchequer.
I am no more technically competent than Deputy Reynolds to assess the relevant merits of AM and FM. Both of us have to rely on the advice of people who are technically competent. It was a question of whether I preferred the advice of the technical officers of my Department to the representations from CB users. I preferred the technical advice from the officers in my Department. Deputy Reynolds obviously prefers the representations from the CB users. That is where we differ. I am satisfied, on the advice available to me, that the level of interference by AM is well nigh intolerable and must be ended as quickly as possible.
I do not accept the technical advice of the CB users against the advice of the Department. I will give names of technical engineers in the Department who do not accept the advice the Minister is giving to the House today and I will also give you the name of one of the most competent engineers in that Department, who has gone into private industry since, who will confirm what I am saying. The Minister is trying to impose a bureaucratic solution on the CB users and I do not accept it.
For political reasons, Deputy Reynolds ignored the coercive technical advice available to him.
Next question, please.