Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 Jul 1951

Vol. 39 No. 17

Telephone Capital Bill, 1951 (Certified Money Bill) — Second and Subsequent Stages.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Childers)

This Telephone Capital Bill is the seventh which has been placed before the Oireachtas since 1922 that is since the transfer of Services. The functions of the Bill are the extension, as distinct from the operation and maintenance, of the telephone system. It follows exactly the form of the previous Telephone Capital Acts. It authorises the Minister for Finance to invest a stated maximum fund in the telephone service for extensions. The security, so far as the Minister for Finance is concerned, is the apparatus, the plant and the property of the telephone service.

The sums provided under this Bill are repaid by terminable annuities over a period of 25 years and a sum is voted in the Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs each year to defray the annual charges, including repayment and interest. Naturally, those charges can be measured against the earnings of the service. The Telephone Capital Act, 1946, provided £6,000,000 and this was meant to be sufficient for telephone development up to the end of the financial year ending March 31st, 1951. Of that sum, £1,170,000 has not been spent and it will be sufficient for, roughly speaking, half of this financial year which ends on March 31st, 1952. The under-expenditure is due to a number of factors. There was a continuous shortage of electrical engineers in the Post Office service, which delayed to some extent the making of long term plans, and the making of plans for new exchanges and circuits. There was also delay in connection with buildings. It was very difficult to find suitable sites on which to erect larger exchanges. Very often it was difficult even to extend existing Post Offices, having regard to all the technical problems involved.

There has been a great concentration on the joining of subscribers' lines, as a direct policy of the last Government. That involves in some ways a delay of a greater magnitude in the construction of important telephone trunk services.

Wages and salaries naturally have increased in the period since 1946. Materials and stocks of all kinds have gone up in price. There has been an anticipated extension of the Dublin Telephone Exchange but this extension is still far from what is desirable. That took a sum of money larger than was anticipated. The stocks of engineering stores have been increased by £394,000 over what they were in 1946 to anticipate a possible emergency.

The greatest progress that has been made in general is in the joining of subscribers' lines. The number of subscribers' lines has increased and the figures should interest the members of the House. In 1923, there were 18,000 and by 1932 the number had increased to 30,000. By 1939, the number had again increased to 43,000. To the very great credit of the Government of the day, and certainly to the very great credit of the officers of the Department and in spite of a war and all the difficulties connected with a war, the number of subscribers' lines increased from 43,000 in 1939 to 60,000 by 1948. This shows an increase of 17,000 subscribers' lines. Since then, progress has been extremely rapid and this year there are now 83,000 subscribers' lines. That is a very considerable increase since 1948.

I should make it clear that a great part of the work of telephone development was planned by the Government of the day in 1946. I give every credit to my predecessor for having made use of these plans, for having examined them, for having extended them in certain instances and for having enabled them to be put into operation. I say that much because, in the course of previous debates, there has been a suggestions that the whole thing was done by the last Government. There were 6,000 subscribers' lines joined in 1948, the planning for which took place in the previous year. I am naturally willing to give due credit to the previous Minister for having carried on with our plans and for having developed them in his own way.

There is one telephone to every eight dwellings or one to every 36 persons, but we are very far behind in telephone development in this country in relation to our income or in relation to any other factor. Using the telephone is a habit that has grown very slowly among the Irish people. In 1939, telephones were attached on demand and with very little delay. I have some interesting figures about telephone population in this country. We have about one-fourth to one-tenth of the telephones per 100 of the population as compared with the whole of the U.S.A., Great Britain, the Commonwealth nations and Scandinavia. We have about one-half of the telephones per 100 of the population as compared with France, Belgium and the Netherlands. It is quite obvious that the habit has been growing very rapidly, particularly among the younger generation who do not like to be isolated. Whether that is good or bad, there is going to be a considerable demand for telephones in the future.

As distinct from subscribers' lines there were in 1923 1,000,000 trunk calls. By 1950 the number increased to 4,500,000, a tremendous increase. From 1949 to 1950 there were 500,000 more trunk calls. If you relate that to 83,000 subscribers you will have some idea of the demand placed on the service. As far as local calls are concerned, the number of local calls in 1923 was 16,000,000, and by 1950 this had reached 68,000,000. That is double the figure before the war, when there were 32,000,000 local calls. In the period from 1949 to 1950 the number of local calls increased by no less than 5,000,000, that is an increase of 5,000,000 in one year. Since 1946 we have installed 12,000 circuit miles of telephone wires, but even that, as the House knows, is grossly insufficient to cope with the traffic.

A very important co-axial cable has been constructed to Cork via Limerick with spurs from Portlaoise to Waterford and Athlone. When the necessary equipment is installed, telephone delays should be reduced considerably, first of all in respect of places on the main trunk lines and, secondly, in respect of towns adjacent to the junction points of the main cables. The number of circuits on the cross-Channel route was increased from 16 to 48 but this is till grossly insufficient for the traffic on that route. The whole of the transport machinery of the Post Office has been enormously improved since 1946. About 1945, there were a total of some 40 vehicles in the telephone service. There are now 276 vans, trucks and vehicles of various kinds all brought into operation with a view to expediting telephone development. Delays in buildings have reduced the rate of progress. There is a great deal to be done in the way of planning for future service, the acquisition of sites and the erection of buildings themselves. New automatic telephone exchanges have been constructed in Bray, Malahide, Swords and Castleisland. A large new automatic trunk exchange has been constructed and is now in operation in Cork City and a similar exchange will be opened in Dundalk this months. All these improvements help to improve the service. Thirteen main trunk exchanges have been enlarged. There are 3,460 people employed in the telephone service, an increase of 1,650 since the war.

I thought that at this point I should introduce a slightly flippant note by trying to answer some of the more outrageous criticisms made against the telephone service. I frequently hear business people say in connection with the delays in trunk calls that the operator was taking tea and that in certain instances the delays were deliberate. I wish to state that that is not the case. There are relief operators who come into the exchanges and operate the switchboards while the others are taking their tea. The whole operation is done in rotation and the service does not suffer at all. Another complaint concerns understaffing of the exchanges, but that is not a fact. If anything, there is always an excessive staff working on the switchboards. Delays are due to the overloading of the system and to the many demands for calls in relation to the number of switchboards available and also in relation to the number of main trunk circuits that can be carried.

We have increased very largely in the last ten years the number of exchanges in continuous operation. There are now 92 stations where the service is continuous throughout the night. I was asked a question in the Dáil about the extent to which we have developed the all-night services in tourist districts and I find in the vast majority of tourist areas the telephone service either operates until 10 o'clock or all night and that hotels, on making a payment of a reasonable charge, can, by arrangement, have their telephones operating all night by having their lines connected.

Since 1947, 140 kiosks have been erected. Over 130 ordinary circuits have been constructed since 1946.

These are figures that may be of interest to the House as indicating the purposes for which the capital is required. For the extension of the number of subscribers' lines, £3,250,000 of the total of £8,000,000 will be required. There is a waiting-list of 5,500 people wishing to become subscribers, of whom 4,000 are in Dublin, so that the greatest pressure is in connection with the Dublin metropolitan area. Recently the number of lines joined has been nearly equal to that of the annual demand in the country as a whole. The system is hopelessly overloaded at the moment.

I want to make it clear that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the last Government deliberately and advisedly adopted a policy of connecting up subscribers' lines at the expense of fundamental development. There may be some reasoning in support of that. That policy is being effected at the expenses of the long-term policy because the previous Minister was unable to increase sufficiently the number of electrical engineers and it takes time to plan trunk circuits. It takes time to plan where, for example, you want to extend some automatic exchange and decide when and how best some minor link exchange will be joined up with it. All that takes time and consultation, as was seen in the planning of the co-axial cable from Dublin to Cork.

There has been delay in carrying out maintenance work and the fundamental development policy. I am not saying what the policy of the present Government is in these matters, or what my own policy is, but I do say that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at an early date will have to give serious consideration to this matter of electrical engineers. The day must come when we either secure more engineers or, remembering our duties to those who succeed us, slow down the joining up of subscriber lines and speed up the planning of exchanges, new circuits, trunks and so forth. Some Minister will have to write to the waiting subscribers and tell them that the work of joining up will have to be halted until the fundamental works have been undertaken and completed.

There has been considerable complaint of delays in getting replies to "zero", "30" and "31", but no scientific system has been devised whereby such calls can appear on a switchboard in rotation. The result is that some subscriber may experience inordinate delay in getting a reply, while another may get an immediate response. This is due entirely to the fact that the only indication to the operators is the flashing of lights on a switchboard and the operators do their best to keep up with the calls, but they have no means of knowing in what order they were made. So far as I know, no system has been invented to show the rotation in which these calls come, and that is probably because the people who manufacture equipment do. so in the belief that there would be just sufficient subscribers for the needs of the apparatus. In connection with the Dublin switchboard, for example, the number of units to enable callers dialling any of these three numbers to be answered more speedily has been increased from 90 to 140, and all subscribers know that even that is grossly inadequate, having regard to the number of calls made and the vast increase in the number of local calls in Dublin since 1939.

Of the total moneys sought, £3,170,000 is required for fundamental construction works which we hope to carry out. These include the co-axial link to Newry, linking Dublin with Belfast, work on which has just begun. It includes also a circuit from Athlone to the West. There have been various complaints about the insufficiency of the circuits to the West and improvements have been made in some areas by the new cable from Portlaoise to Athlone. We hope, if possible, to construct an independent cable to the North-West.

There is a great deal of work to be done in connection with minor circuits. This is evidenced by the fact that it is very often more difficult to get a call from parts of the West to a town 25 miles away than it is to call Dublin, London or Belfast.

It is proposed to increase the number of cross-channel cables from 47 to 106 in the course of the next two years. That is work which is being done jointly with the British authorities. A joint arrangement has been made and the equipment has been on order for some time; there is the inevitable delay. In the meantime, the London-Dublin service is overloaded at some times of the day as compared with other periods when calls can be put through in a few minutes.

A sum of £1,705,000 is to be expended on exchanges. It is proposed to have ten more automatic exchanges of the same type as those already operating in Bray, Malahide, Castleisland and other areas. Part of this money will also go towards the new exchange in St. Andrew Street, and other Dublin exchange extensions are contemplated. I do not want to give any undue hope by reason of the fact that the work on the St. Andrew Street exchange will be completed in the course of the next 12 months. My own belief is that any improvement in the service begets a further desire for making telephone calls and for subscribers' lines and it will be a long time before we catch up because, as I have said, the telephone habit is growing so rapidly.

There is a sum of £625,000 for buildings of all kinds, and £385,000 for the construction of call offices in post offices. There are 700 to be completed in the programme of which 152 will be completed this year and these offices are planned according to strict engineering design principles. The location of these call offices is related to what is considered best from the engineering standpoint.

There were many observations made in the Dáil. People asked why a particular call office was not joined. I am glad to say that there is no political interference with the establishment of call offices. It is based rigidly on principles of engineering, of getting the largest number of call offices established in the most convenient way, having regard to the demands in the way of calls from a particular post office, estimated in advance, and the amount of wire, poles and equipment required. The plan for next year will be in course of preparation. The only step I have taken in the nature of what might be called ministerial interference is to have the whole list examined again to make quite sure that there are no grievances of an undesirable kind and, also, I have asked that the tourist areas be specially considered, and later on we might consider doing proportionately more for the congested areas than has been done up to date.

In general, it will be planned according to engineering principles. The total of all those sums comes to £9,135,000 and, with the amount on hand, £1,170,000, the net amount required is something short of £8,000,000, and is being made up to £8,000,000 for the purpose of this Bill. It is a very large sum. We reckon that £14,000,000 will have been spent on the service in the ten-year period, 1946 to 1956.

The cheap pre-war stocks are vanishing very rapidly. Operational costs are mounting all the time. Stores have gone up in price by an average of 180 per cent. since 1939, and the cost of many important items is up by as much as 600 per cent. Twenty-two foot poles cost 7/- each in 1939. They now cost over £2 5s. each. The House well knows the price of copper and of other metals used in electrical installations. All those prices have bounded. The wages and salary bill has gone up by 139 per cent. As the House knows, the telephone charges were increased by 5 per cent. at the end of the war, and it brought in a certain amount of money.

I now have to deal with the general financing question. Profits in 1945-46 in the telephone service were £298,000 —a record figure. By 1950-51 the profit had been reduced to £92,000, this sum including a proportion of the arbitration award to civil servants, namely, the amount of a retrospective character required to pay salaries back to January 15th. We anticipate a loss this year of £40,000 on the telephone service and that will increase very markedly unless telephone charges are increased. The cost of depreciation and maintenance of the larger plant, the increase in annuity charges will all help to swell the loss unless we take action to bring the position back to normal. So, as the House knows, the telephone charges will be increased by 25 per cent. by warrant which lies in the power of the Minister and it will have the effect of reducing the loss and, we hope, of producing a slight surplus.

As the House knows, the Post Office service should pay for itself. You can argue as to whether each branch should pay for itself, or that the whole service, postal, telegraph and telephone, should pay for itself. It would be very unfair to the community as a whole to make the general taxpayer cover any large deficite on any part of the service because, if there is any form of charge which is in direct proportion to the income of those who use our services, the group of charges levied for both postal, telegraph and telephone service, are a perfect example. No one can deny that. With the inevitable few exceptions, the more money people have the more they telephone, and to levy a charge for the telephone service upon the ordinary taxpayer would be highly injudicious.

Telephone calls from boxes are being increased to 3d., and that will take place, I may say, in the United Kingdom very shortly. At present the figure is less but it will soon be 3d., if it is not already that.

The annuities in this Bill cover repayment in 25 years. That has been increased by five years because we now estimate that plant will last longer. We estimate the life of plant as being 29 years, so we make these annuities repayable in 25 years.

We do require, as I have already indicated, more electrical engineers. We are taking every step to see what can be done about the matter through whatever approaches can be made to the Minister for Education and those in charge of our universities, but it is difficult to secure enough electrical engineers. There is a scarcity of electrical and mechanical engineers throughout the State, in a great many State services and even in private businesses, and the question will have to be studied as a whole.

To introduce another slightly flippant note, one member of the Dáil suggested that school children should be given instruction in the use of the telephone. I would like to express the hope that no member of the Seanad will make that proposal because the system is sufficiently overloaded already without teaching any more people to use the telephone.

Mr. M. Hayes

We do not have to teach them, unfortunately.

Mr. Quirke

They know too much about it already.

Mr. Childers

I should like to close by mentioning the question of priorities in connection with demands for the joining of subscribers' lines. A great many questions were asked in the Dáil about that. For those members who would like to hear in detail the priorities, I will repeat the statement I made in the Dáil. The engineers like to construct new subscribers' lines in an area, to take a whole area embracing all the demands for lines in that area, and do the whole thing in rotation. They are disturbed from so doing by demands for subscribers' lines by persons who are in the category of priorities. That reduces the speed of the work, but it is inevitable. The present system of priorities consists of persons in the following vocations, in this order of choice:—Doctors, chemists, veterinary surgeons, dentists, hospitals and nursing homes, journalists—there is certainly an element of realism about that particular priority—midwives, clergymen, public utility companies, radiographers, hatcheries registered with the Department of Agriculture, registered hotels and guest houses— that is a category that has recently been added—firms giving employment continuously to more than seven hands, and then a very doubtful category—"every case regarded as meriting inclusion in above."

A Senator

What about bookmakers?

Mr. Childers

Bookmakers are not in the priority list. Having mentioned that list, I should state that there are limitations in connection with that. In connection, for example, with businesses, there is a sort of rule in the Post Office that is hard to question that if a business is started for the first time and a very quick application for a telephone is made that, on the whole, that firm should deserve priority over a firm which has been in existence for 40 years and never asked for a telephone and suddenly asked for one. You could argue against it, but there is a lot to be said for it.

These priorities amount to no less than 43 per cent. of the total annual demand for subscribers' lines and when I am asked to increase the number of priorities and to include solicitors, professional people of various kinds, my answer is that the only result of including a larger number of priorities is to increase the proportion as a percentage of the total demand until there is virtually no such thing as priority, practically every demand for a telephone line becomes a priority. Then you have the complete breakdown of the regional joining up of lines by the engineering department which is the only really economic way of doing it.

At the moment the system works in two ways. There is a group working in an area in Dublin joining subscribers' lines, applications for which have been made within the last year or year and a half—the delay varies—and another group of engineers doing priorities. If we add to the number of priorities, the only result will be that priorities will amount to nearly 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of the total and there will be a slowing down effected in the work.

I might add, quite frankly, that there is an amount of political patronage in regard to the joining of subscribers' lines. I should like to say to the public what, I am sure, my predecessor would like to have said, "show restraint", because the more lines that are joined outside the regional arrangement the slower will be the construction. There will still have to be a relatively excessive number of engineers joining up subscribers' lines when these engineers should be engaged in the work of long-term development.

I hope that I have given a sufficient description of the purposes of this Bill. I have gone through the general development and history of the telephone service. I trust that I may have the approval of the Seanad for this Bill because, if so, it will enable us to continue this work.

Mr. M. Hayes

This, I think, is the Minister's first appearance as a Minister in this House. He has certainly given us a very exhaustive account of the purposes of the Bill and a very considerable amount of information. As well as giving us information he has been rather dispassionate. A Minister will, I trust, always be dispassionate in this House. The atmosphere is such that he can be rather dispassionate. It seems to me that, in a Ministry like the Department of Posts and Telegraphs which serves the public, it is desirable that the attitude the Minister adopts should be constantly adopted. The work of the Department is of a technical character, and there should be as little interference as possible from what I may call the political aspect.

The Minister stated that the difficulty about installing telephones was related to a scarcity of three types: a scarcity of engineers, a scarcity of materials, and a shortage of sites. I think, he said, there was a difficulty in obtaining sities. With regard to the scarcity of materials, I think that no Irish Minister can do very much about that because of world shortages. With regard to sites, the Minister must do what he can about that. He did make an appeal on the question of engineers, and said he thought that, perhaps, the Minister for Education could do something to increase the supply of engineers. I am afraid that the Minister for Education cannot do anything about it. In this State, there is only one place, what used to be called the College of Science, which is part of University College, Dublin, which has any equipment for the training of mechanical and electrical engineers. The students attending Trinity College, Dublin, have the right to a share of that particular equipment and building. The equipment is now, I think, pretty old and not very good. One of the methods of improving the supply of mechanical and electrical engineers would be to endeavour to bring that particular machinery and that particular equipment for the training of mechanical and electrical engineers up to date, to extend it, and leave it as at present to be shared between the students of the University College, Dublin, and of Trinity College.

From the point of view of space and equipment, it is only possible to train a certain limited number of mechanical and electrical engineers. As well as that the course of study is a very difficult one. There is a preliminary screening of candidates. Everyone who wants to do mechanical and electrical engineering simply cannot do it unless he passes a certain mathematical examination at the beginning. The number of people who take up electrical engineering is small, while the number who succeed in passing the final examination is smaller still.

That is one element of the situation. Another element, as I am sure the Minister will come up against it, is that the pay in the Civil Service for most professional people is bad, because the pay for professional people in the Civil Service is settled by clerks in the Department of Finance. This is not a political question. It is one of which I have had a rather long experience, but they always endeavour to reduce the pay of professional people of any kind. I think practising barristers are the only people who have defeated them, as far as I know. All the others, solicitors, engineers, doctors, architects, draftsmen, anyone you like, who are in the Civil Service, are in what one may call the depressed classes.

As regards mechanical and electrical engineers, the Post Office, perhaps, has to compete with such bodies as the Electricity Supply Board. I understand the position is that anyone who comes out with a degree can immediately get a post if he applies to the Electricity Supply Board, particularly in the present situation, and with the development of rural electrification. Perhaps the Minister, seeing that this is the position, would use his good offices, not so much with the Minister for Education as with the Minister for Finance, to extend facilities for the training of university engineers because that is what it amounts to.

With regard to telephones generally, I am tempted to say that there is nothing worse than having a telephone in the house except not having it. I agree entirely with the Minister that the younger generation is very anxious to use the telephone, and that certainly no children need to be taught how to use it, because they seem to be experts at it from a very early age.

The Minister, as I said, was dispassionate. He gave an account of the increase in the number of subscribers' lines—the number linked up. There had been an increase, he said, from 18,000 in 1923 to 83,000 in 1951. He gave credit for that to the Government to which he previously belonged, and he gave credit, in a left-handed way, to his predecessor, for the increase in the number of subscribers from 60,000 in 1948 to 83,000 in 1951. But one could go further back. In 1923, there were 18,000 lines connected. A great many of them were bad lines. The equipment was bad. It had suffered, to put it in its mildest from, from two wars—from two attacks. But there was an increase between 1923 and 1932 under the administration of the first Government from 18,000 to 30,000. That was something substantial to accomplish considering the considerable difficulties there were at that time. If we can have continuity, and if we can devote our minds and all our equipment to meeting the demand that is there, then so much the better.

The Minister spoke about the telephone paying for itself. I take it that when he talks about the telephone paying for itself and making a profit, he includes in the calculation the payment of interest on capital and the repayment of capital. I wonder if the kiosks pay for themselves and whether any calculations have been made about them. There are a few of them near where I live in the suburbs. I pass by them at all hours of the day and night, and I can say that I have never seen a kiosk unoccupied. There is one at the junction of five roads at Rathgar Avenue. I have passed by it at all hours of the day and night. I have passed it going home in the early hours of the morning, and there always seems to be someone using it. There seems to be a need for more of them.

The Minister said something which, I think, should find an echo on these benches, and indeed from everybody in the House. The difficulties that people experience in using the telephone arise not from any defect or default in the staffs but rather from some defect or default in the mechanical equipment. I think it is absolutely true to say that. You do find some irritating things in connection with the use of the telephone. You find, for example, that it is easier to get Cork than it is to get Drogheda. Perhaps that is because Drogheda is a very busy place. It is difficult to understand why it should be easier to get Drogheda, which is only 30 miles away, than to get Cork, which is nearly 160 miles away. I would like to say, as one who uses the telephone a good deal, that I have found the staffs most helpful when making personal calls. I think anybody who has never attempted to make a personal long-distance calls has always got very considerable accommodation indeed from the staff.

With regard to priorities, there is just one thing about new business which I came up against myself quite recently. The Minister says that solicitors, for example, should not be given a priority. Perhaps that is so. The Minister will, of course, realise that a young solicitor could not possibly start up in business without a telephone. To say to him: "You cannot get a telephone" is equivalent to saying to him: "You cannot start in business." A telephone is an absolute necessity for certain professional people starting in business, and particularly for a solicitor—more for a solicitor, I understand, than for an accountant. I think there is priority for that particular kind of new business, and I think it is deserved. The list of priorities is very peculiar. I do not want to follow the Minister into certain flippancies to which he gave expression, but it is very striking that journalists should come before midwives. Perhaps it was not in order of merit; perhaps it was the ecclesiastical order, where the juniores priores come first.

On the whole, I think we should congratulate ourselves on the progress made. Perhaps it would not be profitable or desirable that we should expend very much time in deciding by what particular Minister the greatest progress has been made. The Minister told us that the immense increase in subscribers' lines effected in the past three years was effected at the expense of general fundamental development, but that is one of these problems about which it is naturally difficult to make up one's mind. At any rate, from the point of view that this Bill does provide capital to give us more equipment, I think we can say that it is welcome and that we will facilitate its passage, because the difficulties we experience with regard to the telephone are not difficulties of organisation or difficulties with regard to the unwillingness of the staff to co-operate, but difficulties of the materials and other mechanical troubles. From that point of view, the Minister's speech and explanation are welcome, and the Bill should get an easy passage.

Mr. Quirke

I want to welcome the Minister on this, his first, visit to the Seanad and to congratulate him on his appointment as Minister. I believe that even those who differ from him politically will recognise in him a worthy son of a very distinguished father. Many of us who knew his father in the old days looked forward to seeing him carry on the same unselfish service in the interests of this country for many years, but unfortunately his life was cut short. Some people thought that he did not have any right to live to continue that service, and I do not mind saying now that, in my opinion, his execution was one of the darkest deeds in the troubled history of this country. The appointment of his son as Minister was no surprise to anybody who made any study of politics in this country. The reasons for his appointment are obvious and very numerous indeed, and I feel that his appointment will be some small consolation to the many people throughout the country who, for 30 years, have mourned the loss of his father.

Having heard the statement made by the Minister on this, his first, appearance in the House and realising that he has been in the Department for only approximately a couple of weeks, most people will agree that it is probably the clearest statement in connection with a Government Department ever delivered in this House by any man with only the same short connection with a Government Department. His announcement that the Bill was for an extension of the telephone service naturally must meet with the approval of everybody, not alone in the House but in the country. It is a well-known fact that the country has been clamouring for a considerable time for such an extension, and the fact that this Bill is designed to go to some extent towards a realisation of that idea must meet with the approval of most people.

The statement made by the Minister with regard to engineering stores was really encouraging. As is generally known, all telephone equipment, electrical equipment and all other equipment which might be necessary in connection with the telephone service has become not alone scarce but very dear. It was typical of a Childers to compliment his predecessor, and I should like to join in complimenting the Minister's predecessor, not so much on the same lines as the Minister, but on his having had the common sense to adopt the plans laid on his desk by the previous Minister, Deputy Little. We do not want to go back on the efficiency or lack of efficiency of previous Ministers, but I think we can all look forward to a very successful career, so far as this Department is concerned, for the Minister.

In the debate in the Dáil, numerous statements were made as to lack of telephone facilities in various parts of the country. I think the greatest difficulty so far as the average man in the street is concerned is his inability to realise the cause of the difficulties in the Department. It is not easy for the uninitiated to realise the difficulty which must exist when the machinery at headquarters, that is, in the General Post Office, had to take on a load which it was never intended to carry. I believe that in the near future it will be possible to extend the machinery at headquarters—at the central switchboard or whatever they call it—to such an extent as to make it possible to give a much improved service, particularly to people in country districts.

I have had my quota, of complaints about the telephone service for a long number of years and I realise the position so far as priority lists are concerned. The Minister has gone through the list and most of us were surprised to find so many people included. As he explained, if we were to continue to extend the list, it would mean eventually that we would reach a position in which there were no priorities and in which all one could say would be that a few people were on the black-list and would not get any telephones, while the rest had priorities.

I fully agree with the Minister that you cannot keep on extending priority lists, but I would like some of the principal industries to get at least some special attention—I do not think we could call it priority. In the case of stud farms and farms where pedigree cattle are being bred, and also poultry stations and extensive pig farms, the telephone service is very important, particularly where arrangements must be made for the transport of animals to various parts of Ireland and across Channel.

The telephone service also should be extended as rapidly as possible to farmers in remote areas. We have got to the stage where we all expect perfection. I have been in numerous other countries and found the telephone service in rural areas not nearly as good as it is in rural areas here. As Senator Hayes said, it would be desirable that people should have telephones, even if they are not 100 per. cent. efficient. Until such time as a perfect system can be put into rural areas, the system which is operating reasonably efficiently in other countries might be used. Later on, it will be possible to have as perfect a system on the farms as in provincial towns.

I have had my quota of complaints and have passed them on to previous Ministers. However, I came across one to-day, where a man in County Galway applied for a telephone five years ago. He kept on applying and finally the poles were put up and the telephone was actually put into his house. He now has a telephone but also has a notice that he will be cut off at 8 o'clock in the evening, as he is the only man in the district and a special switch would have to be put in to deal with his line. Where a man is in a pretty big way of business, if his telephone is cut off at 8 o'clock he might as well not have one at all. I hope the Minister will find it possible to do something in a case of that kind.

Talking about various places where you had bad telephone service, I have had considerable experience, having been in most towns in most counties, and if there is ever a championship for bad telephone service and the Minister makes an examination, he will award the prize to Thurles, County Tipperary. I see that there were statements in the Dáil that it took longer for a call between two towns 20 miles apart than it would take to travel the distance in a car. I assure the Minister that if he goes incognito to Thurles and tries to book a call to Clonmel and if he starts a pal of his walking at the same time, the pal will be there before the call.

I also suggest that the Minister should pay a little more than ordinary attention to the telephone service to the Law Library. As a result of the activities of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and his Party, the Law Library has been flooded with barristers in the last few weeks, and I think it would be better to improve the existing service to the Law Library, as it is hard to contact people there, and there will be more grievances than ever.

Mr. McGuire

A temporary service?

Mr. Quirke

No, it would have to be a permanent one there. They will be there a long time, and they will be getting more cranky as they grow older.

Mr. Baxter

The Senator will have to consult Deputy Browne about that.

Mr. Quirke

Some Senators opposite may have a grievance, but they will get over it. I was amazed about the shortage of engineers. I think Senator Hayes said he was amazed, too.

Mr. M. Hayes

No, I was not amazed.

Mr. Quirke

As far as I can see, every youngster is mechanically-minded. Perhaps it is that there are not facilities for the education of engineers. It is a sad state of affairs if young men could not be directed into that line, rather than towards overcrowded professions. It is scarcely a question of a regular vocation, such as a religious career. It ought to be one of the things to which the Minister for Education might direct attention, when directing the careers of the young men, to turn them towards the engineering profession, so that we would not find ourselves in years to come as we find ourselves to-day.

In regard to the salaries or allowances for post offices in country districts—Senator Burke need not get alarmed; I am not going to refer to Baltinglass—I have been simply amazed at the smallness of the salaries paid. I argued this with previous Ministers——

An Cathaoirleach

This is a Telephone Bill and has nothing to do with such payments.

Mr. Quirke

I understood that because it was a Telephone Bill it would be reasonable to refer to the fact that telephones were in post offices. However, if you say I must not talk about telephones——

An Cathaoirleach

The Chair said nothing of the sort. The payment in post offices does not arise.

Mr. Quirke

What I intended to say was that the fact that a telephone service was being installed would be a reasonable excuse for increasing the allowances of these postmasters and postmistresses throughout the country.

Mr. Baxter

I do not know if, the Minister, on his first visit to this House, will feel considerably elevated as a result of the introductory remarks of the leader of the Government Party. If every measure which is to be discussed here, and which ought to be regarded by Senators on every side as relating to the well-being of our people, were approached with the type of mind revealed by Senator Quirke in his speech——

Mr. Quirke

What type of mind?

Mr. Baxter

——this House should be very quickly dissolved. A discussion here about the people who were executed or murdered in the years gone by does not help any Minister in his task or elevate the status of this House in the minds of the people.

Mr. Quirke

The Minister does not need any help.

Mr. Baxter

Senator Quirke is very difficult to teach. Goodness knows, he is long enough here to have learned a little, but it is backwards he is going. This is the kind of Bill on which there should be very little difference of opinion. It should not call for any display of unpleasantness or disagreeableness, unless it be in the person concerned. The well-being of our people concerns us all and is something to which we must advert.

Regarding the survey of the telephone service, as outlined by the Minister, if I might make any comment it would be that the position he revealed indicates that the whole approach to the development of the service has been anything but imaginative, all over the years, and especially over the last 20 years. The service has grown, but the Minister has given facts which indicated that, as regards the availability of the telephone, we are almost the most backward people in Europe, at least this side of the Iron Curtain. Why is that? The Minister says the habit has grown slowly, but we are far behind. Why are we far behind, and who is responsible? He tells us of all the demands made, which are holding up the development. Surely if he would look at it from the point of view of the country residents, he would see that the people who are holding up the extension of the service are the people in ministerial office who over the years have not given the people the facilities they want.

We realise that during the war there were difficulties and obstacles in the way of extending the services at the rate at which they were previously extended. What plans were developed before the war so that the system might be extended and put at the disposal of all the people who wanted it? What efforts did the Minister and his staff make? To-day there are demands for this service from all over the country, demands which cannot be met for years. The Minister stated that there were not sufficient electrical engineers available. If that is so there are a great many people in whose houses a telephone cannot be installed until they are long dead and, as the Minister for Agriculture stated, and stated very well and truly, he was not concerned with what the conditions would be when he was dead, but he was very much concerned to see conditions improved while he was alive. That is the sort of approach that has to be made to this particular problem. The Minister's predecessor in office must have been faced with this shortage of electrical engineers, as must have been also his predecessor in office, but what had they done about it? If you were limited by the lack of finance for the extension of the telephone service there might be some excuse, but we have got the money, the young people who can be trained, and the workers to go on with the business, and yet we cannot go on with the job. That is the truth.

I am not the sort of person who wishes to complain about the sort of service you get from people in telephone exchanges. We have all had the experience of the lack of efficiency and service. On one occasion, at least, I called up and made a complaint. Perhaps it was on some occasion when I did not get the sort of service I thought I should get. I waited 20 minutes or more after dialling "O" but I did not get a reply. I called up somebody and made a complaint. I do not know whether my complaint carried the matter any further.

The truth is that nobody at present can place responsibility on the lack of equipment or on the fact that some of the staff is overworked. The Minister has told us that there is ample staff. I think if we speak the truth it must be admitted that there is no service in the State that you will hear more complaints about than the telephone service. It is tragic if our operators in the telephone service are being blamed because of lack of efficiency of the mechanical equipment. I would have been much better pleased with the Minister's statement, lucid as it was and as Senator Hayes said it was, if the Minister had given us an indication, for instance, of the number of unsatisfied applications there is at the moment for telephones.

Mr. Childers

5,300 and we attached over 6,000 a year. Last year we attached something over 6,000 lines.

Mr. Baxter

You have an order of priority, but I am not going to quarrel with that. During the term of office of the Minister's predecessor the excuse was that until underground cables were procured nothing could be done, but how many months and years have we to wait before these improvements in the system can be carried out? I think the Minister ought to give some indication to the country of the kind of plan that will be evolved in his Department. He indicated to us what was done quite recently, an extension of the telephone service, but obviously that was done under the plans of the Minister's predecessor.

What stands out above everything else is the fact that there are vast areas of the country in which there is no telephone service at all. If you travel the road from Cavan to Virginia, a distance of 20 miles—I heard Senator Hayes speaking about kiosks in the City of Dublin, but Dublin has a service in the small hours of the morning —you will not encounter a telephone kiosk on the road. There is a telephone service to the right and left of that road between Cavan and Virginia, in towns and villages situated at a considerable distance off the main highway. We ought to have telephone kiosks situated along our main roads from which it would be possible to phone. In the event of an accident on the road, one has to get out of one's car and walk miles. Indeed, one does not know where one is going. Inland the position is similar. If one requires a doctor, a nurse or a veterinary surgeon during the night or in the small hours of the morning, one has to get on a bicycle and cycle seven or eight miles to a telephone call box. That is the position.

We talk a great deal about the difficulties of rural life and the lack of amenities. As the Minister stated, the young people come into the towns and villages where they see a telephone service, a facility which is not available to them in the country. That is a matter that has to be overcome. There are hundreds and thousands of people throughout the countryside who have not got this service at all. When we have linked up the people in the rural centres with those in the bigger centres from the point of view of business, professional means and all that, and made life more tolerable in the country, then the Minister or his successor, as there will be one, will be able to say there has been such planning, such imagination, such initiative and such a grip on the situation that the amenities enjoyed by people in towns and cities in the past have now been made available to the people of the countryside. When it is possible to say that, then we can boast of our achievements and of the developments we have made in the telephone service.

If we have extended the service and if we have added to the number of subscribers' lines, this has been accomplished by pressure on the part of subscribers. The work just had to be done, but that is not the sort of approach to make to the whole problem of a big organisation such as the telephone service. One frequently gets the impression that people in institutions like the Post Office, the Board of Works and, perhaps, sometimes the Electricity Supply Board are always leaving something for succeeding generations to do lest they run out of a job themselves.

I hope that the Minister—I am satisfied that he is imaginative—will face up to this very urgent problem. I am sure his predecessor in office was preparing plans to deal with this problem.

I feel that it is something that will not wait and that cannot wait and that the pressure on the Post Office to get on with the job will be so great that they will have to find the technical people wherever possible in order to get this work done. I think it is not sufficient excuse to say we cannot find the electrical engineers to do the work. All I can say about that is that, after all these years, if we cannot get or induce these people to come into a Government service, then there is something very wrong. I say we are all ready to support this Bill and apart from the fact that the Leader of the House introduced his discussion on it in a certain way——

An Cathoirleach

There is no necessity for second reference to that.

Mr. Baxter

I think that in so far as the plans outlined go and so far as the money is to be utilised to bring greater services and benefits to the people, the Minister would have every support which he needs in the matter.

Mr. Summerfield

Whilst congratulating the Minister on his statement in introducing this Bill, I think that while it is an encouraging picture for the future it is indeed condemnation of the present state of affairs. As I see it, our national telephone service is now to join the State guaranteed undertakings, like the electricity supply services, in having to admit that it is miles behind the needs of the community. Much has been said, and continues to be said, about private enterprise and its deficiencies. I am connected with many private undertakings and if any of these were forced to the position of having to admit, as the Electricity Supply Board and the telephone service have now to admit, that it was not able to supply the needs of its consumers, then the shareholders would have something to say about it. I am sure no one in charge of a private undertaking would allow that undertaking to get into the position of the telephone service, as depicted for us here to-day by the Minister. I say this, having due regard to the fact that the Minister has had to draw up his statement after only a few weeks in office, and I do not say it in any deprecatory way.

As I see it, the position of the Post Office and telephones is due to three things:—(1), lack of engineers; (2), lack of material supplies, and (3), the need for certain priorities. Of course, this matter of material supplies is the one that we cannot entirely control. We know that this country of ours in its industrial efforts is depending on raw materials from outside to make those things we need for our community service and we know also that our powerful neighbour across the Channel is more ready to give us finished articles rather than the raw materials we need. I feel, however, that it is our duty in this House to criticise matters that come before us and to see what steps can be taken to meet a certain situation. I say that we could easily have foreseen the telephone expansion that is taking place to-day and I feel that intelligent anticipation by the Minister's predecessors in office would have ensured that more supplies would have been available to meet a certain situation when it arose, such as that with which we are faced to-day.

On this question of engineers, is it not an ironic commentary to find that at a time when there is so much talk of trained men rushing to the gangways of the emigrant ships, we should be saying that we cannot get qualified engineers for our telephone services? It comes as a terrific surprise to me to know that the Post Office is short of engineers. I am connected with a trade with a highly developed skilled apprenticeship—technical training—and I feel that if the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs could say that for the next few years there would be plenty of work and good wages for skilled men, then the deficiency of which the Minister spoke would be met.

While I agree with the policy of widespread extension of new services, I do not think that these should be carried out to the detriment of existing subscribers. Telephones to-day are an essential part of business. There is no man in this House connected with business who has not had the aggravating experience of making a call and being told that there would be up to half an hour's delay. After waiting for over an hour he has then tried to find out what was happening to the call and has had to wait for as long as a quarter of an hour before getting the supervisor, who would then tell him to hang up and he would call back. After a further quarter of an hour he would have to ring up again to find out something about the call.

I have had the experience, which I took note of in my office, and which occurred in the last month, of having spent threequarters of an hour trying to find out what happened to a call. That is something which should be remedied immediately. There is a responsibility to existing subscribers which should be met before we talk about widespread expansion of services, however desirable they might be. I would like sincerely to say that I hope that when this widespread expansion of the services is initiated by the Minister, the needs of present subscribers will be looked to, because concurrent with any such expansion there will be a demand for worth-while exchange facilities from those who are already subscribers.

Mr. Burke

I want to thank the Minister for his statement which, I am sure, will be of great interest to the public because of the various facts and figures which he has given. I am sorry, however, that Senator Quirke thought fit to introduce a contentious note in his speech.

I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to one matter which is a source of serious worry to business men—Senator Summerfield touched briefly on it. A man engaged in business, if he wants a call to some part of the State or to Great Britain, has no idea how long it will take the call, and a whole day might be wasted on it. If you ask for a number in Belfast you are generally told you will get the call as soon as possible, but very often you will find you will have to wait several hours. In the meantime, the caller is tied to the telephone for the whole period. Surely it should be possible for a subscriber to be told that the call will take one, two, three or four hours, and then he could plan his day accordingly. That is one aspect of trunk calls which the Post Office should look into at once.

In the Post Office they are always considerate and courteous in these matters, but there seems to be always something indefinite, particularly when link exchanges have to be brought into use, in giving the information as to when a call made might be available, I would ask the Minister to have that point attended to because it is the most exasperating problem that business men have to put up with and very often the officials of the Department are not responsible for it. I know that the Minister will have the matter attended to and that this time next year we will be able to say that none of us was kept waiting longer than the time indicated by the operator.

Liam Ó Buachalla

Ní raibh mé anso nuair a bhí an Seanadóir Ó Cuirc ag caint ach do réir mar thuigim ó chaint cuid de na Seanadóirí eile, thug sé moladh don Aire ar theacht dó ós ár gcóir don chéad uair. Má thug, ba mhaith uaidh é agus ba mhaith liom a rá, ar mo shon féin go háirithe, gur geal liom é fheiceál ós ár gcóir. Is maith liom é a fheiceál ós ár gcóir, ar a shon féin, ar shon a ainme agus a chlainne, agus is maith liom é fheíceál mar gheall air go gcreidim go bhfuil fear maith, tuiscionach i mbun ceann de na seirbhísí is tábhachtaí sa tír.

D'éist mé, mar d'éist na Seanadóirí uile, go haireach leis an míniú a thug sé dhúinn ar bhrí an Bhille agus d'éist mé leis an léirmheas a rinne sé ar sheirbhísí na Roinne agus ar dheacrachtaí na Roinne agus, mar adúirt an Seanadóir de Búrca, táim cinnte go mbeidh fáilte, ní hamháin ag lucht an tSeanaid, ach ag muintir na tíre uile a bhfuil baint acu le seirbhís telefóna, gur tugadh míniú chomh beacht, chomh soiléir agus chomh hoscailte dúinn ar na deacrachtaí atá roimh an Roinn Telegrafa agus ar an mbealach atá siad ag iarraidh na deacrachtaí sin a shárú.

An méid atá le rá agam faoin mBille, ní mór é ach tá ceist nó dhó go mba mhaith liom freagra d'fháil ón Aire ina dtaoibh.

There are just a few questions, apart from what I have already said, that I would like to put to the Minister, not by way of criticism but by way of securing information, which I think the public at large would appreciate. In the first place, it is welcome news that the Minister is particularly concerned to see that the congested areas get as full a telephone service as is possible and that they will get it as soon as he can manage it.

I would like to know, with regard to telephone requisites, to what extent have we seen to it that we will provide these things at home to the fullest extent possible. It is an industry, just like the electricity industry, which would seem to offer scope for considerable expansion. I speak purely as a layman and I would be glad to know to what extent steps are being taken to develop the manufacturing end of the telephone requisites industry.

Secondly—it is clear that the House is particularly interested in this matter —there is the question of the training of engineers. It seems to me that there is certain ambiguity in this term "engineer". When the Minister was speaking I had an idea that he was speaking more of mechanics or operatives rather than of, say, university-trained men. There is a good deal in what Senator Summerfield has said. If it is operatives that are in question, a good deal could be done by approaching the technical and vocational education authorities. I would be surprised if it has not been done already. Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree. If it is a different type of person that is in question, the technical and vocational authorities will be able to do very little. If it is men of the type Senator Hayes had in mind, it seems to me the need would best be met by our facing the issue that a college of technology is required urgently. If, as I think it is, it is a matter of operatives, that is, mechanics, men who would be concerned in laying down the lines and linking them up and installing switchboards, there should not be any great difficulty in getting the requisite number of men within a reasonable time.

I wonder are there difficulties with regard to the number of apprentices who are being admitted to this particular trade. We know that the limitation of the number of apprentices in more fields than one is causing something of a bottleneck in national development. If restriction of apprenticeship is a serious part of the problem, the sooner we take the matter up with the trade union concerned, with the Trade Union Congress or the Congress of Irish Unions, the better. However, I am certain that, if it is a matter of getting a sufficient supply of operatives, there is no reason why a scheme could not be developed and worked in conjunction with the technical and vocational education authorities with a considerable amount of success and satisfaction. We know what has been done by these authorities in the provision of trained personnel for many industries—engineering, textile and so on. If it is a shortage of operatives that causes the trouble, there should not be any great difficulty in getting a reasonable supply within a reasonable time.

The next question I want to ask is whether it is the practice of the telephone authorities, in the case of applications from rural areas, to demand a deposit of £14 or £20 before the Department will consider the installation of the phone. I know of one case where it was represented to me a few years ago that such a deposit was demanded before the telephone authorities would even consider an application. It seems a very heavy deposit and one would like to know if such a deposit is demanded and the grounds for it. If there are reasonable grounds for it, the dissatisfaction of the public will be eased.

One other point on which I want information is, to what extent the Minister considers that a percentage of the telephones installed each year should be allotted to rural areas. I know there has been a fair amount of progress in regard to the installation of the telephone service in country post offices but, from the knowledge I have of rural areas, I think that, generally speaking, the installation of the telephone in business houses in the country is of even more importance. They are meeting houses for the farmers and for all kinds of people. Questions arise that require the use of the telephone, but the business house does not seem to come into the priority list at all. I know there will be considerable difficulty in adjusting the priority list in such a way as to please everybody. It seems to me, however, that country business houses ought to be given a fairly high place in the priority list instead of being cut out of it altogether.

With regard to the question of stores, I wonder to what extent we have taken time by the forelock and provided ourselves with reasonable reserves. I think the Minister said that the increase in stores amounts to somewhere about £300,000. Whether that figure, plus the normal reserve, is sufficient is something about which I have grave doubts. The question is, what increases have we in the way of physical reserves rather than in money values. The sum of £300,000, or even £1,000,000, would be a very small amount to expend on stores for a service such as the telephone service. In view of the way things are moving, it would be well, I think, if the Department were to see to it that a far greater amount of stores was laid up than would appear to be the case from the Minister's statement.

There is one other question that I have been asked to raise. It relates to the rental for the telephone itself. I think that private subscribers are called upon to pay something like £1 5s. 0d. a quarter. When one considers the possible cost of the telephone and of the battery that is required with it, that seems to be a very heavy tax on users. Perhaps the Minister would indicate what services are rendered for that tax of £5 5s. 0d. a year in order to satisfy subscribers who are critical of it.

I do not think there is anything else I want to say except this, and many subscribers may not like it, that I think it would make for efficiency in the service if the telephone authorities would insist on city folk being given a much shorter limit than they are getting at present for local calls. They will not like to hear of anybody making the demand that they should get less value for their money than they are getting, but I think it would be to the advantage of the telephone service, and particularly to the advantage of business in general, if a definite time could be arranged and if the authorities would insist in ringing them off when that time had expired.

I said at the outset that we were very pleased to have the Minister with us. It was a great pleasure to listen to such an excellent survey as he gave us of the service, of its difficulties and its possibilities. I believe that we have an excellent man in charge of this most important Department, and we wish him every success in the work that he has taken in hands.

Mr. Douglas

I agree with most of what has been said in relation to the Bill itself. I do not propose to take up the time of the House by raising points of any importance. The popularity and value of this service is such that you are bound to have a great deal of criticism of it. The fact that we have had the kind of criticism which was offered only shows that the people are using the telephone and recognise that it is a valuable service.

I had the privilege of being chairman of the commission which inquired into the Post Office, including the telephone service, in 1922. I do not think anybody now could realise what the conditions were in 1922. Most of the equipment belonged to a private telephone company which had allowed it to get into bad repair because it was going to be taken over by the State. It was ignored by a State that was not interested in it because that State was at war with us. If one thinks of that for a moment, one can realise how extremely bad the conditions were. The conditions, too, in regard to the operators were extremely bad. I remember I myself spent some time in the exchange watching the girls. I should not like to have to do the work they were engaged on.

The position was such that I remember saying to one of my colleagues that if I had to put up with their conditions I would want at least four times the wages they were getting, and that, even then, I would not like the position. The conditions, as I say, were then extremely difficult and we had not a very efficient service. I think we can say that, on the whole, even though we have not everything we would like to have, over that period of nearly 30 years we have not done too badly. One can say that, bearing in mind that we had a civil war, that we had gone through a world war and that there were world shortages and other difficulties. I am not interested in what Party receives the credit for what has been done. I think it is quite right that criticism should be voiced. Even the Minister himself rather anticipated that, but, taking the picture as a whole, one can say that the Irish telephone service under the officials in charge, represents an enormous improvement which is just not represented by the figures the Minister gave. The improvements made over the last 28 years have been much more than the figures show.

I think it rather a pity that we have not got a telephone book for the whole of Ireland. This is a small country. Now is the time, I think, when there is a willingness on both sides to co-operate on matters which do not deal with politics to have this matter considered. I suggest to the Minister that he might make an effort to see whether it would not be possible to get co-operation and have one Irish telephone book. It would be of great importance so far as legitimate trade across the Border is concerned. We have, of course, a political border, but here is a matter on which there could be co-ordination if it were approached in the right way. We might be able to get co-ordination in the same spirit as that shown in the case of the Erne. It is an idea that I pass on to the Minister.

I wish the Minister every success in the job that he has undertaken. It is no reflection on him if I say that I have always been of the opinion that the position of Minister for Posts and Telegraphs should be abolished, and that we should have instead a board something like the Electricity Supply Board in charge of what is really a business undertaking. It is a Department which, I think, should be taken completely out of Party politics altogether. If that were done, there would be no opportunity for making political points in regard to the service. If there has been an odd case of political patronage, I think it is substantially true to say that the telephone service has not been run on Party lines at all, and that Party politics have played practically no part in it. We have had efficiency with a minimum of interference and with an extreme reluctance on the part of either House to interfere, except when some petty matter, such as Baltinglass or something of that kind, which may be important but which, taken as a whole, is relatively unimportant, arises. I hope the Minister will be able to continue in that spirit, as I believe he will, and he will get the support of all sides of the House.

Mr. O'Callaghan

Lest the Minister should go away with the impression that all telephone users are dissatisfied with the service, I should like to say that I, as a telephone user, am very satisfied. I have no complaint to make about the telephone workers with whom I have come in contact. It may be that the telephone workers in the South of Ireland are better workers than they are in other parts, or it may be that some of us are more easily pleased than others, but I do not want the Minister to go away with the impression that we are all dissatisfied. Two or three speakers have put forward complaints and I want to counteract these by saying that I am very satisfied with the telephone service available to me. The only regret I have is that other people who live on the land have not been able to get the same service as I have got.

Complaints have been made about cross-Channel calls. After seven or eight o'clock in the evening—it may be difficult earlier—I have never found any difficulty in getting a call to any part of England, Scotland or Wales. The call always came within a reasonable time and I have no complaint whatever to make on that score. I should like to see an extension of the service to remote country villages and to more farms. I have in mind some remote country villages which are ten miles from the doctor and the maternity nurse, and the provision of a service in such localities should get the Minister's attention and should also get priority. An extension of the telephone system to farms should also be considered sympathetically. Nowadays, with the shortage of farm workers and the shortage of people generally in country areas, the telephone is a great boon, and, if the service could be extended to more farms, it would help to increase agricultural production.

I would not have said anything on this Bill, except, as I say, that I wished to convey to the Minister that I, at any rate, am very satisfied with the service. I agree that a telephone directory for all Ireland would be very desirable and I support Senator Douglas in his point of view that the matter should be looked into and considered.

Mr. O'Farrell

The Minister has given us a vast amount of useful information, but information which is mainly of a statistical nature. He told us the number of phones we have and the number asked for, the number of priorities and the percentage of priorities to total number of applications. That is all very useful information, but this is a Bill to increase the capital for the purpose of extending the telephone system. Perhaps it would be possible for him, when replying, to give us some more information. To extend the system is one thing, but to extend and improve it will be a far better thing, and I am sure that that is the Minister's intention.

Most of the things we could say on this stage have been said already. We have been anticipated in that respect, but we might go back over them for a moment, because there is, perhaps, a different angle from which to look at them. We have heard about the utility of the telephone and about how necessary it is. It is necessary and it is a utility, but it is also a toy, and that is part of the trouble. Too many people, particularly in the cities, treat the telephone as a toy. When they have nothing better to do, they take up the telephone and talk and gossip to somebody else, holding up more important calls. Very often the telephone exchange officials are blamed for it. Too many people are playing with it and that was the trouble, and admittedly the trouble, in the case of the call boxes, to such an extent that a mechanical time limit had to be put on the calls. Young ladies went in, and, when it was too wet to meet their boy friends, they said all they had to say over the phone, which took about an hour and only cost them 2d.

What interests me most at the moment is the possibility of overcoming the difficulties which face the Post Office and the telephone officials. Senator Ó Buachalla has referred to this matter, as have also Senators Summerfield and Hayes, and it was in my mind also. We have a State service. The State has a monopoly of supplying the people with what is, to a great extent, an essential now, but that State monopoly is dependent on private enterprise not merely in this country but in any part of the world to keep it going by supplying it with its materials. I wonder what effort has ever been made, or can be made, by the State to provide itself with some of the essential equipment.

Most of the telephone apparatus which we have in our houses, at any rate, is a mere plastic or moulding. Could we not make, with mouldings or with plastic, some of the equipment which we now buy from abroad? Are we making all the wires, all the transformers, all the batteries? What is it we must buy from abroad, apart from big transformers and such equipment?

The answer may be that it would not be worth anybody's while to provide these instruments here if the demand and the installations numbered about 5,000 or 6,000 a year. It would mean that 5,000 or 6,000 mouldings or castings per year would be required and it would not pay any firm to produce them. It would not, if that firm were mainly engaged in producing them, but surely there are plastic manufacturers here who could produce these things as part of their annual output. That is one thing which the Minister, if he has the information, might tell us something about, and, if it has not been tackled up to this, might give us some idea as to whether there is any possibility of it.

The other matter is the securing of trained staff. We do not know whether the Minister meant mechanical engineers or electrical engineers, whether people trained in the university or people who could be trained in the technical schools or in an ordinary workshop. Has the Department considered, if it is merely a shortage of mechanical engineers, that they themselves should help to train the people they want and not depend again on somebody else to provide the trained staff for them. As Senator Hayes has said, that trained and qualified staff will have to accept what some clerk in a Civil Service office decides is a proper remuneration for them. If we do overcome the shortage of qualified people within the next few years, will the mere maintenance of the system, once the big rush of new installations is met, provide constant and remunerative employment for that trained staff after they have gone through the university or spent a term of years in a workshop to qualify for the job? They want not merely two or three years' work after a five years' training period, but to make sure that the job will last and will be worth training themselves for. I do not suppose that the Minister could have all these answers at the moment. What surprises me is that he had so much information, not before him in print or typescript form, but at his fingers' ends or at the end of his thumb, and that he gave it to us so very efficiently and so very intelligently.

Captain Orpen

When the Minister was replying in the Dáil on this Bill, he said it was his desire not only to increase the service but to extend, if possible, the nature of the service. Those are not his words— unfortunately, I have not got the Report with me— but that seems to me to be what he implied. I suggest to him that there are ways in which he might very materially expand the nature of the service without in any way seriously overloading the already overloaded system. At the present moment, those of us who live in remote rural areas find the main inadequacy of the telephone system is that at the time when it is wanted the service no longer functions. There are many small exchanges with less than a dozen subscribers and they close down at 8 o'clock in the evening, summer time. In these remote areas, the people, as they are entirely agricultural, naturally have to go by the sun and they are still at work or returning from work at the time when the telephone exchange closes. If they have only a call office, it closes at 7 p.m. I would suggest seriously to the Minister that an extension of the hours, especially in the summer, would be of enormous help in these remote rural areas. Very few people require the telephone during the day. In rural districts, the "office hours" for telephone business are from 8 or 9 in the morning to 10 and then from 7 in the evening until it closes at 8. Senator O'Callaghan says he has no difficulty in getting a long-distance call to London, but then he happens to be on an extended service to 10 o'clock or an all-night service. In my case I have to wait half the day and if I do not get the call between 7 or 8 in the evening I cannot get it at all.

If and when the Minister can put in small, ten or 20 unit, automatics in the country, that will solve all his difficulties about all-night rural connections. Meanwhile, while equipment is short and we cannot expect to change over to the small automatics, would it not be possible to try out an extension of the service in these small exchanges until 10 o'clock? After all, it is the hours from eight to ten which are of value. Emergencies always seem to turn up in the evening—doctors are required, and so on. Of course, there are cases where it is possible to make use of the telephone in the nearest Garda barracks for the doctor, but it is a frightful thing to think that over half of purely rural Ireland is not connected to the local doctor after 8 o'clock in the evening. If I am wrong in that, I hope the Minister will correct me. I am taking it in area, that over half the area of rural Ireland telephone connection with the local doctor ceases normally at 8 o'clock. Possibly you could go to the nearest Garda barracks and use their telephone, but that is not the same thing. This suggestion would not require any further equipment. It would add slightly to the cost, as I suppose that someone would have to be kept on duty and paid for the extra hours of work.

It is true that compared with other countries our telephone development is seriously behind. To a large extent, it was the method adopted in charging for subscribers lines in rural areas which was responsible. If I recollect aright, the big rural development took place following the change of policy, when subscribers within three miles of an exchange were ultimately connected at the £5 rental. Until that came on, there was virtually no rural telephone development. Other countries, I think, especially Sweden, rather concentrated on the rural telephones, almost more than the urban, in the early days. In a country like Sweden, with rather a severe winter, if they were to keep the people on the land they had to enable them to communicate with each other, even if only for social purposes, during the winter just as well as those in the towns. Therefore, the normal course of events in Sweden, when everyone was snowed up in winter, was to use the telephone for their entertainment between themselves, just as we might go to a party. Possibly that was the origin of the words "party line". Speaking seriously, however, it would be helpful in these more remote areas if the facilities could be extended to 10 p.m. That would cover most emergencies. The rural community would be able to use the telephone after work, to communicate with one another. At present, with call offices shutting at 7 o'clock, which in the West, may be about 15 minutes past five by the sun, it is really absurd.

I suggest the Minister should look into the matter of extending the hours of service. As things are, except for calling up the local town or in making long-distance trunk calls during the day, the telephone service is not much used by people in rural Ireland. Rural office hours are so short, from seven to eight o'clock, that unless people are phoned within those hours they will not be contacted at all.

There is another point I should like to make. Some time or other I hope the Minister will consider some system of zoning charges within a county. In Dublin, local calls now extend over a very considerable area. That is all very nice and it is a fairly efficient system, but in rural Ireland the local call does not necessarily bring you to the nearest town. The number of people connected is very small. I have a feeling that the way to have the telephone system developed in rural Ireland is to have the local calls to the nearest town. Thereafter your next zone should allow you to connect with the county town. The radius, as laid down for the local call, is a purely arbitrary thing. I think it is something like six miles. A radius of six miles may or may not bring you within reach of a town. I think we should get away from this idea of using a compass and drawing a circle saying that for any place outside the circle the charge is 4d. and for any place inside it is 2d. That may be something which does not affect many areas. Possibly, a simpler method would be to zone the county and have two charges, one a local charge and the other a charge covering the county town.

I should like to join with other Senators in complimenting the Minister on his comprehensive and lucid statement regarding what was done in the past, what his difficulties were and what he proposes to do under this Bill. I have just one element of doubt. It seems to me that in the past fundamental developments and the laying of circuits have never quite kept pace with the rate at which new subscribers have been connected. In other words, there has been a tendency all along to lag behind in fundamental developments and a proneness to think that everything was all right provided the insistent demand of subscribers could be satisfied. Fundamental development of the service must go along with the procuring of new subscribers because, in addition to new subscribers coming along, greater use will be made of telephones as time goes on. One can get into rather a helpless bog if the fundamental development does not keep pace with the general connecting up of subscribers.

Mr. O'Dwyer

I should like to say that I agree with the last speaker's remarks with regard to the inadequacy of the arrangements in respect of phone calls after regular hours. In the country, it is very necessary that something should be done to have the people linked up by phone with the local doctor. I cannot agree with Senator O'Callaghan regarding the adequacy of telephone services in the south. I do not think the telephone service is by any means good at all. There are very great delays in getting calls through. It is all right for the business man who has a phone in his office or for the country subscriber who has a phone installed in his house. If those people make a call and fail to get a reply they can get someone to make it later. The person who is most affected is he who has to go to the local post office in the country. He goes there, books the call and, perhaps, has to wait one or two hours. Indeed, he might waste his whole day and perhaps not get through at all.

I should like if something were done to provide additional facilities in those post offices, that is, facilities distinct from facilities for subscribers. The position is such in our part of the county, between Limerick City and places ten and 12 miles apart, that if a man has a motor car he uses it instead of phoning. I understood that a line was put down from Dublin to the south. The provision of facilities of the type to which I have referred should be expedited. I think it would be much better to do that than to provide for new subscribers. The most urgent matter in connection with telephone facilities is to have trunk lines increased so that delays can be avoided.

Mr. Hawkins

I should like to join with other Senators in, first of all, welcoming the Minister to the Seanad and in congratulating him on his presentation of the Bill. The Bill is a welcome one because it makes provision for the extension of a very essential service. I do not wish to go over the ground already covered by speakers this evening, nor do I wish to join with them in many of the recommendations that have been made. It is natural enough that no matter what service is supplied, particularly when that service is part of a State organisation or is even a State subsidised institution or body, it is bound to come in for very severe criticism. That is to be expected. It was suggested by some Senators, I think by Senator Douglas in particular, that it might be a good thing if an organisation such as this which supplies a very essential service should be taken out of Government control entirely and operated on the same lines as the Electricity Supply Board. Well, I do not know, if that were done, that there would not be the self-same criticism, because if we had a Bill to-day before us dealing with electricity supplies or with anything over which the Electricity Supply Board has control, I am sure you would have just as severe, if not more severe, criticism of the manner in which that particular board is supplying the services which it contracted to supply to the people.

I welcome in particular the statement of the Minister that every consideration would be given in the future to the improvement of the services to the congested areas. I would like to recommend to the Minister that special consideration should be given to the case of the people who are most cut off from services generally, that is, those living on the islands around the West coast. While not criticising the services already supplied to these people, I suggest that they could be considerably improved. The people living on those islands should be given better telephone and postal services. I would also like to ask the Minister that, if possible, he should have the automatic telephone system installed in Galway City, which is the capital of the West and a big tourist centre.

There has been in the past, and there is at present, considerable criticism of the services and I am sure we will have such criticism again in the future. The only way to avoid such criticism is to tackle these problems with foresight and imagination. Instead of just catering for the needs of the moment or for a year or two ahead, we should try to give a service which would meet the needs for a very long time ahead and which could be extended or altered as the occasion arose. I think one of the great faults which has led to local authorities and the Government spending greater sums than were necessary on housing and other services was that they provided for immediate needs rather than viewing the problems on a long-term basis. If the necessary foresight and imagination are brought to bear on the problems, they could in the future meet the growing needs of the community with less expenditure.

Mr. Ruane

I would like to associate myself with the compliments that have been paid to the Minister on his elaborate statement to the House about the operations of the Department and his policy. At the same time I, like many other Senators, have grievances so far as the services in my area are concerned. I am not so much concerned with trunk or long-distance calls, for I have seldom made any in my career; in fact, on one occasion when I did make such a call I was amazed at the expedition with which I was linked up. There is, however, something wrong with the system when it takes as much as an hour and a half to get a call from Kiltimagh to Swinford, only five miles away. There is, I expect, some reason for that, but certainly one can get a call to Birmingham much quicker than a call from Kiltimagh to Swinford.

People in rural areas have become telephone-minded and realise the services that are at their disposal in places where the telephone is available. They use them when they want to get medical assistance for the members of their family or when they require the services of the veterinary surgeon for their cattle and other live stock. I hold that wherever there is a rural post office there should be a telephone service. In areas where there are telephone services now closing at 7 p.m., there should be telephone boxes made available for the use of the people for the full 24 hours of the day, just as they are available in other areas.

People who like an extended service very often do not realise that the extension of that service means extended work for the operators. I know of areas where the telephone service was extended for the 24 hours of the 365 days of the year and the remuneration paid to the operators is a scandal. I had occasion once to point out that it was necessary in such a case for the operator almost to put a bed in the exchange so as to be available for calls and the people with whom I discussed the matter did not see anything wrong in that. I was informed that in rural areas where this 24-hours service has been made available the local postmaster or postmistress for the additional work it entails receives extra remuneration of £20 per annum. That is a scandal which should be remedied at once.

Another complaint which business people in rural areas have is the length of time it takes in the Department to give them a telephone. I know the question of supplies is a big one, but there is no reason why it should take as long as 12 months to accede to an application for a telephone.

I am quite sure the Department is doing its best to extend the service, but I hope that the matters to which I have referred will be given due consideration.

Mr. Colgan

I would like to welcome the Minister on his first visit to the Seanad as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and to congratulate him on his introduction of this measure. It would not be unfair to say that it was one of the most complete and comprehensive of the statements that have been given to us by any Minister for a long number of years in introducing a measure to this House. I do not know the Minister personally. I have never met him. I say that simply because I believe it to be true. The statement was a splendid one. It is heartening. It is indicative that the Minister intends to make the telephone service as good as it possibly can be made. The Minister has pointed out the difficulties and if his speech is any indication of his energy for the future, we can be satisfied that many of the causes for complaint that have been mentioned this evening will be rectified in time.

Senator Hayes referred to the Minister as giving a left-handed compliment to his predecessor. I do not think that was fair. The Minister was very fair and spoke as a man introducing a measure. He did not speak as a politician. He gave credit to his predecessor where credit is due. He stated the position factually and left it at that. He did not pay a left-handed compliment to anyone.

I want to agree with the Minister on the question of the scarcity of engineers. Somehow or other the Civil Service is notorious for not being prepared to pay people whom they have to employ outside the Civil Service proper. Possibly, that can be accounted for by the fact that, as I personally believe at any rate, civil servants themselves are not paid sufficiently well. I think the criterion of this question might be the number of professional men, engineers and others, who have left this country over the last number of years to work outside the country. The labourer is worthy of his hire. So is the engineer. If you want professional men you must pay them. Possibly, much of the difficulty that the Minister has found in finding qualified men might be removed if sufficiently attractive salaries were offered to these people.

The Minister also paid tribute, in which I join, to the staff, the telephone operators. They have a hard job. They work difficult hours. They work irregular hours. They do the best with a system that is not by any means complete, as the Minister told us. We are always grumbling at the telephone service. We ring up. We are in a hurry and have to wait. We fume and fret and blame the operator. The operator is not at fault, as the Minister points out. It is the out-of-date system that must be blamed

I want to raise a matter that I have raised continuously in this House in respect of the question of the remuneration of public employees generally. I want to raise the question of the remuneration of the girls and men who are operators. There are men operators at night time and there are girls at work during the day. Some of these girls are not paid much better than ordinary factory workers. I was amazed when I heard the rates of pay. I was not looking for the information. I got it in quite a casual way. It was not given to me as a Senator. The matter was raised in conversation. I was amazed to find at what a low rate these girls are paid. I inquired if they were established and was told that they were. I thought they might have been casual workers. The same applies to the men who have to work as operators at night. The Minister ought to look into this matter and see if it is possible to improve the position of operators who are doing a very onerous job under very difficult circumstances.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer. I do not know if there is any remedy for it. If one wants to ring from a city phone to any place in the country, particularly a rural area, after 7 o'clock, one must of necessity ring the Garda barracks. There is nowhere else open. It is an imposition on the Garda. The message may be urgent. It may be a message to relatives in the country that someone has died in the city. The Guard has to cycle, possibly in inclement weather, to inform the relatives. The Guards have quite enough to do without having to do that. That position might be remedied if, as has been suggested, there were an extension of the hours in post offices. That brings me to the point that every post office in Ireland should have a telephone service. If there is not a telephone service in the post office, where can we expect it? I have a telephone in my house. Neighbours have come in after 7 o'clock wanting to get in touch with relatives in rural areas and they must ring the local Garda barracks. It is an imposition to ask Guards to become messenger boys. There should be a telephone service available until 10 o'clock. Ten o'clock would be a reasonable hour. If telephone operators are to be asked to work longer hours they should be paid extra for it.

I have raised before the question of the payment of operators in the telephone service. I hope what I am saying to the Minister will not fall on deaf ears this time, that the Minister will at least look into the matter. I believe he will. If his speech is an indication of the way in which he will approach his job, as I believe it is, many of the difficulties and the complaints that have been raised here to-day will be removed at a very early date.

Mr. Loughman

I want to refer to the telephone directory. To my mind it is a great directory, very perfect in the matter of giving the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of subscribers but a great many people find difficulty in reading it. One would need perfect sight and to have pretty good light in order to be able to read it. The figures are small; the paper is very poor. The names are clear. The paper should be improved and the type enlarged. I regard the directory as a very important feature of the telephone service. I have often wondered if it would be possible to have regional directories. Dublin occupies a great space in the directory. For Dublin alone there should be a special directory. Take a name that is common, such as Murphy. If one is looking for a Clonmel number of a person named Murphy, one may have to travel down 40 or 50 names before one discovers the name he is looking for. That is because all the Murphys in the country are in one directory. A case can be made for instance, for having a directory for each of the four provinces, or at least a case could be made for having a directory for Dublin and then taking the country in a couple of different ways. The people would appreciate some such change in the directory and some improvements such as I have mentioned—better quality paper; bigger type and probably regional directories. I make these suggestions to the Minister in the hope that he will have them examined, if they have not been examined already.

I want to refer to a local question to which the Minister might give attention. I had occasion recently to ring from Clonmel to Nenagh. I have been on the 'phone with people who called from Nenagh to Clonmel. It is almost impossible to hear the person speaking over that particular line. I would ask the Minister to see if anything could be done to make speech more audible on that line.

I would join with other Senators in commending the Minister for the able speech he made when introducing this Bill and in wishing him every success in his Ministry.

Mr. Childers

The criticism made on this Bill has been most helpful and constructive in character. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking all the members of the Seanad for the very kind things they have said of my maiden speech in the Seanad. I hope to maintain that standard. I should like also to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the officers of my Department who, I can say, are persons of the very highest efficiency and renown. One of the reasons why I was able to make the speech, with the aid of notes, was due to the fact—I desire to be frank about it—that the officers prepared a brief for me. I preferred, however, to use my own words, but the brief itself was splendid. It was very easy for me to write notes. from the brief. They also presented me with an encyclopædia of information, which was concentrated in 22 pages, full of facts which were easily analysed. That is part of the zeal shown by the officers of the Department, to which reference was made by the last Minister and the Minister before him. Their zeal can be seen in the tremendous advance made in the telephone service, even though we have not been able to do all we would like to do.

A great many points of a minor character have been made in the course of discussion. I hope to be able to deal with them without keeping the House too long. Senator Hayes made a helpful speech in regard to the teaching of electrical engineering. I agree with him that all these matters will have to be considered. There is no question that we cannot continue with the present system available in the university if, as he says, the equipment is not up-to-date, and if there is a limitation of space, and if the course of study is considered difficult by a great many students. Obviously that whole matter will have to be considered by the university authorities and by the Ministers in charge of university education, both in respect of finance or in respect of general educational policy.

Senator Hayes also made reference to the fact that the kiosks in Dublin are fully occupied, even late at night. There are 135 of them in Dublin and suburbs. Each kiosk costs £35 a year in charges. They have to be made to pay. It is impossible for us to establish kiosks for purely social reasons. It would add to the burden of the cost of the telephone service. Kiosks are being-established in Dublin in the number thought necessary. About three-quarters of a mile would be the average distance between one kiosk and another. If members of the Seanad know of kiosks which are overcrowded, and where queues can be seen, they should communicate with the Department. We know from the money receipts that the kiosks are obviously being used very frequently, but we could hardly be expected to know the queue conditions that may arise on occasion.

When speaking earlier, I made a mistake in regard to solicitors entering business for the first time. I did mention, in connection with the priority list, a priority for "other deserving persons". I said it was a dangerous one because it could be abused. Of course, the position of young solicitors who require a telephone, and other persons in a similar position, is carefully considered. They are able on occasion to become a priority, so to speak. The last category is a difficult one, but every case is considered as sympathatically as possible.

Senator Quirke referred to applications for telephones from farmers who have stud farms or who are engaged in the production of pedigree cattle or from insemination centres. All these cases are given consideration. If the Senator knows of any case where the absence of a telephone is causing annoyance or difficulty to farmers in a district I would be glad if he would communicate with the Department. We have had only a small number of applications in the past from farmers who had no other occupation. My own belief is that their applications will grow in number because conditions are changing.

In connection with delays in the telephone service, the new co-axial cable should help to relieve the existing stress from Dublin to Cork, and should result in an improvement in the service in places like Thurles. Senator Baxter said that we were behind in development. I indicated in my speech that we had made enormous advances. I suppose it is true to say that the existence of war conditions made it impossible to catch up with development after the war. Progress could not be made during the war, and that is one of the obvious reasons why we are still behind time. Senator Baxter also referred to the necessity of installing kiosks. I have already said that we intend to install them where-ever we can.

We regard the call-office—and late at night the Garda station—as what may be called a telephone service for social purposes rather than for income purposes. We are establishing telephones in post offices as fast as we can. The Garda night emergency service exists at the present time. These two forms of telephone communication are the best that we do at the moment in respect of what may be called social needs in country areas. I might mention, in connection with Senator Baxter's disappointment in regard to development of the telephone service, that in Cavan there are five call-offices planned in this year's programme, and one, I am glad to say, is at a crossroads.

Senator Summerfield referred to the deficiences which might arise in connection with the telephone service because it is a State service. He also referred to the lack of intelligent anticipation which would have occurred if it had been a private service. I am always willing to admit that there are advantages in private enterprise and that disadvantages will accrue in connection with any service which is ultimately responsible to the Minister for Finance because of the fact that the methods adopted in connection with the expenditure of and accountancy in respect of State moneys are most difficult. May I say, in reply to Senator Summerfield, that privately-owned American corporations are 1,000,000 subscribers' lines behind at this moment in regard to the supply of subscribers' lines. That is the position there, even though at the present time there are 27 telephone lines in America to every 100 of the population. They are still 1,000,000 behind in their requirements.

Senator Ó Buachalla referred to the question of the manufacture of telephone apparatus at home. I understand that we have given all the information required to the Department of Industry and Commerce. The difficulties arising have been found to be insuperable because of the very small market available for machines and apparatus. I am quite sure that the new Minister for Industry and Commerce will do all he can to see whether there can be further manufacture, as distinct from assembly, of telephone apparatus and equipment. In turn, that may depend on whether it will be possible for us to have an export market. We have secured an export market for other equipment that never existed before the war. I will have the matter examined by the Department of Industry and Commerce.

Senator Ó Buachalla also referred to the question of educational facilities for electrical engineers, and to the necessity for a college of technology. I myself believe that a decision on that matter cannot be long delayed. I have thought so for years, particularly when I was secretary for a considerable time to the Federation of Irish Manufacturers. I felt that sooner or later we would have to build a college of technology and science. One of the difficulties in connection with electrical engineering is that it is a four-years' course and not a three-years' course. If the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and the university could devise a scheme whereby we would have a three-years' course for electrical engineering with possibly a fourth year to be taken in two half-years, the student working in the telephone service for one half the year and finishing his course during the remaining half-year, it might offer some solution of this difficulty.

The plan involves all sort of administrative difficulties, and I am merely throwing it out as a vague conception. I have not studied whether such a scheme is even possible, but I like to stimulate the minds of the members of the House in relation to these problems. There are colleges abroad where, in the last year, the course for electrical engineering is divided into two. It becomes a two years' course and for half the time the student works. We will have to reduce the rigidity we have experienced up to now in regard to these matters. We are able to get sufficient staff in the lower grades in general for the telephone service. The difficulty is in connection with electrical engineers and in connection with facilities for enabling the inspector grade to achieve training during their period of service in the telephone service of a proper kind so that they can become, in effect, engineers or can do engineering work. There are all sorts of difficulties there, all of which will have to be examined.

Senator Orpen referred to the suggestion that there should be a simplification of the charges for telephone service. I think we can have that examined. I am not sure of the facts, but obviously it is a very complicated matter, relating to statistics and the method of presentation of accounts. In regard to the high cost for installing telephones in rural areas where the station is to be some distance from the local exchange, I should tell the House that £170 per mile is the cost for installing light poles and wires, and the House will immediately appreciate the difficulty in recouping this sum in receipts for telephone service and the necessity, up to a certain point, for making charges for installation.

Senator Ó Buachalla asked about stores. We have about three years' supply of the ordinary consumable stores in stock and these should cover an emergency or should assist to provide some of the equipment required, although the delivery of the more specialised type of equipment, such as co-axial cables and equipment for cross-Channel circuits is somewhat delayed. Senator Douglas paid a tribute to the work of the Department which I must appreciate and he made a suggestion with regard to one telephone book for the whole country. That, of course, is a matter of high policy and I am going to make inquiries to find out whether an effort has been made in that direction. Again, I can see various difficulties, but I agree with the Senator that that sort of collaboration is very well worth while and I shall certainly have fresh inquiries made, in case the position may prove more favourable than in the past.

Senator O'Farrell referred to the difficulties of the telephone service and spoke about the overloading of that service, due to gossip. I think it was rather distressing that we had to restrain the romantic inclinations of young ladies who wanted to telephone continuously by limiting the time for local calls.

Mr. Baxter

What about the young gentlemen?

Mr. Childers

And equally the young gentlemen. I am sure, however, that the Senator will agree that the last thing we can do is to establish a definite and rigid censorship on gossip itself. Senator Hawkins referred to telephone facilities and developments in Galway. The Galway exchange has been enlarged and we intend to establish an automatic exchange there as soon as we can get a suitable site. I understand that there have been particular difficulties in finding a suitable site for the new automatic exchange in Galway.

Senator Orpen also referred to the telephone service which closes at night, both in call offices and exchanges. The rule at present is that, where there are 20 or more subscribers at a given post office, there is continuous service, and, where there are ten subscribers, the service continues until 10 p.m. It is very difficult to see how we could extend beyond that point in providing continuous service, although I agree that there are difficulties in regard to emergencies and so forth that are only partially overcome by the existence of a Garda station in the area. We might possibly consider giving continuous service where there were less than 20 subscribers, but where the total number of telephone calls exceeded a given minimum, but that again might involve administrative and technical difficulties, which it would be impossible to overcome. The House, however, will agree that that is a reasonable standard—so long as there are ten lines, the service remains open until 10 p.m., and where there are 20 or more, the service becomes continuous.

Senator Ruane referred to delays in local telephone calls in the Mayo area. We hope to have a general improvement in the whole of the western and north-western area, as I said in my remarks earlier, due to the establishment of circuits between Athlone, Claremorris, Westport and Ballina. In regard to the remuneration for continuous service, I am told that the minimum is now £40 and not £20, and that there are various supplements in relation to the number of calls made. Senator Colgan referred to the salaries paid to telephone operators, and while I realise that their work is heavy and arduous in many cases, their scales of pay have been improved in recent years, and they will again improve arising from the Civil Service award, and there will be a retrospective payment back to January 15th.

The House may be interested to hear the figures. A female telephonist, established, class 1, Dublin, receives, at the age of 18 years, 80/3 per week rising to 117/2—call it an average of £4 13s. 9d. per week. Male night telephonists—night telephonists are given to me as an example of salaries paid—receive 78/5 per week at 18 years, rising to £7 2s. 5d. per week after a certain time—call it an average of £5 10s. 6d. per week. There are some scales where the remuneration slightly less. While I feel that we always ought to have the hope that salaries and wages for these classes of persons should increase, these figures are more satisfactory than some members of the House might have imagined. They are slightly higher than one hears in gossip outside by people who refer to the salaries and remuneration paid to telephonists.

Senator Loughman referred to the telephone register. The overhead cost of producing two registers would be tremendous in comparison with the value afforded. It involves two entirely separate publications, and there is a certain overhead expense of a minimum kind in connection with the printing of any one publication. So far as I know, the character of the printing and the paper compares favourably with that of foreign telephone books. I do not know whether that is a good answer. Maybe we should improve on that, but I do not think that our register is inferior to those used abroad.

I think I have dealt with all the important points raised and I once more thank the members of the Seanad for their very kind observations. I and the officers of my Department will see to it, as far as we can, that the service improves in the coming years. I would appreciate any co-operation that can be afforded by members of the House who are attached to a university college, with regard to the facilities for the teaching of electrical engineering. I thank Senator Hayes for the sympathetic manner in which he received my observations in that regard.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed, to take the remaining stages now.

Bill passed through Committee without recommendation, reported, received for final consideration and ordered to be returned to the Dáil.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.