I move:
That a sum exceeding £379,480,000 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 Posts and Telegraphs and of certain other services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain grants-in-aid.
I move this Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs at an historic moment. The Oireachtas has just enacted the Postal and Telecommunications Services Bill, 1982. Before the next Estimate An Post and Bord Telecom Éireann will be vested. Therefore, this should be the last Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs as it has existed since the foundation of the State. The Post Office is the oldest Department of State and will celebrate its 200th anniversary next year. I hope the new arrangements will also last 200 years and that they will be as successful in their time as the Post Office has been in its time.
I wish to thank all those who have been associated with the Bill, including Deputy Wilson and Deputy Leyden and all my predecessors going back to Deputy Faulkner. I wish to thank all Deputies, particularly Deputy O'Sullivan and Deputy De Rossa, who played an active part in the debates. I wish to thank also the staff of the Department who worked very hard in drafting the Bill and the amendments. They deserve our warm congratulations and thanks for a job exceedingly well done. I also wish everyone in the two services well in the future. I believe there is a bright future for both services. It will not come automatically but it can be achieved given the commitment and effort.
In relation to the postal service, the standard of service has improved considerably in recent years but it has not yet reached the standard we are aiming for. About 85 per cent of first-class letters are on average being delivered on the next working day following posting. This is still below the service objective of 90 per cent for first-class letters. The principal cause of the shortfall has been the persistent failure to clear the night mail dispatch at the Central Sorting Office in Dublin. The causes, in turn, of that failure are complex. However, the problem is being tackled and there are reasonable hopes of an improvement.
Our postage rates have been criticised for being high, the comparison usually being with British rates. Around four-fifths of the cost of the postal service is made up of pay and pay-related items and is heavily influenced by inflation, which has been very much higher here than in Britain. For that reason alone — given the policy that the postal service has to pay its way — our rates would be higher than British rates. But postal economics in Britain are also helped by the fact that postings per head of the population are about half as much again as they are here.
This year I have insisted that there should be no increase in postal charges. This is the first time in several years that stamp prices have not increased. I believe that this policy of price stability ought to be pursued for as long as possible.
The postal service is a price sensitive one and for some years volume of mail has declined as prices increased. The first four months of this year have witnessed an encouraging increase in volume and this is the trend to be pursued if the postal service is to be of its best. On the basis of the improvement in the quality of service that has taken place and of maintenance of postage rates at current levels for this year, I am confident that mail volumes will rise again as economic activity picks up.
My Department are in the business of handling cash on a very large scale. Consequently, the problem of security has always had considerable attention. Regrettably there has been an increase in the incidence of armed robbery, a development not peculiar to this country. We have taken a range of measures to combat this and they appear to have had some success. A special crime prevention unit is in operation in the Department. All cash carrying and cash-holding arrangements as well as the physical aspects of security are kept constantly under review to ensure that they are as satisfactory as possible. The prime concern at all times is the personal safety of all the people working in the postal service.
Severe financial constraints have been placed on my Department this year as part of the general strategy to reduce public expenditure. The postal service will be hard put to it to conduct its operations within its money allocations while maintaining the quality of service at an acceptable level. To help in this some services which are clearly very little used and which are over-expensive to provide are being examined to see if they should be ceased or restricted. To date, economies have been made mainly through the cessation of Saturday deliveries completed in 1981 and the motorisation of rural deliveries which, despite the increase in motoring costs, continues to show scope for economies.
Progress continues to be made in the purchase of sites for the erection of new post offices and in improvement schemes. The new post office at Mullingar was formally opened on 16 June last. Major improvement works are going ahead at Castleblayney and New Ross. Work has commenced on the fitting out of new delivery offices in Clondalkin and Tallaght. Tenders are being invited for the new post office in Shannon and for major renovations to Roscrea post office. Postal sites have been acquired in Athlone, Carrick-on-Suir, Galway, Lifford, Tralee and Waterford and legal formalities are in progress for the purchase of postal sites at Bandon and Cork.
New services are also being developed. I am especially pleased to report on the success of Ireland's first Postbus service, launched in County Clare in July last year. This service, as well as carrying mails, conveys passengers on a route linking Ennis twice daily with Ennistymon, Lahinch, Lisdoonvarna, Corofin and other intermediate points. My Department are currently examining the feasibility of introducing the service on other routes.
On the international scene last September a new bulk parcelpost service to the United States was introduced, which is designed to reduce conveyance time to the USA utilising air services between Shannon and New York.
Our postage stamps play an important part in presenting an image of Ireland both at home and abroad. They also represent a source of sizeable revenue to my Department. Considerable strides have been made in the marketing of our stamps in recent years. Last year revenue from philately came to £1.3 million. The major part of this amount came from overseas sales. Marketing efforts are being strengthened to increase this revenue further.
By the end of next year, Ireland will have one of the most advanced telephone systems in Europe. Already in large parts of the country, including one-third of Dublin, new phone applications are met on demand. As each month passes more and more areas will be on demand and by December 1984 almost the entire country will have phones readily available. Indeed, from 1985 onwards, I can foresee a situation whereby people will be encouraged to seek additional phones.
What I have just said needs to be said because of the very persistent and widespread media coverage which tends to suggest little or no progress has been made in recent years. Of course, we will have considerable problems but the five year programme commenced in 1979 is largely on target and should by the time the five years are up at the end of next year be almost completed.
I cannot claim much credit for this although some significant improvements have been made in recent months. Largely the credit must go to my predecessors Conor Cruise-O'Brien, Deputy Padraig Faulkner, Deputy Albert Reynolds, Deputy Pat Cooney and Deputy John Wilson. Moreover, an enormous development task was taken on with zest by officials of my Department and the progress I have spoken about, which will become manifest as the months go by, is in no small measure due to them.
In the very near future I will be announcing further steps which have been or are about to be taken to improve further my Department's performance in the telecommunications area. We are now in the fourth year of the current five year development programme and it would be appropriate at this juncture to review what progress has been made towards meeting the targets on that programme. I would have liked to deal extensively with this service in the course of my speech but in the time available to me this will not be possible. However, I will cover as much ground as possible.
The programme set out to achieve six main objectives. These were: to wipe out the waiting list for telephones; to convert all manual exchanges to automatic working; to extend STD to all areas of Northern Ireland and Britain; to reduce call failure on the automatic system to 2 per cent on local calls and 4 per cent on internal trunk calls; to provide an acceptable repair service; to answer 90 per cent of calls made via operators within 10 seconds.
At the beginning of the programme in 1980, the waiting list for telephones was about 90,000. This represented the equivalent of about two years work. The target was to reduce that to the equivalent of two to three months work. The present target is that the waiting list is under 70,000 or the equivalent of about 12 months installation capacity. Based on the current rate of demand for telephones and on the connection targets for this year being met, the waiting list at the end of this year will be the equivalent of eight to nine months output. The action already taken in building up resources of staff and equipment will, it is expected, enable the target of wiping out the waiting list nationally to be reached by the end of 1984. In parts of the country the waiting list has already been wiped out.
Dublin, where the waiting list is about 45,000 at present, is the main area of concern. The progress made so far has been much less spectacular than in most other districts. There have been particular reasons for this. Most of the problems have now been resolved or are in the course of being resolved.
The aim this year is to instal up to 35,000 telephones in the Dublin area. If this is achieved, and it will not be easy to do so because the resources did not become available in time, the waiting list would be reduced to about 35,000, and I believe the target of being on demand by the end of next year is attainable. I should add that it is possible to meet about one-third of applications in the Dublin area on demand at the present time.
Confusion has been created by some commentators who asserted that because the Department were not making the number of connections that were envisaged at the beginning of the programme, it was falling down in meeting the programme objectives. This is not so. What was planned was to wipe out the waiting lists by the end of 1984 and to make whatever connections were needed to achieve this. Clearly, more connections cannot be made than the demand supports. It is important for an appreciation of what is involved and what has been achieved that this should be clearly understood.
At the beginning of the five year programme, about 11 per cent of telephone subscribers had only a manual service. At present there are 370 manual exchanges and the expectation this year is to convert about 130 of these to automatic working, leaving 5 per cent of subscribers with a manual service. Much of the development work for converting the remaining 240 exchanges to automatic working is in hands and the programme should be completed by the end of next year or very largely so.
Belfast was the only area in Northern Ireland to which subscriber trunk dialling was available from automatic areas here and calls to only Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester and Liverpool in Britain could be dialled. STD was extended to all areas in Northern Ireland late last year and to all of Britain in April and June of this year.
The failure rate on trunk calls within the country at the beginning of 1980 was over 40 per cent. Since then substantial progress has been made. Two key trunk exchanges have been provided in Dublin, the hub of the trunk system; major trunk exchanges have been opened in Cork, Limerick, Galway, Athlone, Mullingar, Tralee, Portlaoise and Naas, and others are due to be opened at Waterford, Sligo, Drogheda and Dundalk over the course of the remainder of this year. The trunk failure rate is now below 20 per cent. The target this year is to reduce it to 12 per cent or so. A failure rate of 4 per cent by the end of next year, which was the target set by the Post Office Review Group, is in prospect. The failure rate on the local automatic service is already below the target rate of 2 per cent set. The standard of international service has always been high and continues to be so. Progress in this whole area is clearly satisfactory.
The standard of repair service is a critical factor. In general, faults in exchanges and in subscribers' premises are attended to quite quickly. Repairs to cables, particularly underground cables, can take time. The standard of the repair service on cables outside the Dublin area is in general satisfactory.
In the Dublin area the repair position has been much less than satisfactory over a long period. To get the position under control almost all jointing staff on installation work were diverted to maintenance for the second half of last year and much of this year. The position is now much improved, all but some difficult faults being cleared in less than two weeks, but this is still less than satisfactory. However, the action being taken should bring the position under control and so greatly improve the prospect of giving a good quality repair service.
I would now like to say something about telephone accounts. These have been the subject of fairly widespread comment and, I think it is fair to say, unease. Many measures have been taken to improve the position:
(1) The number of units used is now shown on the bill;
(2) All meters are now read by meter photographs and processed by computer to reduce the scope for clerical errors.
(3) Meters to enable subscribers to check their own usage are now available at a rental.
(4) The percentage of cases in which callers making trunk calls via the operator are now rung back has been greatly increased, thus virtually eliminating the risk of fraud in telephone numbers being quoted.
(5) Details of subscriber dialled trunk calls will be given to some subscribers in the Naas area, on a trial basis, about the end of this year. A charge to cover the costs involved will be made. If the trial is successful and if there is a demand for this service, similar arrangements will be made for subscribers at other exchange areas where it is practicable to do so.
I must stress that the metering equipment used here is the same as that used in many other telephone administrations and is highly reliable. The billing system is, essentially, sound and the availability of meters for subscribers who would like to be able to check their usage should, I believe, meet the case of those subscribers reasonably.
Before leaving telecommunications, I should say that the waiting list for telex has been virtually eliminated outside Dublin and in Dublin the backlog will, it is expected, be largely overtaken this year.
There has been a peak demand for data lines and for modems to enable computer data to be transmitted over the telephone system. Substantial inroads will be made into this in the current year and the position should be well on the way to being under control by the end of the year.
Finally, I would like to refer to some new developments. The first is a mobile car radio system and it is expected it will be in service early next year, initially in the Dublin area. A new packet switching data system will also be in service early next year.
An earth station which will give us direct access to satellite circuits to the North American continent should be ready for use next year.
