Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Apr 1983

Vol. 341 No. 11

Supplementary Estimates, 1983 . - Vote 41: Transport .

Minister for Transport (Mr. J. Mitchell)

: I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1983, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Transport, including certain services administered by that Office, for a cost alleviation payment and for payment of certain grants and a grant-in-aid.

This Supplementary Estimate is moved to fulfil my undertaking to the House on 3 March to have a full debate on the Transport Vote which on that day was passed without debate.

This Estimate is being discussed against a background of continuing sluggishness in the world economy. Indeed, 1982 was the third successive year of international recession. The Economic Background to the Budget, which was published by the Department of Finance, indicated that in the OECD area output declined marginally last year compared with 1981, while in the EEC output was virtually unchanged. World trade — on which this country depends vitally and to a much greater extent than many other countries — showed a fall of over 1 per cent in volume. The world economy continues to face uncertainty. Many countries have been concentrating on reducing inflation and improving public finances. The clear message for us in Ireland in all of this is that we must rely chiefly on our own efforts to put things right. The framing of Estimates can no longer be based on an expectation of some dramatic upturn in the world economy which will solve our problems for us. This is not going to happen.

As Deputies are aware, the central theme of the recent budget has been the need to come to grips with the gigantic problems of the public finances. In numerous areas of the public sector we can find examples which reflect a philosophy of putting off until tomorrow the measures which should be taken today or, more correctly, should have been taken yesterday. Both sides of this House and the community generally recognise that this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.

For some years now CIE's deficits have been increasing at an alarming rate. Among the many disturbing features of these deficits has been the fact that since 1976 the subvention provided for CIE at the beginning of each year has proved inadequate. In some years the subvention had to be increased not once but twice by supplementary Estimates.

On coming to office I found that a subvention provision of £86 million had been made by the previous Government for CIE for 1983. This subvention, at £22 million less than the board's deficit of £108 million in 1982, called for stringent economies in the board's activities in 1983. Deputies will appreciate that in the prevailing financial circumstances, the Government had no option but to accept that provision and to express determination that it must suffice for the year. In approaching the matter on this basis the Government realised that major economies within CIE were unavoidable.

In recognition of the constraints and complexities which the limit of £86 million on the subvention for 1983 creates, consultations with CIE in relation to the strategy to be adopted for 1983 are continuing. I hope that a satisfactory strategy will be developed very shortly. There are many challenges long and short-term for the Government as well as for the board, management and work force in CIE. Solutions to the financial difficulties in public transport must be found taking into account social ramifications and the level of real demand for transport services.

The need to innovate, and above all the need to develop a much sharper cost consciousness have, I feel, not been sufficiently to the forefront in recent years. I was criticised outside the House for remarks which I made earlier this year. As I have already explained, they were intended not to hurt or wound but rather to stimulate efforts for change which I believe are called for in the present general difficult economic situation.

Part of the new approach which I believe is necessary is to give positive recognition to the fact that much of CIE's losses are not losses in the normal commercial sense. We all know that many of the services operated at a loss by CIE are clearly not justifiable on commercial grounds because of their social significance. It is unfair, therefore, to castigate CIE for incurring deficits as if the board, rather than the social obligations placed on the board, are mainly responsible for the losses involved. Recognition of the true position can best be given by the introduction of an above-the-line accounting system. Inherent in such a system is the need to express in the board's accounts the amounts received in respect of uneconomic services as revenue rather than as a deficit. The above-the-line accounting system will make a major contribution to the improvement of morale in CIE. I am determined that my commitment to introduce such a positive development will be implemented as soon as possible. It would of course be wrong if I were to give the impression that the company with new thinking or a new approach can in some way be totally insulated from the general economic environment. Obviously CIE cannot be insulated from the effects of the recession.

The immediate financial difficulties have to some extent taken the limelight off the McKinsey Report and the need to make long-term decisions about our public transport services. These are issues which must also be faced and I plan to turn my attention to these longer-term issues at a later stage.

I should mention briefly the position in relation to CIE's capital programme for 1983. As I said in reply to a parliamentary question in February last an exceptionally high allocation of £60 million has been provided in the 1983 budget for CIE. The original allocation which had been made included a provision of £3 million for mainline rail projects. This provision gave rise to doubts in some quarters about the future of the mainline coach building project at Inchicore. I am very happy to be able to confirm that that project will get under way later this year, some adjustment having been made to the capital programme as originally published. New coaches from the Inchicore plant are planned, I have been told by CIE, to go into service in April 1984.

Before concluding these remarks on CIE, I wish to emphasise that I recognise that the 1983 subvention of £86 million is a challenge. However, it is not a challenge to CIE alone; it is a challenge which Government and CIE must face together. I would, therefore, urge not only the Members of this House but the work force in CIE and the community in general to acknowledge our current difficulties and to recognise that they cannot be resolved without sacrifices.

Of direct interest to CIE, my Department's Estimates also include provisions aimed at facilitating public transport operations and improving traffic flow generally in the Dublin area. A capital provision of £600,000 is being allocated towards the provision of further bus lanes and other bus priority schemes and towards the modernisation of traffic signals in the Dublin area. There are now 56 bus priority schemes in the Dublin area and surveys have confirmed that, without adversely affecting general traffic, they are helping significantly in reducing average bus journey times and in limiting variations in journey times. A further 20 or more schemes will be introduced throughout the city during the present year and, by year end, the bus-lane programme will be nearing completion. The traffic signal modernisation works which are also being funded by my Department involve the computerised linking of traffic signals in the city centre area. This is designed to achieve better co-ordination of signals, thereby reducing vehicle stop/starts.

Another area where computer technology is being employed for traffic management purposes relates to the development of computer based traffic management models for the Dublin area which will be of considerable assistance in the design and analysis of traffic management schemes. A 1983 allocation of £175,000 is included in subhead A2 of my Department's Vote for development of the traffic management model.

The solution to Dublin's traffic problems lies in a change of commuting modes from private car to public transport. Bus-lanes are part of a strategy designed to bring that change about. Other elements of the strategy include the electrification of the Howth-Bray suburban rail line, the modernisation of the Dublin city bus fleet, the implementation of a parking policy which discourages commuter parking in the city centre and the rigid enforcement of that policy. Steady progress is being achieved on these various aspects.

My Department's 1983 allocation also includes a provision of £250,000 as a grant-in-aid for the Dublin Transport Authority. Drafting of legislation providing for the establishment of the authority is almost completed and I hope to introduce the Bill in the current Dáil session. Assuming early enactment of the measure, it should be possible to have the authority established later in the year. The authority will have overall responsibility for the integrated planning and operation of transport in the Dublin area and I have no doubt, that within their functional area, the authority will give a considerable impetus to improving traffic conditions as well as helping to ensure that State investment in transport is optimised.

I would like to refer now to the road freight haulage industry. Road freight transport is responsible for about 90 per cent of all domestic freight transport. The CSO survey of road freight transport for part of 1979 indicated that the hire and reward sector accounted for almost 40 per cent of all road freight transport. This is quite significant when one bears in mind that the closest comparable figure for the 1964 survey was about 20 per cent for licensed haulage and having regard to the fact that the volume of goods carried by road increased three-fold over the period.

The most recent major development in relation to road freight haulage was the overall review of the industry carried out by the Transport Consultative Commission in 1980-81 at the request of the then Minister for Transport. The commission produced a wide-ranging and comprehensive report recommending that the liberalisation of road freight transport, initiated by the Road Transport Act, 1971, be completed within a period of two years. The commission also recommended the introduction of higher standards in relation to access to the industry, law enforcement and operational practice and safety procedures within the industry.

Since the publication of the report, interested parties were given opportunities to present their views on it and since assuming office I have met personally some of the main interests and have heard their position on the various aspects of the report. I am now in the process of formulating my policy proposals on the report with a view to having them considered by the Government at an early date. I am conscious of the need to have positive decisions on the TCC recommendations, so that the industry can plan for the future with some degree of certainty and so that the freight transport needs of the community can most effectively be met.

As Minister for Transport I am also generally responsible for our international transport links, the efficient operation of which is highly important to this country, the more so because of our island location and our higher than usual dependance on international trade and tourism. Access transport requires both the physical infrastructure of the harbours and airports, together with the equipment—ships and aircraft—of the companies which use the facilities. The necessity for sound and adequate access transport links is an important consideration in the policies pursued by my Department and in the formulation of the Transport Vote. The Government have made provision this year for capital expenditure on essential harbour works of 11.6 million which compares with an outturn of approximately £8.6million in 1982. The total amount of Exchequer assistance for harbours included in this allocation is £2.9 million comprising £1.5 million grant and £1.4 million Local Loans Fund monies. The balance of £8.7 million is being provided by way of commercial borrowing or from the harbour authorities' own resources.

The grant moneys cover works at a number of ports including Sligo, Arklow, Cork, Dundalk, Foynes, Galway, Tralee, Fenit and Wicklow. Half of the total provision of £1.4 million, Local Loans Fund moneys have been allocated towards the cost of extending the east jetty at Foynes Harbour. This project has also been allocated a grant of £300,000 this year. The balance of £0.7 million is in respect of other works at Cork, Drogheda, Waterford and Wicklow. Of the £9.7 million to be provided by the harbour authorities through either commercial borrowing or their own resources £5.2 million is for continuing work on the Dublin Port and Docks Board's capital development programme.

It is appropriate at this stage to turn to the State shipping companies and in particular to their financial situation. The B & I Company have been experiencing financial difficulties in recent years and have been returning losses since 1979. The losses were £1.1 million, £2.8 million and £7.54 million in 1979, 1980 and 1981 respectively. The estimated loss for 1982 is £9 million and significant losses are also forecast for 1983. The company received State equity of £5.4 million in 1981 and £7 million in 1982 which has been used as working capital. The company have requested further State investment in 1983.

The B & I Company have introduced a programme of economy measures since 1981 including a reduction in the frequency of services, disposal of surplus assets and reduction in personnel. On 2 February 1983, the B & I terminated the year-round Cork-Pembroke service which has been in a loss-making situation. The company will, however, be operating a summer service on the route this year from mid-June to mid-September.

The Government will be reviewing generally the financial position of the B & I shortly when the question of the company's request for further equity will be considered. I am very concerned at the continuing deterioration in the company's performance and their continuing dependence on Exchequer funding and I will be looking to the company to demonstrate that effective measures are being taken to reduce costs and improve performance.

Irish Shipping Limited are at present experiencing very serious financial difficulties stemming from their deep sea operations. The deep-sea freight market has always been subject to cyclical slumps but the company's ancillary activities were capable of generating sufficient profits to absorb losses in this area whenever they occurred. Over the past 12 months, however, the deep-sea freight market has virtually collapsed due basically to the world economic depression, resulting in a growing excess of shipping supply over demand. There has been a catastrophic decline in freight rates and the market situation throughout 1982 has been one of world-wide heavy losses by shipowners, bankruptcies, deferred delivery of new vessels and increased laying-up of vessels.

The net result is that Irish Shipping Limited are incurring substantial losses on their deep-sea operations, far in excess of the profits generated by their ancillary activities. The estimated losses for the company's financial year ending 31 March 1983 are likely to be in the region of £10 million and substantial losses are also forecast for the year ending 31 March 1984. The company's financial position is at present being examined in detail by my Department and I propose to make a comprehensive submission in the matter to the Government very shortly.

From maritime matters I will move now to aviation. A sum of £2.9 million is being allocated for construction works at the State airports for 1983. This represents an increase of £300,000 on the 1982 provision. Aer Rianta and my Department keep the adequacy of facilities at the three State airports under continuous review to ensure that any improvements necessary to cope with traffic growth, as well as with safety, security and general accommodation needs are introduced in good time.

The largest single capital project to be carried out at the State airports in 1983 will be the provision of an overlay on the main runway at Dublin Airport. Technical investigations have shown that the pavement of this runway is deteriorating. Some repair work was carried out during the autumn of 1982. In order to keep the runway in operation for a further number of years, its central traffic area is being resurfaced for its entire length with a bituminous overlay at an estimated cost of £1.2 million. Other projects for Dublin Airport include the provision of two new fire tenders, accommodation for snow and ice clearance equipment and improved fire safety facilities.

The apron at Shannon is being extended to provide an additional aircraft parking position for wide-bodied aircraft beside the terminal building. Associated with that project will be an extension to the pier building and the provision of an additional airbridge. Two new fire tenders are being provided for the airport. A new rapid intervention fire vehicle is also being acquired for Cork Airport.

Aer Rianta manage the State airports at Shannon, Dublin and Cork. Despite very difficult trading conditions, Aer Rianta recorded an overall trading surplus of close to £5 million in 1981 and their accounts for 1982 are expected to show a result of much the same order.

In looking at those results, it is, of course, important to bear in mind that, since capital expenditure at the airports is funded directly from the Department's Vote, the Aer Rianta accounts do not make provision for interest or depreciation charges. Instead, Aer Rianta make annual surrenders of their surplus to the Department. The surplus figure included in the current year's Estimates is £4.5 million, a figure which Aer Rianta are confident of achieving.

In traffic terms, 1982 was a difficult year. Nevertheless, a total of over four million passengers passed through the three State airports, representing an increase of 2 per cent over the 1981 figure. In financial terms, the performance of Shannon last year was particularly noteworthy. In that regard, it is pleasing to record that, after a number of years of fairly high deficits, Shannon returned to profitability in 1982. This turnaround resulted primarily from increased transit traffic, with the Aeroflot refuelling movements forming a substantial part, the hardening of the US dollar, a good year for the mail order business and a resurgence of charter traffic also helped.

Cork, despite high costs and poor traffic, was not too far off the target set by Aer Rianta, though it continues to record losses. The performance at Dublin was steady, with the duty-free shop in particular continuing to turn in a very good result. A noteworthy aspect of Aer Rianta performance in recent years has been the company's success in generating sizeable surpluses on commercial activities, such as the duty-free outlets, the mail order business and so on. These surpluses help to keep down the costs to airlines using the airports and, in turn, the costs of travel for the public. That is not to say that Aer Rianta can ignore their operational costs. On the contrary, the company must intensify their efforts to achieve economies and improve productivity while at the same time striving through aggressive marketing to increase traffic levels.

The year 1983 will clearly be another difficult one. Nevertheless, Aer Rianta are reasonably confident that the company's overall trading performance will match that of 1982.

In line with this Government's desire to ensure the safety and regularity of civil aviation and to continue to meet our international obligations, a provision of £3,100,000 is made in the Vote for my Department for expenditure in connection with the provision, installation and maintenance of electronic equipment for civil aviation and the marine coast stations and for power supplies. In addition to essential maintenance for existing aviation and marine installations, it is planned to replace equipment at the airports and coast radio stations and to provide new equipment in connection with the development of the marine coastal VHF network. A marine VHF communications service is now in operation through a VHF station located at Crockalough on the Inishowen Peninsula and remotely controlled from Malin Head coast radio station.

This station is the first of a pilot scheme of four VHF stations, remotely controlled from the existing coast radio stations at Malin Head and Valentia, to come into operation. The pilot scheme itself is the first step towards the establishment of a national maritime VHF communications network.

Apart from distress and safety communications, the new service will enable radio-telegrams and radio-telephone link-calls to be sent to and from vessels at sea. The range of VHF cover provided is in excess of 60 nautical miles from the station. The new service will be particularly useful for fishing vessels, pleasure boats and other vessels fitted with VHF equipment only.

In the light of the very difficult budgetary situation I decided to reduce the allocation for regional and local airports, as published in the Public Capital Programme in November 1982 from £4 million to £3 million. The bulk of the £3 million will be spent on meeting contractual commitments in relation to the Connacht Regional Airport with the remainder to be spent on grants towards minor planned developments at other local airports, including Sligo, Waterford and Abbeyshrule.

I dealt comprehensively with the position of Aer Lingus in the course of the recent debate on the Air Companies (Amendment) Bill, 1983. I would, however, draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Estimate for 1983 includes under a new subhead — subhead S — provision for the cost alleviation payment of £5 million to Aerlínte which forms an integral part of the financial restructuring package being put in place for the national carrier.

A development on the aviation front that has occurred since the Dáil debate on the Air Companies Bill has been my decision authorising Irish carriers other than Aer Lingus to initiate services on cross-channel routes. I refer to the decision which I announced on 16 March authorising Aer Arann to operate a number of services from Shannon and authorising Avair to expand their services from Dublin and Cork.

The Aer Arann project, which envisages the location of its operational base at Shannon will, I hope, lead to the successful development of a commuter operation centred on Shannon. The development can, I believe, add a further dimension to Shannon's operations, providing in the process greater flexibility of travel options for the Limerick-Shannon based executive, while at the same time providing new opportunities for the generation of additional transatlantic traffic from points such as Belfast and Manchester for Aer Lingus.

Avair have played a significant part in the development of internal air services, operating as they do services between Dublin and Derry, Dublin and Belfast, Dublin and Cork and Dublin and Waterford. They have also been authorised to operate between Dublin and Sligo. Since last year, Avair have been operating on the Dublin-Isle of Man route and my recent decision will enable the company to expand their operations, by serving the Dublin-East Midlands (Derby), Dublin-Blackpool and Cork-Jersey routes.

In referring to the aviation commuter scene, I must also mention Aer Lingus's recent decision to acquire a Shorts 330, 30 seater, aircraft. I welcome that decision both from the point of view of the opportunity which it affords Aer Lingus to continue serving routes such as Dublin-Liverpool which were becoming unprofitable in terms of jet operations and also from the point of view of the breakthrough in industrial relations which the development marks for the airline.

With the considerable State investment in regional airports, I see a clear need for the building up of efficient commuter-type services by Irish carriers and I hope that my decisions in respect of Aer Arann and Avair services, coupled with Aer Lingus's moves into turbo-prop operations, will all be helpful in that regard.

Last year all sides of the House welcomed the passage of the Transport (Tour Operators and Travel Agents) Act, 1982. The Act is an enabling one to provide for measures to regulate the travel trade and to protect the interests of the travelling public. I recently made the necessary implementing regulations and they have been laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas.

The regulations provide for the introduction of a statutory licensing and bonding scheme for the travel trade with effect from 1 November 1983. The six month lead-in period is necessary to ensure that there is ample time for the submission and examination of applications, the negotiation of bonds and the issue of licences in good time before the scheme comes into operation.

The new scheme is basically a consumer protection measure. It is being introduced against the background of a number of business failures in the travel trade in recent years, which gave rise to a growing amount of public unease. It is to the credit of the travel trade that, as a consequence of the public unease and pending the introduction of the statutory scheme, the Irish Travel Agents Association instituted a voluntary scheme for the travelling public. As Deputies will appreciate, that scheme covers only members of the association.

The new statutory scheme is a three tiered one. Firstly, all tour operators and travel agents will be required to hold licences. Secondly, as an essential prerequisite to the grant of a licence, each existing and prospective tour operator or travel agent will have to enter into a bonding arrangement to protect his clients in the event of inability or failure to meet overseas travel contractual obligations. A bonding level of 10 per cent of the projected turnover will apply to tour operators; in the case of travel agents there will be a 4 per cent bonding level. Thirdly, a travellers protection fund, to be financed by contributions by tour operators, will be established as a supplement to the bonding arrangement.

This means that from 1 November next a tour operator or travel agent trading without a licence will be acting illegally and will be subject to prosecution. The legislation provides for severe penalties for illegal trading and other offences.

The launching of the new scheme marks the culmination of a significant amount of work carried out by my Department in close association with the Irish Travel Agents Association and other sectors of the travel trade and other interests. A feature of the work was the constructive attitude taken by the travel trade and other interests, for example, the banks, insurance companies and the Director of Consumer Affairs in giving assistance and advice. I want to take this opportunity to record my deep appreciation of their valuable contributions in bringing this new measure to fruition.

I have decided in principle to set up a small advisory committee representative of the travel trade and the other main interested parties to advise my Department in the administration of the new scheme. The precise functions and membership of the committee have yet to be settled.

To finish, I have a few general remarks about the transport industry. Transport operates over water, in the air and on land. Centuries of rights of passage and navigation, along with the traditional major contribution of private shipowners, have given transport on the sea and even inland waterways an independence and freedom which are rare in today's highly regulated world. In the air it is different. For a variety of reasons including economic, strategic and safety considerations, all Governments maintain strict control over the airspace over their territories, and regulate both the operation of commercial air routes and the use of the supporting ground based infrastructure. The railway is unique in having its own exclusive infrastructure reserved in virtually all countries to State-owned railway undertakings; the road, on the other hand, is in one manner or another open to everybody and is more or less total in its national spread. The needs of transport users vary enormously. A pensioner living in the country area, a city commuter, a manufacturer who need to have bulk chemicals carried by road tanker, an American tourist, an exporter of perishable goods, an importer of coal, all differ from each other. And every demand problem is confronted by its mirror-image on the supply side, in the range and volume of equipment, from specialised to multi-purpose required to meet those needs.

The effect of the mix of media, modes, demand and supply is to create not a single transport market, but a vast number of separate markets or sub-markets contained within the overall transport sector.

It is difficult to imagine a single approach which could effectively be applied to all these sub-markets.

This is particularly the case at the present time, given the range and diversity of problems in the transport area. My present priority is to get to grips with the immediate needs in the different areas I have touched on. But I am conscious also of the need to develop a general view of the role of transport in the economic and social life of the country and of the policy needs and investment implications that arise from that. I hope during my term of office to develop and implement the policies which will adapt the industry to our needs as they vary henceforth in terms of volume and character.

I commend these Estimates to the House. When I took office I was advised by my Department that never before had any Minister taken office when so many crises in the transport area arose together. There are crises in shipping, in air companies and in CIE. These crises are arising at a time when the Exchequer is itself in crisis and least able to help. Therefore, in that context, the problems facing us are very formidable. I hope we will have the goodwill and help of all sides of the House in confronting and overcoming those problems.

Mr. Wilson

: I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Estimate for the Department of Transport. I am aware there are difficulties; crisis is a strong and emotive word, but there are difficulties and it is the intention of this side of the House to aid the Minister in any worth-while projects he may have in mind. We have a sub-committee of the parliamentary party studying the various aspects of transport and our intention is to be constructive.

I wish to refer to the planning unit in the Department of Transport, especially their role vis-à-vis State bodies. This fits into the proposal to make an aireacht and executive with distinct roles and not to have so much time spent by policy-makers on the executive functions. This planning unit was set up for the analysis and review of existing policy, and the Minister has been dealing with that in his speech. I was a little disappointed when the Minister referred to various proposals that were already at a very advanced stage. He seemed to indicate they were still under consideration in many instances. It would be unfair of me to be critical of him since he has not had very much time in office but I hope that some of the areas will get priority, which they do not seem to have been getting, and that legislation will be brought before the House.

The planning unit is specially charged with the appraisal of the performance of State-sponsored bodies and also with long-term research. The Minister emphasised how important it was to look at the activities of State-sponsored bodies, many of which are under the aegis of his Department. This will become increasingly important and it will also be necessary to decide, from a philosophic point of view, what exactly is required from each State-sponsored body. Is it the naked, capitalistic approach? Is it a softer approach, taking account of employment and social needs or is it a judicious mixture of both? This unit in the Department will be very important to the Minister in what he has set out to do. The planning unit has seven members altogether and I gather that from last December, which is a significant month, until next December, which might be significant also——

Mr. Donnellan

: What was significant about last December?

Mr. Wilson

: I would not presume to enlighten the junior Minister. If he does not know, I have no foundation upon which to build. Two members from the planning unit are on secondment to the ESRI. I submit that that is one unit that should be strengthened and given muscle, particularly because of the role that is envisaged for it. I must also call attention to the fact that there is a post for assistant secretary vacant in the Department of Transport. It was vacant when I was Minister and unless the Minister has appointed an assistant secretary recently, it is still vacant. I accept that the vacancy was there when I held office but it is a shortsighted policy to leave this position vacant. The Minister should exert pressure to have that post filled. I understand the situation with regard to recruitment but an important position should be filled because if left vacant it will do more damage than the actual cost of the position being filled. Therefore, I begin by recommending that the Minister have a look at the planning unit, at its personnel and its strength, and give them the raw material, so to speak, to do their job the importance of which was underlined by the Minister himself in his speech.

I would like to know the present position with regard to the equity and borrowing guarantee of the company. We are well on into 1983 now and the Minister referred to the 1983 position. Has he general ideas about the amount of equity which will be available for B & I this year, or is it necessary to increase the upper limit for borrowing? We had a parliamentary question in the House recently on the Cork-South Wales connection and I ask the Minister again to give me in his reply his views on the possible extension of this service when the summer service has been assessed from the point of view of profitability and the tourist element taken into consideration. Also a question which I would like answered, and which I put by way of supplementary question in the House, is how was the loss on the Cork-Pembroke run assessed? How were the losses separated from the general losses in the Department of Transport? I was never satisfied that that could be done or was being done adequately by the board. To come back to the planning unit, I was not 100 per cent satisfied that we could do it in the Department because we depend on secondhand information.

I would like the Minister to let the House know if there has been an inquiry and a tightening up of the financial controls of the ships of B & I. Is he satisfied that the controls are adequate? Has any thing come to light which would cause unease and which would affect the taxpayers, who in the end are providing the equity and guarantees for borrowing? The Dublin-Holyhead service got under way last year after considerable difficulty which involved a mini-war in the Irish Sea, not quite as important as the War of Jenkin's Ear but a minor war at Dún Laoghaire and Holyhead. How is the service going financially? How successful is it? Is it being used? How are we managing to compete with Sealink on almost the same route the Dún Laoghaire-Holyhead route?

I have very great respect for the chairman and board of B & I. The company have always said that they were at a disadvantage in that in the northern Irish Sea they could not compete on a short route. They are now doing the Dublin-Holyhead route. I would like to know how they are managing. I would like to know about the fairness or otherwise of trading on that route. Is there any attempt, as there is in other places, to undercut by Sealink — or B & I for that matter, though I would be inclined to look more tolerantly on that one? Is there anything of gifts or give-aways to affect the customers who use these services? Sealink have been advertising very heavily. There were considerable difficulties in the setting up of this B & I service. A good deal of diplomacy had to be deployed in the setting up of it and in the end we had to get the goodwill of not merely the Sealink company but of the workers at Holyhead. I would like a general report on how the service is progressing.

The last time I heard about Jetfoil at Arklow attempts were being made to sell or lease it. It is a great pity that that service was not a success because it was comfortable, efficient and fast. Anyway, for the best commercial reasons it was decided to withdraw it. I would like to know the position with regard to the Jetfoil itself. Has it been turned into money on either a lease or direct sale?

What is the position about the roll-on/roll-off service to Fleetwood and the ro-ro service to Rotterdam, Le Havre and Bremen?

Irish Shipping were the next company dealt with by the Minister. We all know how good a record Irish Shipping had and how proud Irish Shipping themselves, the Irish people and this House here were of their record up to comparatively recently. The difficulties of deep-sea operations and tramp operations were so great when I was leaving office that Irish Shipping were beginning to panic. I would like to know the position now with regard to Irish Shipping. Again, I detect in what the Minister said a kind of holding operation strategy. I would like him to give us more detail on the equity, borrowing requirements, borrowing guarantees and so on that he envisages for 1983. Could he tell us what the delivery date of the Irish Spruce is? It is covered by a subhead here. We are led to believe that the delivery date will be in 1983. As the House knows, that ship will be used for the transport of coal to the new coal-burning ESB station at Moneypoint. It is important from the point of view of the economics of it for this House to know when we can expect delivery.

I regret that there is no deal with Harland and Wolff. The leader of this party, Leader of the Opposition, made stringent recommendations and valiant efforts to have a contract placed with Harland and Wolff. This will carry not merely economic overtones but political overtones as well, especially in the light of the involvement of Irish Shipping with the Belfast Car Ferry Company Limited and the use of the St. Columb. It would help to improve matters for Harland and Wolff on the one hand and in the political arena also. Speaking from memory, I think that Irish Shipping have a 49 per cent interest in the company on the Belfast-Liverpool run. I would like to know how they are faring now.

There is no immediate sign of an improvement in the deep-sea business. The amounts of money available for tramp work were only about half the running costs when I left office. Has that position improved since? Has there been any change in the respective strengths of Irish Shipping Limited and the Allied Irish Banks in the Ocean Bank Company? These are questions the House could be enlightened on and perhaps the Minister will deal with them. I want to emphasise that Irish Shipping Limited had a good track record. The experts say that not even in the worst depressions has the business been so badly hit as it was during this international recession.

The Minister dealt with Aer Lingus. As everybody knows who has an interest in this area, the problem is the North Atlantic service, where the losses are colossal. From memory, in 1982 there were losses of £10 million and about £10 million interest on borrowings. This is frightening. It is doubly frightening when there is a company looking for permission to fly the Atlantic for £99 sterling out of London. The scheduled air companies cannot hope to compete with that operation. I do not know what has happened to the application made to the United Kingdom Government, whether it is still under consideration or has been turned down, but if this service can be provided it will put at naught the work that was painstakingly done by ECAC some time ago and it would rock still further the North Atlantic service provided by Aer Lingus.

It is the communis sensus that that particular service should be retained and no doubt it has caused great anxiety to all Governments. On purely commercial considerations the service should be scrapped, but is there any such thing as a purely commercial basis? People in the IDA say the presence of Aer Lingus is important for them and their activities in the United States. Bord Fáilte have a stronger case, which is more apparent to the ordinary observer, and there is the question of national prestige. Admittedly, national prestige will not butter any parsnips; but it is an important consideration, particularly when one takes into the account the history of that service.

When I was in office if I remember rightly the European services were breaking even. I would like to know what is the position in 1983. Admittedly, we are only coming into the heavy season, but perhaps the Minister might be able to say how the European services are faring. Another question worth putting and another point worth considering is this: what impact will the reduction in the price of fuel have? Particularly on the long routes, the cost of fuel was a very significant factor. What happened since 1973, when the Arabs began to demand an equitable price for their oil, is that fuel costs have been a significant factor in the losses incurred. Some time ago I put down a question about passing on these reductions to companies like CIE, but I am beginning to look with a jaundiced eye on that kind of situation. When the taxpayers are being asked more and more to subsidise losses in these companies we, in this House, will have to be able to give answers to questions we did not answer before, because we did not want to interfere with the workings of a particular semi-State company. That was a wise decision at that time, but there is a change in thinking now. If the money has to be provided by the Exchequer, there should be full answers to all these questions in this House.

We had a £10 million, £10 million, £10 million situation with a £5 million cost alleviation guaranteed over a three-year period. Has there been any change in that position? The boards of Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta have been very chary about the word "subsidy". I approve of their chariness, but the £5 million is a fall of subsidy. Some kind of raison d'etre was suggested for it by the fact that two airports had to be used and a number of other factors were mentioned, but it is something the boards find distasteful. I cannot see the North Atlantic route becoming profitable in the very near future. There has been a good deal of head scratching about staffing, efficiency and so on, but even after the end of the three-year period of the £5 million per annum cost alleviation provision that service may be in trouble. Again, there will have to be full accountability to this House.

In the various studies made on Aer Lingus there were suggestions about asset disposals. Everybody agrees with the general principle that, if an asset is making a profit that is helping to negative losses in other areas, the asset should not be disposed of lightly. At the same time, it has been argued that, while profits have been made, they were not commensurate with the amount of the investment. This is an area which has to be strictly observed. This applies to certain ventures in which Aer Lingus are involved. I speak of the complex in Surrey, the real estate purchase in the Canaries — we have received news releases recently of partial disposals and so on — and the hotels, the Dunphy chain and the Tara. I always had strong views about the hotels and believe they should be the last to be interfered with. I do not know about the Paris one, whether it is producing a profit for the company. I am pleased about the deal with Shorts on the 330. The Minister went into a beautiful poetical flight of fancy when speaking about the freedom of the sea and about the air being restricted——

Mr. J. Mitchell

: The Deputy's influence still exists in the Department when it comes to poetry.

Mr. Wilson

: The Minister referred to the Transport (Tour Operators) Act, 1982. I have very strong views on this. I did not yield to the advice of the Department at any time that the scheme could not be brought in on 1 April. I did not agree with senior officials, although they were more than persuasive. At no time did I say that a date later than 1 April should have been picked for the operation of the scheme. The Minister referred to it in his speech, saying that the period was to give time to get the whole thing under way.

I should like to know why not April rather than November. There was a further collapse this year. The collapse in itself was a great tragedy for people who had put their money together as an investment in a holiday but who found themselves lying on mattresses in hotel lobbies, being insulted by hotel managers, being thrown out on the streets, with the section of the Department dealing with that matter working around the clock and with diplomatic personnel involved. Apart from anything else, it gives a poor image of a country which makes a big pitch in the tourism field and which sells this country fairly well and has been doing so for a number of years.

If all the newspapers in Espana are full of news about Irish tour operators who cannot pay their bills, of Irish citizens hanging around the streets or being accommodated on charity in hotel public rooms, the country and its economy are being damaged. I should like the Minister's officials to check on whether an individual involved in some of those collapses is operating again in this city. I do not want to be an alarmist but I have been told by a man whose judgment I respect that an individual involved in a number of collapses is still operating in some shape or form.

I was particularly afraid of that kind of thing when I tried to bring forward this scheme to 1 April lest the whole sad story be repeated. I sent an official from the Department to an office in Dublin to buy a holiday. The vendor was nowhere to be found and all his holidays had been sold. We should be careful about those cowboys and ensure they do not embarrass our citizens or our country during the summer until the scheme gets under way in November. I know there are difficulties. I know there is a fund, but I understand a fairly large wallop was taken out of that fund recently and that the fund has been badly damaged. Therefore, we cannot afford to take any risks. How long will the money in the fund last? The amount allocated for the Act is included among the subheads as if the money would be coming in before 31 December. How much money will be in between 1 November and 31 December, or will the residue in the fund, if any, be transferred to the new general fund?

The Minister made an enlightened move in increasing the permissions for flights by Aer Arann and Avair. I hope these will be successful. I note a reduction in the subsidy for internal air services and I should like to know if the Minister has any information about the Dublin-Derry run and whether he thinks the amount he has provided, less than half what I had intended to provide, will be adequate to maintain that service, which, like the deal with Harland and Wolff over the ship for coal transportation, carries with it not merely economic and social overtones but political ones as well.

I think the Federal Express idea has gone cold or is dead. The Minister should try to get a movement going again because it would be a marvellous boon for Shannon.

The Minister rightly praised Aer Rianta and their achievements over the years. He pointed out that the sums of money paid back are always welcome. I have not known the Department of Transport to return that money or to refuse to accept it. It is good to be getting it. The Minister rightly pointed out that servicing of capital works is not taken into consideration because the Department themselves fund those.

Deputy Burke last week raised the question of the new departure at Dublin Airport and the allocation of the catering franchise to SAS. He objected very strenuously to that, and I can see his point. What is there at the moment is only a tatty exercise. It is not worthy of Dublin Airport in the eyes and minds of people who knew the original Aer Rianta catering at Dublin Airport. It was used as a kind of show piece. The cuisine, the service, the general welcome and the quality of what was provided helped Bord Fáilte to establish a certain image. I do not know what happened since then.

I remember the time when you had to queue or order a long time ahead to get service in the Dublin Airport restaurant. When the parliamentary question came up here, Deputy Haughey suggested that, instead of giving it to SAS, Aer Rianta might consider trying to establish a centre of quality from the point of view of a cuisine and general service restaurant in Dublin Airport. If the Minister would at least ask the board of Aer Rianta to consider it, this would be desirable. I do not know whether the contract has been signed with SAS, or whether what I am talking about could not exist alongside it, but at least it should be considered.

The main provision is for the main runway at Dublin Airport. I have an idea there was a reduction in it. I have not got the Book of Estimates with me. There were two sets of Estimates and there was a reduction in the amount. Is the Minister satisfied that enough money has been provided for that very important main runway? I gather from the Aer Rianta people that this is becoming a matter of urgency.

I come now to CIE. The Minister rightly says provision was made by us in the Book of Estimates of £86 million for the subventable activities of CIE. He has accepted that figure. On examination of the Book of Estimates, the House will see that the railways scoop nearly the whole lot. I presume the planning unit, McKinsey and so on, noted that. This deterioration has been very sudden, if you like. It doubled and trebled. As the Minister rightly says, sometimes twice a year CIE have been coming to the Government looking for more money.

It enrages me that a whole area of the country is not served by railways. There is a whole sector of taxpayers who do not get a halfpenny of benefit from this large expenditure by the State. A deliberate decision was taken many years ago to deprive one whole area of railways. Even if the railway tracks had been left and maintained, this would have been good economics. If anything has to be closed down in the future, the maintenance of the tracks at least should be considered. When I was in the Department of Transport I was told this would be quite expensive. Nevertheless it would be a good investment.

It could not be as expensive as what has happened in my own area where the burden was thrown onto the roads. A promise was made that extra money would be made available for the making of roads once the railways were removed. That promise was kept for two or three years and then forgotten. The result is that there are inadequate roadways and inadequate infrastructures in that whole area. It makes people angry to see that this huge sum, perhaps £75 million or £76 million of the total subvention when you examine it carefully, is going to the railways.

There are complaints about the quality of roadways where the rail link exists. The Dublin-Drogheda-Belfast link exists, but people are complaining that that roadway is taking punishment beyond what it is able to bear. Those are the words of an expert. I should like to know how much freight, if any, is carried by the Belfast-Dublin line in either direction. Could we not do what the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany are doing and encourage, almost force, the use of the railways?

There is no doubt that the Minister has a serious problem with CIE. This problem should exercise the minds of everybody interested in transport over the coming couple of years. We took a decision on the electrification of the Howth-Bray railway line and £40 million is being provided this year. We took a right decision. I hope when it is ready, a decent marketing job will be done on it, and that it will be in full use. It is a marvellous facility.

The Minister said we should be gearing ourselves to substituting public transport for private transport and that is the way the scene should go. I agree with him. This will be a marvellous service. I hope the board of CIE will sell it fully and that it will be in full use. We need aggressive, efficient marketing, and marketing in off-peak times exploiting the various beaches, places of amusement, resorts and whatever along that line. If that cannot be made to pay, we may throw our respective hats at it.

I should like to hear from the Minister about the Bombardier bus operation. As the Minister knows, when I was Minister a crisis developed. Bombardier exceeded their remit. They doubled the production they were originally designed for and, like their mother-in-law, CIE, they were coming with open hands for more and more money.

As the House remembers, staff were laid off. The last time I was in touch with the story they were all to be taken back, but an agreement was to be made with the unions that the actual numbers would be run down so that, in effect, where they were producing ten buses before, they would be producing five per fortnight I think. I should like to know what the exact position is at the moment. There was controversy about the arrangement between CIE and Bombardier. Bombardier have everything to gain and very little to lose in the whole set-up as far as I can make out. In fairness it must be said that the Bombardier bus has been a success. As I was told in the Department of Transport, and as I presume the Department were told by CIE, the availability of the Bombardier bus was very high indeed. There was talk that they were expensive on fuel and there was some question about the engines. As money is provided by this House it is only right that we should know how things are going now.

A frustrating point and something I referred to earlier is the availability of information to the Department of Transport and the right of the Department to get information. The only way to look at it is the historic way: when organisations were set up an effort was made not to have political interference in the broadest sense in the running of the company. However, as more and more of the taxpayers' money is put into such companies, this House has the right to know how the money is being spent. In the case of Bombardier, the question is, have they succeeded in getting export orders, as I was told they would get when I was in the Department.

The McKinsey Report was a valid and good exercise. The House has already been told there were some difficulties with regard to co-operation from various interested bodies at the time the report was being put together. In another context during the week the Minister referred to difficulty brought about by quick changes of Government and I agree with him. I think the McKinsey report came out when there was a change of Government and there have been two changes since then. That does not make for an easy implementation of the whole or part of the McKinsey Report.

As the House knows, there was a recommendation that a national rail company be set up. In the light of what I have said that the major part of the subvention goes on the rail service and the fact that that service is not available to many people, the setting up of a national rail company would require very deep study. Its objectives would have to be set down carefully and adhered to. Again, the major question would be with regard to its philosophic foundation. Would it operate only where it would make a profit and what would happen to the remainder of the country? Mistakes were made in the past. Most people now believe that the closing of suburban lines in Dublin city was a mistake. People who carried out the closure are prepared to defend it still but generally it is believed, having regard to the huge growth of this city, that mistakes were made.

The setting up of a Dublin city bus company is highly relevant to the decision to establish a Dublin Transport Authority. I will have something to say about a Dublin Transport Authority in a moment but a Dublin city bus company would fit well into the idea of a transport authority. The third recommendation in the report was that there should be a national provincial bus company servicing the provinces.

It is only fair to say that the Minister has not had very much time to deal with all matters. However, in a number of cases there seems to have been an element of procrastination and the Minister has decried this. I know there will be difficulties and I realise that the temptation on this side of the House will be to exploit those difficulties, just as I would expect the Minister to do if he were on these benches. Despite the exigencies of adversary politics, there must be a consideration of what is best for the country in the area of transport. One thing that is becoming clearer is that a decision cannot be delayed indefinitely.

I wish to refer to another area of operations, namely, OIE. I see that the Belfast hotel was sold. I may have a question on that matter on the Order Paper, although I am not sure if I left it in the office. I wish to ask the Minister if he had been consulted and if the experts in his Department are satisfied that an adequate price was received for the hotel. I do not blame the people who had the idea of having an hotel in Belfast. That city was not noted for its hotels and when the decision was taken the tourist business was going very well. Everything has gone wrong politically since then. This caused the hotel to close and it never became really effective. There was a boom in tourism, violence was not endemic in the city at that time and the decision taken was a good one. I should like to know if the board consulted the Minister all along the line about the sale. Again, I am getting back to the matter of responsibility.

I should like to know Government policy with regard to the rest of those hotels. When I was Minister I called for a confidential report on the Killarney, Galway, Parknasilla, Corrib, Rosslare and Torc Hotels. I got that report and I do not intend to break that confidence here. However, the scene as I read it was a poor one. I know that employees and the trade unions were very worried about the situation. Has the Minister made any policy decision with regard to these hotels because, again, the taxpayer has a right to know? They were very near the edge, if my memory is correct.

The Minister mentioned road hauliers and the report by the TCC on Road Haulage. I do not intend to go into any detail. The Minister has said that he has met some of the interests. I met all of the interests at one time or another in my short time in the Department. Here again, there will be very strong pressures from vested interests and nobody would like to deny an organisation with a vested interest their right to push their case as hard as they can. It is wise to come down on the side of liberalisation of the road haulage business. It is important to come to some quick decisions, to bring in legislation quickly, because people are in a quandary.

I am sure that I am not the only Member of this House who has been approached in good faith over the last year or two by people who are wondering whether they should invest in a haulier's plate. Only very recently a man said he was being offered a haulier's plate for £8,000 and asked for my advice. I said "Take it easy, now. What I will do is write to the Minister for Transport asking how soon legislation may be brought in to liberalise the road transport situation, because I shall then be able to tell you how long you have to make a profit plus £8,000. Your £8,000 investment will be practicably wiped out if the transport scene is liberalised fully". This is the dilemma of young people who are anxious to get into this business at the moment. The recommendation is there and I would like some idea of the Minister's thinking on the matter. The regional technical colleges and, if my memory serves me correctly, the College of Commerce in Rathmines deserve our commendation for having put on courses in order to qualify people with a certificate in competence which will be necessary in the future.

With regard to the harbours, the House recently had an opportunity of getting some information in reply to a parliamentary question about the deep sea facility at Ringaskiddy, Cork. I cannot and will not agree that the Minister was right in cutting out the allocation for this facility as he has done. We all embarked on austerity in various ways. Our plan, The Way Forward— and we are not trying to deny it — contained considerable austerities in the field of current expenditure. I took the trouble to visit Ringaskiddy and a half-sighted man would see its potential. The natural resources there, which only need to be exploited, are considerable and very impressive. The people who have in mind the industrial development of the area have a large industrial site right beside where this facility was to be provided.

I know that the Minister has used the word "defer", with the implication that the whole project will be revived. One is inclined to grasp at straws of hope in a situation such as this. I am appealing strongly to the Minister even now to reconsider that decision. People have tried to minimise the case for industrial development by saying that there are no major industries which would be using the facility yet. However, the people who are selling the industries, even in an international recession, had this as a very proud facility about which to boast, to use as bait to lure people to this development.

Complaints have been made about the roadway system there, but that is not an insuperable obstacle. Ní fál go haer é — as the saying goes. We all know the potential of Cork. Some say that Dublin was and Cork will be. I do not know if I would go along with that. A great deal of the hopes of heavy development in Cork was pinned on that facility in Ringaskiddy. All I can do is make the appeal.

I return to the Dublin Transport Authority Bill. The Minister said he believed he would be able to establish this authority by law in 1983. I had a press conference on 29 July 1982, indicating that the Government had decided to go ahead with this authority. I spent a good deal of time on the preparation of this Bill and a great deal of work had to be done at departmental level, and very delicate negotiation with other Departments. An extension of the power of the Minister for Transport was involved in the Bill. When one has an extension of power of any Minister or Ministry, the corollary is that there is a diminution of somebody else's power. Therefore, it is difficult to achieve a consensus. However, when in Government, we did achieve that consensus. We put the heads of the Bill together and sent it, in July 1982, for drafting.

I know the Minister — when wearing his other hat — has another Bill to deal with, the Posts and Telegraphs Bill, setting up the two boards. I know the pressures of the Department and I would be somewhat afraid that the Dublin Transport Authority Bill would get lost in the legislative line-up because nowadays it is a matter of elbowing one's way through with a Bill. It is a Bill of great importance and significance. I might say here that we should thank the task force for what they have achieved. The Minister referred to the task force in his speech also. They had achieved a good deal of what would be the kind of fulltime business of the Dublin Transport Authority. For their achievements, particularly with regard to bus lanes and so on, they deserve the gratitude of this House and particularly of the citizens of Dublin. Being the capital city, Dublin city is everybody's city and we should recognise what they have achieved. The motivation behind my interest in the Dublin Transport Authority and the preparation of the Bill emanated from the fact that the Task Force, without statutory backing, had almost reached the end of its usefulness. It was felt that the Dublin Transport Authority could give strength in bringing about certain improvements in transportation in the city of Dublin. Of course the idea of the authority derived from the study made and mentioned already. The people who undertook that study have already been adequately thanked and appreciated by the Legislature.

Could the Minister give me an indication of the time schedule with regard to the Dublin Transport Authority Bill? I know what he has said but could he give me some idea when we are likely to have the Bill before the House. I am not just nit-picking on this. I am simply placing it in the context I have mentioned already, namely, that when one has important Bills — and in the transport area, this is the most important one for some time — it is imperative that it should not be elbowed out of the way. Perhaps if we kick up a fuss here we will be helping the Minister to get it placed high on the order list, so to speak, for legislation.

I have two words written down here —"Mount Gabriel". Would the Minister let me know what happened with regard to Mount Gabriel? First of all, is is costing us anything? I think I remember from the time the explosion took place that somebody gave me the information that it was not insured. Is it costing the State anything? Is it being restored? At whose expense is it being restored? There was a meeting held in Brussels at which the general thrust was that it should be restored as it provided a very necessary facility in that area, covering, as it does, the southern section of this country well out into the Atlantic.

I agree with the Minister when he says there are very significant problems in the transport area. Some of my colleagues will be dealing with specific areas. It is my wish that the Opposition be as responsive as possible so that these great problems may be solved. Also we should like to advance our ideas, deriving from our sub-committee — Deputy Cowen and myself have this sub-committee going — for consideration by the Minister and the Department.

Tá súil agam i gcúrsaí iompair go mbeimid ábalta comhoibriú, go mbeimid ábalta cuid des na fadhbanna atá ag goilliúint ar an tír ó thaobh an iompair de d'fhuascailt. Tá sé tábhachtach ó thaobh fhorbairt eacnamaíochta go mbeidh fuascailt na bhfadhbanna sin ann. Tá sé indéanta; tá súil againn go léir, go mbeidh an ghéarchéim i gcúrsaí eacnamaíochta sa domhan go coitianta thart sar i bhfad. Nuair a bheas deireadh leis na fadhbanna idirnáisiúnta eacnamaíochta ba chóir go mbeadh an tír seo réidh le córas iompair agus taistil a bheas oiriúnach do fhorbairt agus an dul ar aghaidh atá le teacht.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport (Mr. Donnellan)

: I believe that this is the first time in recent years that the Estimate for the Department of Transport has been extensively debated.

I welcome the opportunity to have a full debate. During the year Dáil Éireann deals with different matters affecting the transport sector. Various items of legislation and other occasions for debate come along fairly regularly. It is useful, however, to have an opportunity to review the whole transport picture, to look at the many separate and distinct elements that go to make up the sector, and to consider the contribution each can make to our society.

It is also essential from the Exchequer point of view to be aware of the implications of the Estimate so that Dáil Éireann may discharge its proper role in relation to the purposes for which it is voting money and as to the review of expenditure. All Deputies agree, I am sure, with this view and will be interested in co-operating in the development of the Government proposals for a more effective future role for Dáil Éireann in the area of Departmental spending.

Getting back to the transport area, I do not think that the intricate and varied nature of the transport market is fully recognised and it was essential for the Minister, as he did in his concluding remarks, to draw attention to these aspects, which he outlined in a very brief way. There are in fact, aspects to which the Minister did not even refer, among them the scarcely known role played by himself and by the Department of Transport in multilateral and bilateral negotiations with other Governments and international organisations to secure rights and facilities essential to the operation of all international transport services to and from Ireland.

Similarly the Minister could have drawn attention to the sophisticated technology now called for in the transport industry primarily at sea and in the air, but also on road and rail. The technology used is in some areas left to the organisations concerned subject to general liaison arrangements and some technical supervision as, for example, in the case of CIE. In other areas, notably aviation, the range of equipment from aircraft, through navigational aids, to communications systems is subject to vetting or approval and in many instances actual operation by the Department of Transport. There is a whole range of safety measures under the control of the Minister, the best known perhaps being air traffic control. Others include the licensing of crews of ships and aircraft, the survey of ships, and co-ordination of rescue services.

Another of the activities for which provision is made in this Estimate is the Meteorological Service which is increasingly utilised by industry and agriculture and even the distributive trades for the management of their activities, while continuing to discharge many duties specifically related to transport. It is necessary in our debates on the transport industry in the context of the moneys being provided for the Department and in our consideration or criticisms of transport policy to keep this unacknowledged background in mind and to realise that it too plays its part in the formulation of decisions and the management of transport. Furthermore, in this particular year we cannot fail to take account of our naitonal financial circumstances. I know Deputies may feel that they have already heard too much on this subject but unfortunately it keeps coming back at us again and again and I really can make no apology for mentioning it once more.

The Estimates for the Department of Transport are being introduced against the background of the recent budget. Taken together they give a clear indication to domestic and foreign observers alike that this Government, within months of assuming office, have grasped the nettle of unsustainable debt and is now conclusively determined to put to right the major threat to our future and one of the basic causes of our present economic predictament — the huge imbalance in our public finances. This is not merely a theoretical concept nor a book-keeping exercise, as many detractors have charged. Government policy in relation to the nation's finances recognises that the accumulated debts of the past are now a major impediment to economic progress. It is necessary — and painful, as everyone recognises — to stabilise and then reverse a situation in which more than £1,600 million must be spent in order to service debts incurred in previous years. These resources — representing about 12 per cent of our Gross National Product — are now unavailable to Government for economic development or other useful purposes. These factors were fully taken into account in arriving at the Estimate for the Department of Transport.

For this country, the much heralded day of reckoning has arrived and its severity has been worsened by the deep recession in the world economy to which we are closely wedded through our trade links.

Many firms are going under completely because of a combination of lack of demand for their products at home and abroad due to the recession or — and this is now highly significant in the Irish context — because of lost competitiveness on the domestic and foreign markets. Other firms, in attempts to remain competitive or to increase competitiveness, have embarked on radical programmes of rationalisation involving job losses and more adaptable work practices in order to ensure survival. This is the background against which the Government are attempting to put their own house in order.

It must be clear to all — economic observers, firms and individuals — that the State sector of the economy cannot be immune to developments in the rest of the economy. In the case of State companies operating in the transport area, the recession means a substantial decline in demand for their goods and services.

The Exchequer is, however, no longer in a position to finance uncorrected inefficiencies and escalating deficits. The State sector must now adapt itself in a hard-headed commercial fashion to changed circumstances. In this context both workers and management in the State sector will necessarily have to become more flexible and more efficient. These things must happen, as I have indicated, because the days of the blank cheques are over. They must also happen because an efficient State sector, and I am particularly interested in the economically strategic transport sector, can do much to encourage and facilitate a return to economic growth and competitiveness.

When one addresses oneself to transport issues, particularly in the context of an Estimates discussion, CIE necessarily come to mind, first, as the largest provider of transport services in the State but also as the largest employer and as the largest recipient of Exchequer resources in the transport sector. The Government are determined that the trend of rapid escalation in the CIE deficit will be reversed. The CIE subvention, fixed at £86 million by the previous Government, £10 million down on the 1982 figure, is carried through in this Government's Estimates. Transport users have already seen fares rise by an average 20 to 25 per cent while further measures necessary to keep within the target are under consideration at present. These measures must be seen against the background, however, of continued capital investment in CIE, amounting to £60 million in all this year. This will permit a continuation of CIE's bus replacement programme the results of which are now in place for all to see, and use, we hope, while also bringing the Dublin suburban electrification programme nearly to completion. The £60 million also includes £8 million which has been allocated for CIE's mainline railway capital programme.

Other State companies under the aegis of the Department of Transport — B & I, Aer Lingus, Irish Shipping — operate arguably in even more difficult circumstances than CIE in that they must contend with the force of international competition, often originating in countries which have been much more successful that we have in containing costs and in restricting manpower. B & I, for example, must compete for their passengers with Sealink UK which operates from a home base where inflation is now below 5 per cent per annum and where wage inflation is about 8 per cent per annum. The B & I company are attempting a return to profitability against a background of high capital charges and a difficult trading environment.

Irish Shipping, operating in the even more difficult environment of deep-dea freight, must contend with a decline in world trade and a collapse in shipping rates. Given the present over-capacity in the shipping market, the view has been put forward that the profit now lies in scrapping ships, not in building them. The severity of the recession is such that the company are now making a net loss over all their activities. With the whole shipping industry in its worst depression for 50 years, remedial measures to prevent new calls on the Exchequer for Irish Shipping will have to be radical.

Aer Lingus, the national carrier, also have problems in common with B & I and Irish Shipping. They must contend with relatively high inflation in their home base together with cut-throat competition from many of their rivals, particularly on their North Atlantic operations. While the Government have provided for an equity injection in the company this year under the Air Companies (Amendment) Act, 1983, together with a payment of £5 million in respect of certain costs which Aer Lingus must incur on their North Atlantic operations, these measures will proceed in conjunction with the company's own efforts at cost cutting, improving efficiency and asset disposal.

This is going to be a tough year for the Irish economy and for the semi-State bodies operating within it. I have referred to some of the particular difficulties facing some of those organisations. It will be necessary now for us in Government to ensure that the performance of the commercial semi-State bodies in particular is measured by reference to their financial results having taken account of any non-commercial obligations which their mandates may impose on them. It will be a task of Government, deriving from constraints imposed by the economic circumstances recognised in the budget and reflected in the Estimates, to ensure that objectives of commercial State-sponsored bodies are clear cut and that profitability is given a sufficiently high priority. While State bodies must be able to respond quickly to opportunities and competitive forces, it will be necessary to ensure that they do not so respond with losses which their mandates do not permit or which impose unacceptable burdens on the Exchequer.

Placing the economy on the road to recovery will be a difficult task. There are some hopeful signs emerging in the world economy which will be of assistance to this country. The easing of pressures on interest rates and a prospective recovery in the American economy, for example, will help. But all of these will only be an adjunct to our own efforts to put our economy in order. At Government level this will have to mean cuts in services and rises in taxes as indicated in the Estimates and the budget. Each component of the economy also has a role to play; firms, workers and managers, in the public and private sectors can all help our economy price itself back into competitiveness, business and jobs.

Mr. Cowen

: I should like to congratulate the Minister, Deputy Mitchell, and the Minister of State, Deputy Donnellan, on their appointments to the Department of Transport. I wish them well in their work in that Department. Deputy Wilson, our spokesman, has given a very detailed and efficient outline of the Estimate before the House and I do not intend to repeat the points made by him. Deputy Wilson referred to the planning unit within the Department and the problems it is having trying to solve the real difficulties connected with all aspects of transport here. He also dealt with the problems of B & I, Irish Shipping, Aer Rianta, Aer Lingus, CIE and the harbours.

When dealing with the Estimate for this Department one naturally expresses concern about the big expenditure incurred by CIE and its effect on the total Estimate. Of the total Estimate of £118½ million to be spent on transport this year £86 million will be paid to CIE in the form of a grant. All Members draw attention to the fact that CIE get a big proportion of the Estimate and that is a problem we will have for some years to come. It is one that the company, and successive Ministers, have failed to get to grips with. The present economic climate demands that there should be a cutback in the grant to CIE this year of £10 million, a reduction from £96 million in 1982 to £86 million. It is imperative in these times of fiscal stringency that the taxpayers' money spent in the area of public services is expended in the most efficient way possible.

When one considers efficiency in CIE one gets tied up in knots and confronts real problems, but in spite of the fact that the company has been a problem for the Exchequer for many years we must take into consideration the social aspect of road and rail passenger services. We are all conscious of the fact that the less privileged sections of the community benefit from the passenger services through the social welfare system. The subvention to the company has increased dramatically in recent years. In 1978 it amounted to £37.7 million, in 1980 it was £70 million, last year it amounted to £96 million and due to a cutback this year the subvention will amount to £86 million. The increases from 1980 to 1983 were due to higher labour costs, continuing growth in private car ownership and capital investment in the bus fleet. In that respect I am thinking of the Bombardier bus fleet built at Shannon.

Our spokesman on transport, Deputy Wilson, who has had experience in that Department, referred to the Bombardier bus operation and was of the opinion that the buses were adequate. However, grave concern has been expressed in recent times by the work force and others about the quality of the Bombardier fleet. Has taxpayers' money been put to the best possible use? There is talk about replacement engines and chassis being required for these vehicles and I have seen reports to this effect in the daily papers. A major capital investment has been made in the CIE bus fleet and if there are defects in these vehicles the finger must be pointed in some direction. Someone has made mistakes either at the plant in the construction of the buses or elsewhere. Even the bus drivers are expressing concern as to the suitability of these buses for their purpose. There must be something wrong and I would hope that the Minister would investigate the matter. Any defects must be rectified because a significant amount of taxpayers' money has been put into this venture.

Through the years the management of CIE have been crying out in their annual reports for a major capital investment programme and a large amount of money has now been spent on the bus fleet. The suggestion of defects in these vehicles must be fully probed and the people concerned must be accountable for decisions taken. We are living in hard times and we hear much about the world economic recession. Because ours is a small developing country we seem to have been hit harder by the effects of this recession than our EEC partners. It is important to avoid mistakes in the expenditure of public money. The Minister should get a detailed account of what happened and explain the matter to the House.

We all understand that the community transport service cannot be judged solely on commercial criteria. It is, after all, a public transport service. Its main function is to provide adequate services and not primarily to be a profit-making operation but losses must be kept to a minimum. This will require a special effort by the CIE top brass this year when the money available to them has been reduced by £10 million. If the taxpayer is paying for a service it must be efficient, punctual, reliable and satisfactory. It is obvious that in many respects our public transport service does not meet these requirements. This is due to a variety of factors.

The private motorist here is the hardest hit in Europe and questions must be asked when, despite this fact, the numbers of people using public transport services has decreased significantly in recent years. During the period from 31 March 1978 to 31 December 1979 the number of passengers using the Dublin bus service dropped from 220 million to 166 million. A decrease in passenger numbers means a decrease in revenue while maintenance and labour costs are ever-increasing. This will inevitably result in higher fares, a factor which will not help to increase the number of people using the services. People in my constituency claim that both bus and rail fares have increased disproportionately during the past year or two. Those who use these services are mainly from the middle and lower income groups and many of them feel they can no longer afford the fares being asked by CIE. The result is that fewer people are using these services and increased subventions will be needed to keep the whole operation going. I am not saying that CIE have a magic wand which will enable them to cure those problems but a little more effort at top management level could bring about improvements. This is essential this year when the subvention has been decreased by £10 million. They must ensure that everything possible is done to enable people who wish to avail of services to do so.

CIE possibly cannot contend with the situation in relation to the road freight services. When one drives through the country one notices that private enterprise has taken over to a large extent the road freight services, although there may be areas where the CIE road freight services continue to prosper. In parts of the country, particularly in the Midland area, CIE seem to have lost out completely in relation to those services. CIE management have a real problem on their hands, but it is important that they try to improve the situation. I have not many ideas to give them but I feel confident that if they tackled the problem in an efficient fashion there could be some improvement. I am sure CIE, because their subvention is decreased this year, will do everything possible to tighten up at management and planning levels. If this does not happen workers in CIE could lose their jobs. I am sure the top people in CIE are fully conscious of this and will do everything possible to ensure that jobs are not lost.

The public transport system and the road freight system must be re-examined and, if possible, totally reorganised. Successive Governments have made substantial sums of money available to CIE. I hope nobody will get me wrong and say that I am criticising the operations of CIE at length. I believe CIE have had problems for many years: the onus is always being placed on them by this House, from a social point of view, to ensure that rail and road passenger services are available. We hear a lot of people talking about the fact that CIE have to get quite large sums of money from the Exchequer every year and they wonder if something drastic should not be done as far as the passenger and road freight services are concerned. I doubt if any of the political parties or the Government have any magic wand to solve the problems of CIE. I believe we are reaching the stage, because so much money has been made available to CIE over the years, when everybody interested, including the Minister and his junior Minister as well as the management of CIE, should get their heads together to bring about the change which most people want.

I know the Minister has not been very long in the Department and that it takes a Minister some months to become acclimatised to the functions of a particular Department. I hope he gives some time during the rest of this year to ensuring that changes are made within CIE so that adequate passenger services are made available to the public at a reasonable price. I believe the cost of passenger services has gone beyond the reach of the people who use those services.

I would like to compliment Aer Rianta on their successful year. They are now beginning to show a profit again. They have done a marvellous job in developing our airports. Unfortunately, from the point of view of Aer Lingus, as our spokesman, Deputy Wilson pointed out, the company have been losing a substantial amount of money over the years on the North Atlantic route. It is important that we have Irish planes flying that route because it does the country good from an export and import point of view. Aer Lingus have serious problems on that route in relation to other airlines run by countries a lot wealthier than we are. To that extent we can say they have been doing quite well on the basis of the competition they have to contend with in this regard. They have done exceptionally well on the British and continental routes. Every credit is due to them in this competitive age as far as flights are concerned.

We on this side of the House are very conscious of the problems in the Department of Transport, particularly in this time of economic recession. It is a Department which needs investment. Unfortunately this year investment from Government sources is reduced. We have sympathy with the Minister to that extent. He can be assured that whatever proposals he brings forward to improve the situation will be met with a responsible attitude from this side of the House. We are conscious of the social implications of the transport system.

Fares on both the trains and buses have gone beyond the means of the people who need to use them. I hope the Minister will give every consideration to this. He has a big problem on his hands with CIE but if there are further fare increases the number of people using the rail and bus services will decrease.

Mr. Skelly

: CIE have come in for a lot of attention from Deputies who have spoken so far. That is understandable considering the role it has played in Irish life in the last two centuries. One has a lot of sympathy for the predicament of a transport company like CIE since it is more or less the poor relation of the other transport systems. It is not the gleaming new system that air transport is. We are trying to hang on to something which is old and somewhat unwieldy. It is a difficult operation to manage.

The Minister has introduced a number of innovations especially in the accounting system of CIE in an effort to boost the morale of the company. That will probably help the situation with certain provisos. Deputy Wilson mentioned the subventions the company received over the years. He referred to the fact, as did the Minister, that in recent years it had to receive two subventions for the same year. Other companies were mentioned such as B & I and Irish Shipping Ltd. which are also incurring huge losses. This is a very worrying trend. We can appreciate the difficulties of Ministers for Transport in dealing with this operation. They try to manage it in their term of office. It is a very short time within which to do a difficult job or make progress. That is probably why experts need to be called in. As soon as Ministers are settled in and formulate some kind of policy there is a change of Government and so on and things are shelved.

I believe CIE are cost-conscious and realise the difficulties they have. It is an unwieldy company. In the case of the air service we have two international airports and most flights operate to and from these. We all know the number of people who are employed at airports. We have a network of railways all over the country with stations all along the lines which have to be staffed. Level crossings must be manned and it is very easy to see how money can be eaten up in this system.

People have fond memories of the rail system. It is only in recent years that there has been any shabbiness or that CIE have allowed the muck which is advertised on Butt Bridge and other bridges around the city. I wish someone would remove these massive advertisements from our streets and from the bridges across the River Liffey. When one is driving along underneath one is compelled to take the messages into account.

We are well aware of the traditions attached to the railway and the generations of people who have worked on it. It is a measure of their fondness for the system that their families continue to work in it. My own father worked in CIE for almost 50 years and I have very fond memories of the system. I have often tried to figure out ways of improving it. We can never really say goodbye to the whole system although that may seem an attractive proposal to efficiency experts. We must form some cohesive plan for the future.

The Minister said that consultations with CIE regarding the strategy to be adopted for 1983 were continuing. It is difficult to understand why, with half the year almost over, these consultations have not yet concluded.

When we speak about CIE we must remember the difficulties under which they operate. Dr. Liam Devlin, in an address to the Chartered Institute of Transport in Limerick on 20 February 1975, said that a State transport policy seemed to have two objectives in mind, the historical one concerning the regulation of competition between road and rail and the new aim which was the encouragement of national economic development. He said that these objectives were not necessarily complementary. He went on to say that CIE have not a statutory responsibility for organising a comprehensive public transport system for the country. The duty imposed by the 1958 Transport Act, which is still relevant, is to provide reasonable, efficient and economical transport services with due regard to the safety of operation, encouragement of national economic development and the maintenance of reasonable conditions of employment for its employees.

CIE have not been asked to sort out the transport problems of the country although they are very heavily involved in it. That is left to other bodies and organisations and that is part of the problem. The Minister mentions an innovation in accounting which I am sure the Minister Deputy Mitchell will refer to in greater depth, as I am not skilled in that area, in which he wishes to regard revenue as a deficit. The Minister said that for some years these deficits have been increasing at an alarming rate and he wants to remove the social obligation factor from the accounting system. By doing that we would be able to see more clearly whether the operations, less that social factor, are profitable and whether CIE are operating efficiently. There are probably inherent dangers in that of which I am sure he is aware because, although the morale of CIE staff will be improved immediately, there is always the possibility that there will be further pressure on the Department and the Government to terminate uneconomic services which have not yet been identified as social obligations. We could then have a given amount of money handed over every year to CIE. There is danger in that approach in that there might be further calls and pressure from the company to try to have certain parts of their operations designated as social obligation areas.

CIE cannot be totally isolated from the general economic environment. They must take on competitors. Aer Lingus did this and went into other forms of commercial activity in order to make their flying operation profitable. Deputy Cowen referred to the North Atlantic route. The Minister also referred to the recent Bill dealing with air transport where £20 million was provided to Aer Lingus for their operations on the North Atlantic route. We know they have been losing money on this route but, if many airlines flying the Atlantic are losing money and cutting prices left, right and centre, should we not consider very carefully whether we should take advantage of that situation? Why should we keep an uneconomic route? No airline seems to make a profit on the North Atlantic route. Why do we keep it in operation? Is it for prestige or to see our colours flying across the Atlantic? Why not take advantage of the other large operators? If we did so we would have an extra £20 million. The company are also involved in leasing internationally and perhaps if business picked up they could take up where they left off. We should not always have the hand out in relation to semi-State bodies.

The Minister talked about the £60 million capital programme for CIE which is an extremely high amount, given our economic difficulties. Most of this is going to the mainline coach building operation at the Inchicore works. I welcome that because it is a marvellous engineering works. Although it is much more depleted now than during the steam age, nevertheless they employ very skilled engineers who built their own trains in the past and it would be a major tragedy if it became run down. It is one part of the rail operation of which we can be proud. It has moved with the times in the last decade or so and has become very efficient and capable. I am delighted they are going to get a boost. Of course we would need to see the forward plans for the investment and operation because we know it is for building coaches for its own system. There would obviously have to be a need for that building programme and the company would have to generate revenue in order to justify the investment in the coach building area. We must ensure that that does not also become a drain on the company.

Deputy Wilson did not expand on how they encouraged and more or less forced use of the railways in West Germany. It could be done around Dublin city. It is a shame that we have not got a transport policy in Dublin and that we have been asleep for decades. We could have built a subway in the city in the fifties for a ridiculously small amount of money and we should have done so. Most of the congestion around the city of Dublin takes place within two miles of the centre. If short routes out of this two-mile area were provided the people could get out quickly. The problem around the suburbs is not great because they are fairly well spread out. Massive tunnels have been built in that country in the last couple of years to take away water down the canals. I do not know whether this has been costed. Probably it has been looked at and attempts made by the company to acquire buildings around the city in the expectation of putting in a subway route. This will be an ideal way of getting in and out of the city. The company should be far-seeing and should go ahead and do this. Such tunnels have been built in other parts of the world. When the subway system was extended in Canada ten or 15 years ago the labour for doing the job was obtained by getting a group of "Paddys" over from Britain and a group of Italians who between them make up most of the construction workers, and they gave each of them a certain length of tunnel to build and of course it ended up with "Paddy" building the tunnel——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

: I presume the Deputy means Irishmen.

Mr. Skelly

: Yes. I know it will cause no offence in our own House to say that. I am sorry that we have not a unified transport system in the city. This whole Department are far too scattered to operate effectively and efficiently. How many Ministers have really been able to come to grips with the problems? I am not saying that they are hoodwinked because that would be wrong, but are they capable of taking on what is in effect the equivalent of a multinational organisation with £ billions under their control in a very short time and really coming to grips with it, streamlining it and bringing it into the eighties and making it efficient and hopping? Instead of that they seem to be pulled at very easily by small operators on the fringes who can eat away at them and take away their business without much effort.

The ridiculous fast track system was instituted and a fortune was spent on advertising to induce people to put packages on the train which were supposed to reach their destination on the same day but which might have been picked up three or four days later if the recipient was lucky or he might have to go to the station and root around for his package. These problems can be sorted out.

In relation to traffic signals, the amount of money that the Minister talked about is small. I have no qualms about seeking improvement in the technology in that area, although I cannot understand the continued building of these concrete islands in what would otherwise be free-flowing traffic areas. That must be a very good business to engage in. I do not know who is contracted to do it, but the multiplicity of traffic lights and the filling in of wide streets with concrete aprons all over the city constitute a nuisance. The business of trying to turn around some of the corners is tortuous. I do not know whether this has ever been questioned or whether it improves the flow of traffic.

If the question of installing subways is dead then the laying down of tracks should be considered again. Such tracks have been in other cities of the world since the beginning of the century and the same type of cars have been used on them all that time. They are quiet, they do not emit diesel fumes, they can pull two, three or four carriages at peak hours and an enormous number of people can be accommodated in them.

I have observed the laying of the pipeline through the city recently and heard comments from the public about the speed and efficiency with which that was done. The same should be possible in regard to the improvement of certain routes today.

With regard to bus lanes I am delighted that that system improves the bus commuters' chances of getting into work on time and they do not have to stand in the rain, but I am not happy about squeezing bus lanes into streets that cannot accommodate more than two or three lanes of traffic, considering the terrible record we have in regard to enforcing rules. The Minister talks about rigidly enforcing traffic legislation around the city and I presume he was referring to parking, double parking and so on. Nothing is ever done rigidly in this country. I drove down Molesworth Street into Leinster House this morning and six cars were double parked on both sides of the street so that only one car could get through if the driver meandered. I asked the motorist in front if he would move, as he was in his car, and he refused to do so. We just do not operate rigidly, or if we do it is for one, two or three days. Regulations should be enforced properly.

I am concerned about the suburbs. I am familiar with the route in my constituency from Maynooth to Leixlip, Lucan, Blanchardstown, Clonsilla and Castleknock. Money is scarce at the moment but we were promised more stations along those routes some years ago. Now we hear excuses that land must be acquired for car parks at the stations and so on. That is understandable, but thousands of people would use the lines if the stations were provided at convenient locations. The Minister is very fair in his consideration of this area. He is trying to be fair to the whole country even though the area that I am talking about is in his constituency, which, as I say, is mine also.

Schoolchildren are getting a very bad deal in regard to buses. Driving in the morning on the Castleknock-Blanchardstown-Navan Road route, one can see queues of 50, 60 and 70 people waiting for buses, children among them. It seems that we cannot do anything about it until somebody with imagination gets this whole transport system by the scruff of the neck and knocks it into shape. That will have to be done in a very short time. We hear constantly of reports of new policies being introduced but none of these policies is completed.

When driving around the country there is one thing everybody notices and that is the black spots on our roads. What do they mean? They mean that somebody has been killed there and care should be taken because there is danger. In my view these black spots should not be ignored. We should do something about them because this problem urgently needs to be tackled. All we do is put up a sign telling people to be careful passing this spot.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

: Could the Deputy enlighten me on what the black spot has to do with the Transport Estimate? Perhaps he would keep on the right road for a while.

Mr. Skelly

: I would like to refer to the NESC 1979 Report, page 139, paragraph 11.20 which says:

We therefore suggest that the Government in conjunction with CIE should carry out a major review of the prospects for the railway industry. On completion of the proposed review the Government should set out a clear policy decision for the future of the railway, the social role it is to perform and how it is to be judged successful in performing such a role.

That paragraph came from the summary of the main conclusions of a very good report on transport policy which has been available for four years but which has not been acted upon. The report many times appeals for a transport policy. At page 143, paragraph 11.52, it says:

One of the reasons why so little progress has been made with the control and organisation of transport in Dublin is organisational. A co-ordinated transport policy for the Dublin area must be developed and implemented. The present situation with several Departments, local authorities, and State sponsored bodies all responsible for particular aspects of transport, but with no overall controlling organisation, is clearly unsatisfactory. A unified Transport Authority, with representatives from central and local Government, should be established covering all modes of transport in the Dublin area. The Authority would be responsible for investment, pricing and regulatory policies for roads, trains and buses.

I appreciate the enormous problem which the Minister has to face. I wish him success. I know he is extremely hard working and will do his best to make improvements. I realise he is at a disadvantage because he will need more than one term in office to bring about a great many improvements, but perhaps he will be in that office for two terms. In the coming months I hope he will have time to look at the reports of the committees he commissioned and that he will make progress in this area.

Mr. Leonard

: I would like to congratulate the Minister on his appointment. I object to a phrase used by the previous speaker. He spoke about a bunch of "Paddys" digging tunnels. It is not right to use this type of stage Irishism. This phrase is used to describe Irishmen who, through economic circumstances, had to emigrate. I want to put on the record that it is not right to classify any Irishman as a "Paddy".

Mr. Skelly

: On a point of information, I am a "Paddy" and I said I was using it as an endearing term. I am making this statement in the Irish Parliament and there was nothing derogatory meant.

Mr. Leonard

: This is a problem area. In this Estimate there is a subvention of £86 million, £22 million short of the board's deficit for 1982. This is a cause for concern particularly when we look at the structure of CIE. This subvention has increased from £37.7 million in 1978 to £70 million in 1980 and this year it is £86 million, with a deficit of £22 million. What progress has been made in those five years?

In Dublin one very seldom sees buses which do not need repairs. We see many buses with the breakdown signs at the front and the back. In the country many of the freight fleet need to be replaced, and most are in need of urgent repair. The same applies to mainline coaches. We do not have the luxury of a railway system in my part of the county because 25 years ago it was withdrawn. In a previous debate I listened to a speaker complaining about the draughty coaches. He claimed that was one of the reasons why the people did not use the trains.

Previous speakers mentioned the management structure of CIE which needs to be very closely examined. In his speech the Minister said:

In recognition of the constraints and complexities which the limit of £86 million on the subvention for 1983 creates, consultations with CIE in relation to the strategy to be adopted for 1983 are continuing. I hope that a satisfactory strategy will be developed very shortly.

We are talking about CIE providing a social rather than a commercial service. This is very damaging to the structure of CIE, especially to the work force. CIE could combine the commercial and social services better than they are doing at present. This is a problem we have had with semi-State bodies for many years and it is of concern in many business sectors. Many of our semi-State bodies had fine records in the building up of our infra-structure and the general economy, but in the last few years we continue to read in the newspapers that they are in financial difficulties.

There must be close examination of this and stern measures taken in regard to many semi-State bodies. People in private enterprise are now finding it very difficult to continue to be competitive and they see higher subventions freely available for ailing semi-State companies: it seems to be a way of life with them these days.

Deputy Wilson referred to the railway system. When one considers the enormous amounts of money put into that system it is amazing to find such little use being made of it. For a long time I hoped that counties not served by the rail system would get correspondingly high subventions for road maintenance. That has not happened. The Minister referred to the McKinsey Report and the need to make long-term decisions about our public transport services. Unfortunately, financial difficulties have caused the limelight to be taken from that report. It must be tackled irrespective of how our finances are, otherwise we will be creating further financial difficulties.

The Minister spoke of the traffic chaos in Dublin and the effectiveness of the bus lanes. In my experience driving through the city from the North side I agree the lanes have been of great benefit, but it is being neutralised by indiscriminate parking in city centre streets. CIE should be working very closely with the Garda and other related authorities to stop the practice of people jumping out of cars and leaving them there, with three or four buses in a row being held up. It would be interesting to find out what this costs CIE over a lengthy period.

There has been much discussion on road freight haulage. A commission was set up a few years ago and we were told their report would be issued quickly. They were supposed particularly to consider safety procedures in road freight haulage. Anyone travelling on country roads will agree that safety precautions in this sector are not adequate. I have seen slippages of loads quite frequently. I hope the report of that commission will be implemented fully.

Deputies from the three northern counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan have very little reason to be speaking at all about CIE services in those counties. In 1968 the rail service was discontinued in those counties. It was a tragedy. All we have in memory of it is contained in Monaghan Museum where we have examples of old coats and caps and of excursion tickets to Bundoran in 1917 and 1918. Yet, when we are discussing subventions of tens of thousands of pounds to the railway service we find that those counties get subventions for their roads of only the same amounts as counties with a railway service. Admittedly, very little use is made of the rail service for freight, and it was uneconomic at any rate because we do not have here long distances as they have in some European countries. Therefore it was difficult to make the service pay. Use of the railways was hit particularly when live cattle exports were reduced, and in post-war years most merchants and cooperatives had their own transport fleets. At that time we thought we had got an undertaking that we would be given additional allocations for our roads. For three years we got a few hundred thousand pounds extra, but afterwards we get the same allocations as counties with a railway system. It is unfair and the Minister for Transport should discuss with the Department of the Environment the possibility of giving additional road allocations to counties without rail services.

There has been a drop in the use of buses, particularly in my county, but when we make representations to CIE area managers or to the Minister we find it hard to discount their argument that there has been a decline in bus usage in those areas. It is a great pity, because it denies a transport service to old age pensioners and others. The district managers of CIE are very sympathetic to the suggestion that the service should be carried on for as long as possible.

There have been extensive discussions on the air services, B & I and other services under the Department of Transport. With a decline in the usage of some of these services due to the recession, now is the time to plan for the future, and to set up structures for rail and bus services which will go some way towards reducing the losses they are incurring at present.

Mr. Prendergast

: I should like to ask the Minister what provision, if any, has been made by him to improve the present CIE pensions scheme. As a trade union official I am aware that discussions have been taking place between the Minister and the appropriate group of unions involved. I gather that they may be drawing to a conclusion. I would like an assurance from the Minister that, if they are hammered out successfully, he will make provisions for the improvement of what must be regarded by any standards as an absolutely pathetic pensions scheme. It must be the worst pensions scheme in the public service. Some years ago many of my own constituents who had given long and loyal service left the company after 40 years with little better than £4 or £5 a week. Under the present scheme the maximum is £16 and a few pence. The value of that has been further eroded by the recent adjustment in the PRSI system.

Down through the years it has been the custom here and in other places to make CIE a political football. Given the constraints under which CIE operate, and looking at all the parameters involved, CIE are giving as good a service as is being given by any comparable service in Europe. I have been in most of the European countries. By and large the CIE staff are as courteous and efficient as any of the staff I have met in the rail and bus systems throughout Europe.

Where we may be falling down is that, on the one hand, we expect them to provide a social service which we do not support to the extent it deserves and, on the other hand, we object to subsidising CIE. What does the Minister propose to do? The allocation this year of £86 million is exactly the allocation proposed by the previous Government. The value of that allocation has been further eroded to the extent of £2 million or £3 million by the recent increases in VAT. I would like an assurance from the Minister that there will be an adjustment to help CIE to exist within their current budget, limited though it is.

We talk about productivity and efficiency in CIE. It has to be remembered that there is an ongoing form of productivity due to the redundancy and early retirement schemes which are being implemented by the company, the full value of which will not manifest itself for some time.

As other speakers suggested, it is opportune for us now to look at the whole concept of a national transport policy and not just a railways policy. There are elements which need to be looked at. For instance, I am talking about how CIE could be made more attractive as has happened in places on the Continent. I may be wrong and I am open to correction when I say this, but I believe that in only one country in Europe the railway system pays for itself, that is Switzerland where they use a hydro-electric system as distinct from using conventional fuels. We might look at some of the systems in operation in Europe, for instance, in Sweden and Scandinavia where it is much more attractive to travel on the trains. Their catering facilities are far more extensive, informal and attractive than ours.

Perhaps we might consider a cheap fare system on a family basis in the case of a bona fide family who want to come to Dublin for a day by train rather than travel by car. Something should be done to acclimatise or condition young people to use the railway system. A transport policy is the first requirement in the economics of any virgin economy. If a new company appeared off the west coast of Ireland in the morning and we got control of it, the first thing we would have to do would be to supply an infrastructure for the transport of goods and services.

I could not argue this case strongly enough. It is more than time that we looked at our whole roads system. The Arabs must have been smiling all the way to the banks since 1973 at what the congestion in Irish cities meant to their economies. More petrol was burned and wasted than was wasted in any comparable country in Europe because of our archaic and outmoded roads system. We had huge log-jams burning fuel and getting nowhere in Cork, Limerick, Dublin and even in smaller towns. A proper road structure must come.

When we have a system like the autobahns in Germany and the road system in Britain, it will be an appreciating capital asset. The benefits it confers can be seen on the Naas by-pass. It will be cheaper to build this system at 1983 prices rather than at 1990 prices.

We might consider going back to the old Sinn Féin policy on canals. People may scoff and say the canals are gone. They are not gone in Europe, in Germany, Holland and Denmark, where they can tow heavy consignments of freight which do not need to arrive at their destination in a hurry. It could be part of our transport policy that designated freight would be carried on the canals if they were restored. This applies extensively throughout Europe. It was part of the old Sinn Féin policy of self-sufficiency and it might be well worth having a look at it.

Reference was made to the Bombardier factory. I was asked to highlight the disappointment, annoyance and sadness of the employees in that factory and other interests such as the management at the lack of balance which they contend was shown in a recent 7 Days programme on the factory. The 7 Days programme happens to be my favourite programme.

Mr. J. Mitchell

: Today Tonight.

Mr. Prendergast

: Yes, Today Tonight. Everybody admires this programme because of its investigative nature. It increases our level of awareness and consciousness in many areas of current affairs. I was approached by the workers and the concerned interests about the lack of balance and what they allege was lack of integrity in that programme. The impression was given that the Shannon project was plagued with problems and a total failure. One commentator called it the bus bungle. The facts are that the Bombardier bus is highly successful. It is most reliable and comfortable. Maintenance cost is running at less than 60 per cent of the maintenance cost of other buses. The new buses have completed more than 15 million miles since their introduction in 1981. There is a very high level of public satisfaction as shown by consumer surveys. There has also been a noticeable reduction in complaints since the buses started on selected routes in Dublin.

The employment at present stands at 250 direct jobs at Shannon and 300 associated jobs in small industries throughout the country. Export orders are being actively explored and the Shannon-built bus is now operating in Baghdad. No attempt was made in that programme to highlight these important points. It was regarded by members of the work force as extremely damaging to a most important industry in the mid-west. It is inevitable that video recordings of that programme will be used by bus-building plants in the UK and in Europe to damage the export potential of Bombardier. That is a very real fear of the people responsible for running that industry. The programme damaged the confidence of workers at Shannon. They have proved that they are competing successfully with the highest standards of workmanship and productivity in the bus-building industry. They adapted themselves to modern skills with remarkable speed. In the present state of our industrial and economic difficulties this type of programme was hardly calculated to promote confidence in one of our newer industries. I welcome at all times investigative journalism but it was the strongly held opinion of people who saw the programme that is lacked balance. It created a great deal of unrest among the people concerned.

I ask the Minister to investigate those people who are moving illegitimately—I will not use the word "illegally"—into transport operations, whether they are carrying people or goods. They are picking out the lucrative sections but the authorities here are turning a blind eye to their activities. It is wounding CIE and ipso facto the State because of its subvention to CIE. Either we are going to be consistent or we are not. If we have a State transport policy and system we should support it to the maximum and see that it is efficient. I agree that we must have efficiency at all times. I am a trade union official with more than 30 years involvement in this work. Any organisation, whether it deals with football, religion, politics or business must have good management. Workers cannot be held to blame. I am not talking of any particular company but I am speaking generally. Ideas must come from management and there must be proper consultation with the work force so that the idealism of all concerned can be used to get the proper type of transport system. I urge that the NESC report of four years ago on the transport policy be considered again. Now is the time to do it.

I wish to commend Aer Rianta for the enterprise they have shown at Shannon Airport. They have gone to other countries and have created new business. They have extended their business in eastern Europe to a significant extent. The barter system, namely, payment in petrol and oil will be of considerable help. Apart from improving our balance of payments in a positive way because of the extra business generated, there is also the advantage that it will reduce our balance of payments deficit. I supported the extension of business to eastern Europe and I called for more trade. I had a running battle in the columns of one of our newspapers with the late Constantine Fitzgibbon who objected to it. He saw some kind of "uisce faoi thalamh" there by the Russians in getting into that area but time has shown how ridiculous was that attitude. If it were not for the eastern European flights we would be in a very bad situation.

Having praised Aer Rianta I must say I am very distressed at their increasing tendency to hive off business on a contractual basis. I was very concerned to see we are contemplating introducing another airline to do the catering business in one of our airports. I can assure the Minister that any attempt to introduce that kind of contract catering in Shannon Airport will be resisted to the utmost. Since 1946 the sales and catering section in Shannon Airport set a model for airlines throughout the world because of its courtesy and efficiency. All senior management of Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta have testified to the level of productivity of the staff at Shannon Airport. The airport generates a huge amount of salary into the economy of the mid-west region. That should not be hived off to the Danes or any other people. We have strong competitors in Gatwick and other places. We have an in-built advantage in that our country can produce sufficient food. We will resist any attempt to have contractual companies moving in to take away worth-while employment from Irish people. People may look at the advantages in the short term of the contract system but the overall effect on the economy must be considered. There is no point in laying off people from work if we have to put them onto an already over-burdened dole system.

It is time for the Minister to set up a committee representative of all interests, management, unions and the various companies to consider a new national transport policy and to integrate all aspects in the long term. We should be thinking of the 21st century which is only a short 17 years away. We must keep pace with what is happening in the rest of the world. There must be grants from the EEC regional and social funds to help in this work. I should like to give the House one short crisp example of the disadvantage of having a short-sighted policy. We closed one of the greatest tourist potentials of the country, namely, the west Clare railways for £19,000. Look at what we would have today if we had used that asset with a bit of imagination and initiative.

Mr. S. Brennan

: I do not intend to range over the whole area of transport policy but I wish to make a few general comments and some specific ones in relation to an item that affects my constituency. I agree with the previous speaker that we need an integrated transport system but I do not agree that we need another commission, investigation or study. We do not need more consultants to come to grips with the matter. We have had all of those. We have had NESC reports from 1980 onwards, we had the McKinsey report which cost £500,000. There have been departmental committees and ministerial investigations. There have been consultants, accountants and experts crawling all over the place, all of them dealing with CIE in particular. While previous Ministers on all sides made some progress, they did not really grasp the nettle. I suggest to the present Minister that he might like to make a name for himself in Irish politics by grasping the nettle of CIE once and for all, however difficult and unpopular that may be in dealing with trade unions, or with the vested interests involved in that company. The Minister might like to carve his name in Irish politics by tackling this problem aggressively.

The previous speaker mentioned the need for an integrated transport system. That is quite obvious. If we do not plan the transport system and integrate road, rail, bus and the various means of transport, it will grind to a halt. I understand the average speed of traffic in Dublin city to be something between four and seven miles per hour at peak times. Transport is grinding to a halt and something must be done about it.

When I look at CIE I do not see what Deputy Prendergast sees. I see a bill this year of £100 million deficit and that going on for years to come unless we grasp that nettle. To put that in perspective, this year the deficit will be of the order of £100 million. Say that it cost £10,000 to create a job — and we are talking about employment in an area in which Deputy Prendergast has a particular interest — this year's loss alone to CIE would create 10,000 jobs, next year another 10,000 and in a three year period 30,000 jobs. One in four of our young people is unemployed, with very little hope of a job and we cannot stand aside and let that large sum of money go down the drain. We satisfy our consciences by saying that this is a social service, that we want the buses to run and we must pay the price. We can, with some argument, claim that there is some element of truth in that. However, it is time for imagination and courage. Are we to allow that £100 million, or more pehaps, to mount up year after year? Look at what we could do with that money, it makes nonsense of this Government's economic policy — indeed any Government's — in the present state of our economy, to allow those mounting losses to continue, parallel with an economic policy or philosophy of trying to reduce public expenditure, to control it and get our economy moving. It does not demonstrate any serious attempt to pursue an economic policy in that direction.

Deputy Prendergast, unfortunately, has left the House, but he would leap to his feet if I were coldly to suggest more privatisation in CIE. His answer probably would be that no private company would tackle that, that after all there are many loss-making routes and no private company would take these on. The standard social service argument is that private companies would not touch these, but would only use the profitable routes. I wonder about that. Some imagination is needed.

In a number of countries when they parcel up these systems and ask their private sector to handle them, with every four or five profitable routes they throw in one or two unprofitable ones. This system operates in the US in some areas — with four or five good areas of profit, they parcel up an unprofitable one. If you are running a successful transport system in an urban area you are told that as a part of this package you must accept the unprofitable one. In that way, you divide up the loss-making, difficult areas and spread them around so that they do not fall as heavily on the whole country. That is the answer. Some imagination will be needed to stop this flow of money. It cannot go on. At the end of the day, it is the taxpayer's money and we cannot contribute to write it off as part of a social service.

The previous speaker made the point that CIE provide a first-class service and I agree. Broadly, they do their best and are a good company, I must say that, but at what cost? Anybody could do well with £100 million of Government money per year. It underlines the need to reassess seriously the whole role of the State in our economy and perhaps CIE is as good a place to start as any. For a long time the nation has dodged this debate as to the economic direction, in the sense of the area of growth in jobs and wealth and these are inextricably linked. Will the growth from now until the end of this century come from the private or the public sector? I do not hear anyone answering that question. We are drifting along without any long-term notion of the economic philosophy and policy of this State, Ireland Limited, or whatever we like to call it. That is one of the reasons for our being unable to grasp the CIE nettle and do something about it. We do not have an economic philosophy which leads our people in a particular direction and will attempt to lead them over the rest of this decade.

I ask for a review of the role of State organisations, of CIE, in our economy and for some imaginative thinking in that regard. This small State cannot continue along the lines of being all things to all men in the sense that we continue with this beautiful mixed economy, trying to make everything, sell everything to everybody and at our own prices. You must identify an economic policy which will point the country in a particular direction and the CIE problem is at the core of that debate. If the Minister is to put the state of this nation broadly and squarely in the public arena for the next 20 years or so, you tell CIE to carry on, that they are a State service, part of our national economic philosophy and we will support them.

If, on the other hand, you say that this nation must get its act together and pay its way — and that includes every company in it — then you take a completely different approach to CIE. The philosophical direction of our economy in the years ahead comes first. Are you going to rely on increases and expansion in the public area, or create a business environment and ask the private sector to handle it? Are you going to try to do both and perhaps make a hames of both as the years roll on? Time and study spent on those subjects would yield benefits.

The McKinsey Report, which has been lying around for some time, calls for many difficult decisions to be made. I suggest that the Minister make these pretty quickly and implement them. I know the difficulties, the union problems, the employment problems, but the Minister is asked to lead the nation and must tackle those problems pretty quickly.

I do not wish to delay the House, but I tried to raise a matter with the Minister some time ago and got a note from him recently stating that he had no responsibility in that area. However, I know that CIE have a responsibility in this area and this is a debate on a transport Estimate. Speaking about what is generally regarded as the old Harcourt Street line, I have been advocating here today that we attempt to re-establish part of that line eventually, in a manner similar to the Bray-Howth route. I suggested that, as phase one, we look as a matter of some urgency at the opening of a bus-way between Dundrum and Grand Parade. The cost, particularly of the busway, in my estimation, would be of the order of £4 million. From a study/survey I have submitted to the Minister he can see that there are little or no obstructions between the Grand Parade and Dundrum parts of the line. I do not see any major legal difficulties in that section of the line and I would ask him to investigate it.

Debate adjourned.