asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs when a telephone service will be provided for Balally community school, Balally, County Dublin.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Telephone Service.
3.
Service was provided on 2 December 1981.
4.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs when a telephone service will be provided for Coláiste Eanna, off Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.
In about a year.
In respect of the Coláiste Eanna school, will the Minister state if there is any possibility of giving priority to this application? The school has been waiting for a telephone for a considerable time and I am sure the Minister appreciates the difficulty involved in this instance. I am sure Members on all sides of the House would not object to giving the school a certain degree of priority. There were two recent occasions in the school where a phone was urgently required but it was not available for people in the school.
I would like to give the Deputy a more positive and definite reply. However, a cabling scheme on which the provision of a service is dependent is not expected to be completed until next year. That is the difficulty in this matter. If the cabling scheme is finished in advance of the projected date, there will not be any difficulty about the telephone.
Will the Minister indicate if there is any order of priority for schools? If there is an accident or an emergency in the school, the parents, the hospital or the fire brigade cannot be contacted. It is a very serious situation particularly in a school of this size and nature. I know there is great pressure on the Department to provide telephones in this area but surely the Minister could give some priority for this school?
I would like to be able to say yes to that. It is not our attitude to prevent people getting telephones. This application was made on 20 July 1979. I have been responsible for the Department since July 1981 and, therefore, the application was on the books for two years before I took over. I can assure the Deputy that every effort will be made to have this cabling work done as quickly as possible so that this and other telephones will be installed.
I appreciate the Minister's difficulty, but he has the power to instruct that priority be given for the installation of a telephone in a particular place. I want to stress the urgency and the necessity of a telephone in a case like this which is so sensitive to accidents, illness and so on.
The Deputy is repeating himself.
I am asking the Minister to review this situation and see if he can do anything to provide a telephone in the school.
I do not have the power to direct engineers in my Department to work miracles. We cannot provide a telephone for anyone unless there is cabling also and there is difficulty in providing cabling at the moment. If the Deputy wishes me to ask the engineers to see if there is a temporary way to provide a telephone earlier than the date anticipated at the moment I will have the matter considered. The Deputy does not have to push me on this. I would like to place on record that Deputy Shatter has been almost daily at my door about this and other telephone applications in the area. Perhaps if Deputy Andrews had exercised muscle when his party were in power we would not find ourselves in our present difficulties.
I regret that the Minister is seeking political advantage for his own colleague. I have made repeated representations to the Department regarding this school, but I only get acknowledgments. I am asking the Minister now to give priority to this application and to use his authority to ensure that an overhead line be erected if that is possible. I accept that the Minister has goodwill towards this school.
I am calling Question No. 5.