Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 25 Jan 1924

Vol. 2 No. 14

SEANAD IN COMMITTEE. - ACCOMMODATION AT DUN LAOGHAIRE PIER.

The EARL of MAYO

I beg to move:—

"That the Seanad requests the Government to investigate the possibility of improving the present inadequate accommodation for passengers arriving at and leaving DunLaoghaire Pier."

This motion deals with the accommodation that is improvised for passengers passing between Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead, and Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire. I have nothing to say against the Customs arrangements. The officers have had a most difficult position to deal with, and have done their work in difficult circumstances with great courtesy and consideration. I am a constant traveller backwards and forward. I have arrived in the middle of the night; I have arrived on a winter's morning, and I have arrived when there have been spring showers which wet you as quickly as any rain that falls from Heaven. When you arrive at Dun Laoghaire on a winter's morning you find the pier is not properly lighted, that there are not sufficient porters to deal with the luggage and place it on the table for the Customs officers, and that there is a rush to get the newspapers into the city of Dublin. We are going to have what is called Tailteann Games this year. If people have to go through this sort of purgatory at Dun Laoghaire they will never visit the country again. It is also very difficult to get a porter to take luggage to your motor, and people who want to get to Cork by the 6.30 train miss the connection if they do not get to their motor quickly. The consequence is that they arrive at Cork in the early morning or have to sleep in Dublin, which costs money.

All these disabilities can be dealt with. The pier itself ought to be closed in from the weather. I shall probably be told that that is impossible, that it would be blown away. It will not be blown away. You can put up proper protection for passengers in the same way as it is done at Holyhead where you can get out of the boat, have your luggage examined, and step into the train while protected from the weather all the time. At Dun Laoghaire the south-west gale from the Dublin mountains drives the rain right through the whole pier. I have seen elderly ladies there almost wet through, and an umbrella would be turned inside out immediately. People will be coming here to the Tailteann Games this year, and also you will have Americans and others passing through Ireland on their way to the Exhibition at Wembley. You will have to make arrangements to make travelling for them as comfortable as possible. I hope the Seanad will pass this motion, which I have brought forward in order to get these very supine railway authorities and the Board of Works to improve the conditions. The pier must be closed in if you want to attract visitors here. It is not an impossibility. People say it cannot be done because they are old fashioned. We do not want that sort of people; we want to progress.

Col. MOORE

I think everybody will agree with what Senator the Earl of Mayo has said. Most of us have experience of the conditions at Dun Laoghaire, and I do not think the Senator has exaggerated them. I think the improvement of the conditions there is of the utmost importance. I am sorry that the Ministers were permitted to leave before this came up, because they have an inclination not to pay much attention to what the Seanad says when they do not hear it. If they had heard the Senator's statement, the necessity for an improvement would have been brought home to them.

Sir J. GRIFFITH

I should like to support Senator the Earl of Mayo in his plea that something should be done to improve the conditions at Dun Laoghaire Pier. I suppose I have travelled on that line longer than anyone in this Seanad, and I know its virtues and defects. Undoubtedly a great deal can be done to improve matters, but there is a great drawback, which I think is not generally appreciated. There are practically only two berths at Dun Laoghaire, as the manipulation of the boats necessitates having only two berths worked. I hope the Government will do something to have the North Wall service restored for the sake of the people of Dublin. Formerly we have had as many as three passenger steamers run out of the port of Dublin at the same time as there were two mail steamers from Dun Laoghaire, with very great advantage to the community. That is the only hope of getting an improvement to cope with an extended travelling public. One of the principal causes of this curious change has been the attitude of the English Government in regard to Dun Laoghaire harbour. The harbour is a national one, free to certain classes of vessels. The London and North Western Railway, up to 1918, ran their service into the North Wall, and had to pay harbour dues. They found that by coming to Dun Laoghaire they were relieved from these dues, and the port of Dublin suffered to something like the extent of £7,000 per year, which went to the benefit of the railway company, to the great loss and detriment of the travelling public between this country and England.

I am only mentioning this, so that it may accompany, if possible, the desire on the part of the Seanad to express to the Government the need for an improvement in the service. I believe it is equally necessary to improve the North Wall which has a very considerable advantage for certain classes of traffic, for which we are pleading and which we desire to extend.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I desire to say that I think Senator the Earl of Mayo has performed a useful public service in calling attention to this matter. I have personally experienced, not so much recently as in former years, the unnecessary discomforts to which passengers on this route are exposed. In the first place nothing can be more miserable or more unworthy of any great company than the accommodation provided at Westland Row for obtaining tickets. There is a sort of place, not much better than a hen house, where you stand in a queue, without shelter, in a cold biting wind. It is worse if you have the misfortune to take a ticket at Dun Laoghaire, as there, there is a wretched shed which you could not even describe as a hen house. It only holds about three people at a time, and I have seen queues waiting there, numbering a dozen, exposed to the wind and wet, waiting twenty minutes to get a ticket. I also think, and this is a matter that might also be included in the motion, that the public have some reason to complain of the fares charged. I think the charge for a sleeper, now 15/—I remember when it was 5/—is excessive and unreasonable. I think we have lost a great deal in the accommodation that was provided by the City of Dublin steamers where we got cabins for nothing. There is hardly a cabin in the new steamers in which you could lay your head, for which a charge of 7s. 6d. is not made. Taking these discomforts and the cost of the journey, the least the public are entitled to is some proper accommodation when booking tickets, waiting to embark on the steamers, or when waiting on the pier to obey the Customs regulations. I think it is very important that the attention of the London Midland and Scottish Railway should be called to this matter, as I can hardly conceive that they would not be prepared to remedy the causes of complaint.

Sir THOMAS ESMONDE

Perhaps I may be allowed to intervene as far as the hen house at Westland Row is concerned. I may be supposed to be nominally responsible for it. I have not yet visited that aviary, but I shall do so on the first possible occasion. I am sorry that there should be such inconvenience in relation to the giving out of tickets at that particular place, and I promise the Seanad that it will not be my fault if matters in that respect are not improved. As far as the use of the pier is concerned, I have nothing whatever to do with that, and I take no responsibility for the hen house that is there, wherever it may be. It is no concern of mine directly. It has been a concern indirectly in years gone by, and I have had to wait at the end of it for a long time to get a ticket.

There is no doubt that the accommodation at Dun Laoghaire could be improved. I do not wish to blow my own trumpet, but it is not many months since, after the Customs regulations were established, I drew the attention of the Customs Authorities at both sides of the Channel to this matter, and suggested a conference between them and the railway companies concerned, with a view to devising some method of alleviating the discomforts to passengers that follow, more or less, from any system of Customs' examination. The result was that they conferred and a certain amount of shelter was put up at Carlisle Pier. Perhaps Senator the Earl of Mayo has not yet discovered it. I understand that they have set up part of the roof. I know that that much of it exists. Senator the Earl of Mayo has done well in raising this matter. I think I am not giving away any secret when I say that the Minister for Finance is the person responsible for the present state of affairs. This pier, such as it is, is under the control of the Board of Works, and it is to the Board of Works and their officials that complaints should be directed. There is no reason why Carlisle Pier should not be arranged in the same way as New York, Boulogne, or Brindisi, or any other place where there are Customs' examinations, and where shelters are put up to save passengers from the inclemencies of the weather. I think the proper thing would be to enclose the pier altogether so that Senator the Earl of Mayo and passengers will not be subjected to those icy blasts from the Irish sea. The matter is really one for determination by the Board of Works, and I hope that what the Senator has said will lead to some improvement in the matter. As to the hen-house, for which I am more or less responsible, I will see if it can be improved.

Mr. CLAYTON LOVE

I agree with what Senator the Earl of Mayo has said, and he deserves the thanks of the Seanad for directing attention to this matter. The Tailteann Games are coming on this year, and you will have a great number of visitors coming to the country, whose impressions will be adverse or otherwise according to the reception they receive. The first thing we will have to do will be to pick their pockets a bit through the Customs. Undoubtedly the accommodation for that is very bad.

It must be remembered that this is a new innovation at Dun Loaghaire as the examination of passengers' baggage was a matter that was not foreseen when the pier was being built. Some allowance should be made for the fact that things are not what they should be there, but I think those responsible should endeavour to get things into shape. I feel deeply about the return of the City of Dublin boats as although there are large sums lying idle in the banks, we are practically the only country in Europe which is not its own carrier, and as long as we remain in that state we cannot make much progress. I remember when we had the Waterford Steam Packet Co. and the Cork Steam Packet Company as well as the City of Dublin Company, but now the only one that remains is the City of Cork Company which is really only Cork in name as its headquarters are in London.

Mr. JAMESON

I was going to suggest that as we have Senator Sir Thomas Esmonde listening to the Earl of Mayo, and as we have Senator Burgess a member of the Seanad, whatever appears on our minutes with regard to what has been said here this evening should be sent to Senator Burgess and he should be asked to bring it to the notice of his Board on behalf of the Seanad, particularly the references to the boats at the North Wall and to the piers.

Mr. O'DEA

We have had this matter under discussion almost continuously at the Chamber of Commerce. The provision for the examination of luggage is most unsuitable, and we thought that probably it would be better if the collection of Customs could be moved from the pier into the station. The Harbour Commissioners appear to be the authority in charge

The EARL of MAYO

No, it is the Board of Works.

Mr. O'DEA

Well, then, if it is the Board of Works, it is an excellent thing that the Earl of Mayo opened this question here. The Chamber of Commerce could get nothing done, and it is time that something was done as strangers coming to Ireland for the first time get an impression which will probably never leave their minds.

Mr. DOUGLAS

I would like to support what Senator Sir John Griffith said. I think some steps should be taken to ensure that there would be a larger number of boats coming in and going out from Dublin. I had occasion to meet strangers coming into Ireland at Dunlaoghaire, and I found four boats came in, landing crowds of people at the pier whom the Customs Authorities could not deal with. One felt ashamed at such inadequate accommodation. Next summer everything points towards a larger number of visitors, and how the existing accommodation is going to deal with such a large number is beyond my comprehension. I am sure that if either, officially or unofficially, two or three members of the Seanad were to form themselves into a Committee, and went to the responsible people, we might get something done by next summer, and while they might not be of a permanent character, some improvements might be made at any rate. I am not at all certain that the Customs arrangements could not be improved by the heavy luggage being examined at Westland Row, or elsewhere. I do not think that the arrangements at Holyhead are altogether satisfactory either.

Sir THOMAS ESMONDE

Might I say a word regarding the appointment of a Committee to deal with this matter? If the Seanad thinks that we want any Committee of that sort they shall receive every facility from the interests I represent.

The EARL of MAYO

With regard to what Senator Sir T. Esmonde said, I myself saw the head of the Board of Works with regard to this matter. I said to him it was a scandal. He said, "We have had conferences with the Customs, but I can get them to do nothing." I found myself see-sawing as usual between two departments. That is why I brought the matter forward in the Seanad. Unless that see-sawing is finished the public will suffer.

Motion put and agreed to.