Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Jul 1958

Vol. 49 No. 8

Transport Bill, 1958—Committee Stage.

An Cathaoirleach

Sara mbreithneofar Céim an Choiste den Bhille seo, ba mhaith an rud é go gcuirfinn in iúl go bhfuil leasú (Leasú a naoi 9) atá in ainm an tSeanadóra Ó Síthigh Sceimhealtún a measaim é a bheith as ordú.

Measaim go bhfuil Leasú a naoi 9 as ordú mar molann sé ní arb é is éifeacht dó cánachas a mhéadú.

Tá scéala dá réir tugtha don tSeanadóir.

Before we take up consideration of the Committee Stage of this Bill, it would be well if I indicated that there is an amendment, amendment No. 9, standing in the name of Senator Sheehy Skeffington which I consider out of order.

I consider amendment No. 9 out of order as it proposes, what is, in effect, increased taxation.

The Senator has been notified accordingly.

Sections 1 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.

NEW SECTION.

Mr. O'Keeffe

I move amendment No. 1:—

Before Section 8 to insert a new section as follows:—

All profits earned from the operation of road transport services in the County Borough of Dublin shall be utilised exclusively for the improvement of services and the reduction of charges in the County Borough of Dublin.

I feel there is justification for this amendment. I have read the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Internal Transport and I find that there has been an increase from 1947 up to 1955 of 87 per cent. in the fares charged on the Dublin City services and, since then, a further increase which brings the increase to practically 100 per cent. in a period of ten years. As there is a profit on the Dublin City services of between £250,000 and £500,000 per annum, it should be devoted to improving or increasing some of the inadequate services. In the built-up areas, such as Ballyfermot, Coolock and other places, on wet mornings, buses are full leaving the terminal and people standing at the first, second and third stops are passed by. Extra buses should be provided on such mornings.

Old age pensioners, widows drawing pensions and blind people particularly should not have to pay fares. There should be some provision made for granting privileges to those classes of people living in the outlying portions of the city. That is why I put down the amendment.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

As a Dubliner, I would have a good deal of sympathy with the idea behind the amendment. At first sight, many people in Dublin resent the fact that, while a profit is being made on Dublin buses, fares go up again and again, but I feel that in Dublin we have a duty to regard this matter not solely from a Dublin point of view. Therefore, looking at it a second time, it is not unreasonable to ask that Dublin should carry rather more than its share of the burden of the country's transport and, although increases must be kept within certain limits and although what Senator O'Keeffe says about certain under-privileged sections of the community is quite true, nevertheless, to ask, as the amendment does, that "all profits earned from the operation of road transport services in the County Borough of Dublin shall be utilised exclusively for the improvement of" those services and so on, would be to ask too much.

Every time fares on the Dublin buses go up, I personally save an increased amount by the use of my own motive power applied to a bicycle. That is also, of course, open to Senator O'Keeffe. He, like myself, could be making increased money every time the fare goes up. There are, in fact, increasing numbers of Dubliners who make money in that way.

If we take a serious analogy—it is one that I took on this Bill before but which I did not make sufficiently clear, because it was apparently misunderstood by some—the analogy of the post office, it is quite obvious that postal services in Dublin, if you were to isolate them from postal services in the rest of the country, would show a far bigger rate of profit than postal services throughout the country, by reason of the concentration of population in Dublin, exactly the same reason as causes the proportionately higher profit in Dublin bus services.

Because we have a bigger concentration of population, and, therefore, a bigger concentration in the use of the postal services in Dublin, it could be shown, if we were to isolate the figure for Dublin, that we make far more money out of the postal services in Dublin than in the rest of the country. We might also show that there are parts of the country where the postal services—I am speaking simply of the delivery of mails—make no profit at all —outlying regions which if you were to isolate them, would be postally "uneconomic". If, therefore, we were to apply this principle which Senator O'Keeffe asks for in his amendment to the Post Office it would be found that all kinds of postal services in outlying districts, and even perhaps in some villages would be shut down altogether because in effect they are at present being "carried" by Dublin, and in isolation would be uneconomic.

However, I do not think Senator O'Keeffe or anybody else would like such a thing to happen to the postal services, because we all recognise that it is essential for the community as a whole for postal services, the life blood —the circulation system, as it were— of trade and commerce to be kept going, even at isolated points which do not show a direct profits. Dublin, which is the heart of the country in many ways, is running a bus system which is making a fairly tidy profit, and I think, therefore, must be willing to allow at least a proportion of that profit to be used for the improvement of the transport system throughout the country, which is vital not only to the country but indirectly to Dublin also. For that reason, I would oppose this amendment, though I can sympathise with the reasons which prompted Senator O'Keeffe to put it forward.

Mr. Carter

Being from the country, I should like to make one or two points on this question. This matter of Dublin bus passengers has arisen on many occasions in discussions in regard to transport legislation in both Houses of the Oireachtas. Senator O'Keeffe's amendment says, in effect, that the Dublin bus passengers are subsidising the remainder of the system. Seeing that we have what we might call an integrated transport system, I do not see why we should make bits of it or take out parts that are paying in order to compensate some section of the community.

If C.I.E. collect large sums in Dublin City and County, they also pay out a large weekly wage bill not alone to the employees who are directly engaged in passenger services but also to the hundreds of other employees who are engaged in the various workshops connected with the C.I.E. system. Therefore, on those grounds, if on no other grounds, Dublin has no grouse in this matter.

Dr. O'Donovan

I should like to support this amendment. On the previous occasion I suggested that certain figures I had seen would lead one to believe that the Dublin bus fares had been increased by about 20 per cent. The Minister said that it would be about half that and I said I was prepared to accept the Minister's statement: "I am sorry to say it was about half of that," but I had a look at the fares since and the Minister's statement seems to me not to be correct. The 2d. fare was increased to 3d., that is, an increase of 50 per cent. The great bulk of the fares in Dublin—I am not talking about the quantity of money but the number of fares—are 2d. and 3d. fares. I have also watched the takings in the bus system since. There is not the slightest doubt, on observation, that they are substantially more than 10 per cent. My own observation is the only real element in this at the moment. I do not mind what figures the Minister may get from C.I.E. or from anybody else; my observation of what has happened up to the present is as good as the observation of anybody else on the subject and indeed is a lot superior to any figures produced from some office in Kingsbridge or over in Kildare Street.

My case simply is that already C.I.E. were making a substantial profit of about £250,000 a year on the Dublin bus system. The cost—I gave the figures the last day—of the extra salaries of the men directly concerned with the Dublin bus system was about £100,000 a year. Even if we split the difference between the Minister's figure and my own as to the increased takings, the increased takings will be about £500,000 a year. The Minister barged in the last day and said: "What about the workshop at Kingsbridge?" meaning the railway workshop and the place where buses are built. Even if you take in the wages paid there to those 2,000 people, you get only £50,000 a year: 2,000 at £25 a year each is £50,000. Therefore, taking the figure half-way between the figure I gave the last day and the figure the Minister suggested—but did not state—the intention is to take an additional £350,000 out of the pockets of the Dublin users of the bus service, that is, even including the workshop at Kingsbridge, for which I am allowing 2,000 men at £25 a year each.

It is all very fine for Deputy Carter to speak here about an integrated system. How long has it been integrated and should it have been integrated? If it had been integrated for the past 100 years, you might make a case about it, but it was integrated in the middle of the war. When it was integrated, the Dublin system was paying for itself and is far more than paying for itself in the middle of the year 1958. There is no use in Senator Carter or anybody else talking in this House about an integrated system. It is not integrated because the figures are taken out. In every annual report issued by C.I.E., there are separate figures for road passenger services and, among them, separate figures for Dublin services. I should be prepared to bet ten to one with anybody that there are also completely separate accounting systems and units of control in relation to the Dublin bus services.

In the case of the London Passenger Transport Board and in any other city in the world the system is also separate from the rest of the country. The Minister in a day in which he had a big majority in the Oireachtas proceeded to ram both together in the hope of making the double system pay. That is all right within reason, but it is not reasonable to increase fares in Dublin something between 15 and 20 per cent.—I am sticking to my figures now, having had a look at them—so that there will be a lesser loss on some other part of the system. If C.I.E. did not get so much easy money, they would have transferred the surplus men from the railway system into the road passenger service instead of recruiting new people for the road passenger service, as they did.

I notice that in this and the other House, if a matter comes up which affects the country part of this island, every farming member is on his heels talking about it. The Dublin people are very silent and long suffering, but they have their own methods of expressing their views about people, and I think they are very effective methods, perhaps a good deal more effective than getting up and talking as most people from the country sometimes do. Nobody can say that I have no sympathy with the country people. I have a great deal more interest in farming than most members of this House; but when it comes to a question of raiding money from the pockets of the people I do not agree with it and I believe that the recent increases in the Dublin fares were altogether excessive. Therefore, I support this amendment.

Mr. Murphy

This question of the Dublin City bus services is a hardy annual. It is based on the false assumption that the bus travellers in Dublin are being badly treated both in relation to the fares charged and the services given in order to subsidise travellers in the rest of the State. I do not think any Senator, knowing anything about the position, could honestly say that the bus travellers in Dublin have not got a reasonably good service, or that the fares charged do not compare very favourably with those charged in other cities where they have a separate road passenger service. Mention has been made of the profits made on the Dublin City services. C.I.E. are unfortunate in that they are kicked about when they make money and they are kicked about when they lose money. Mention was made of the profit of £250,000 on the Dublin City services.

Mr. Burke

£300,000.

Mr. Murphy

The only estimate that can be seriously stood over is the £250,000, the figure which is in the Beddy Report. I notice also that when there was a separate road passenger service here, owned by the Dublin United Tramway Company, that company in the last year of its existence, made a profit of £250,000. That was 14 years ago. I wonder if that separate organisation, if it were still in existence, would be satisfied at this stage to make £250,000?

To come to the point, the complaint is that the Dublin people are badly treated, but I have got figures and find that the opposite is true. To compare fares charged on the buses in Dublin and surrounding areas with those charged in the same buses in other areas in the country gives a comparison which is rather frightening. I should like country Senators to take a note of some of these comparisons and not be misled by what Senator O'Donovan has said.

For example, for a journey from Dublin to Blessington, 19 miles, the fare charged is 2/1, whereas the worker travelling the same distance exactly from Rathcormack to Cork is charged 4/-, or nearly double. From Dublin to Bray, a very important service, 13 miles, the fare is 1/5, whereas the poor worker in Cork travelling to his seaside resort in Crosshaven, half a mile shorter, has to pay 2/5. Annacotty to Limerick is nearly five miles and the fare is 1/2; Dublin to Palmerston, the same distance, is 8d. The comparison is the same right through. The people in Dublin are favoured both in regard to the services and the fares charged.

There is probably a very good argument for that. There is a greater number of passengers on these routes in Dublin, but to suppose that the people of Dublin are badly treated in order to subsidise the services to the rest of the State is just not true. There might be a very good argument that Dublin should, in effect, subsidise the rest of the State, as it has to do, for example, in the instance quoted by Senator Sheehy Skeffington, that of the Post Office services, and equally in regard to electricity; but here in regard to transport, they are favoured and very well served. For that reason, I do not think there is any solid foundation for the amendment and I will oppose it.

Professor Fearon

It seems to me that there is something extraordinarily mysterious and almost farcial about this question of transport fares, and I wonder could the Minister clear it up. I will put it like this: the value of the £, not before the last war but going back 50 years or so, was, economists tell us, the equivalent of between 4/- and 5/- now. Having lived more or less in the one spot and knowing the transport fares in and out of Dún Laoghaire to Dublin for quite a long time, the last things that seem to have changed are the transport fares. The Post Office has already been mentioned, and we see that the price of the postcard has gone up from ½d. to 2d.— a fourfold increase—and the 1d. stamp has gone to 3d.; but when we turn to these transport fares the position is different.

In 1900, there was a second-class return ticket between Dún Laoghaire, late Kingstown, then Kingstown, late Dún Laoghaire, and Dublin, and the fare was 10d. Until fairly recently, there was a season ticket on the 1st and 2nd class, though not on the 3rd class, and the season ticket from Sandycove for the month was 32/6 or about 8/- a week. The present price of the ticket from Sandycove to Westland Row is 8/4 a week. The increase has been almost negligible. In fact, if you want to take an extreme example the only thing that I know that has not increased in price in the past 50 years has been the penalty for pulling down the alarm cord in a railway train. It is still £5, whereas if it were raised to an economic price, it should be £25 or £30. All this means either that we are getting extraordinarily good value for our money in the railway system because the prices have increased to-day in nothing at all like the proportion in which there have been increases in other things, or we are hiding from ourselves the fact that we are quite unrealistic on the question of the evaluation of these fares. I should be greatful if the Minister would clear up this economic problem. Are we either paying far too little for these fares or paying far too much for everything else? It certainly seems extraordinary that transport fares have changed so little. The 1/5 ticket from Westland Row to Bray has been mentioned. I have a notion it was 1/6 at one time. It does not seem to make sense.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. S. Lemass)

It is also fair to mention that, as far as I can ascertain, the cost of bus travel in Dublin is well below the cost in any city of comparable size in this part of the world. That would suggest, at any rate, that the incorporation of the Dublin City services in the national transport undertaking has not in any way brought about a lowering of the efficiency of these services. At far as I know, it has been the normal practice of transport undertakings to base their charges on the principle of what the traffic will bear. The variations that have taken place over the years must be related to that principle.

When the C.I.E. organisation was faced with the necessity to increase wages early this year, they had to consider where the amount of money involved could be recovered. They increased those fares they thought could be increased without serious loss of traffic and avoided increasing the fares and charges which they thought, if increased, would lose money by reason of the withdrawal of traffic. The effect of the increase they imposed was to bring in more revenue. If their estimates work out correctly, it will be sufficient to meet about two-thirds of the wage increase. In relation to the whole transport system, they could not devise a method of charging which would enable them to recover the full amount. The additional revenue it is hoped to get from the higher charges will fall short of their additional outgoings by about £200,000. That £200,000 will have to be met by economics somewhere in the system.

The suggestion that the Dublin City services should be regarded as a separate unit from the rest of the transport system has, as Senator Murphy said, often been advanced before. Senator O'Donovan said I forced this amalgamation on the country at a time when I had a substantial majority in the Dáil. In my recollection, there was not a great deal of opposition to the proposal at the time.

Dr. O'Donovan

There was tremendous opposition.

Mr. S. Lemass

There have been two Governments since, with both of which Senator O'Donovan has been associated.

Dr. O'Donovan

On a point of fact.

Mr. S. Lemass

On a point of fact, we must assume Senator O'Donovan held the same views then as he now has and urged them on his colleagues in the Government——

Dr. O'Donovan

We did not increase the fares.

Mr. S. Lemass

——but they, being sensible people, must have rejected them, as I hope the Seanad will reject them now. I pointed out in the Dáil, and it is a relevant fact, that the additional revenue which C.I.E. will get from the increased fares in Dublin will not be enough to meet the increased wages they will pay in Dublin. If there is to be a segregation of services, if the benefits of the segregation are to be confined to the people of Dublin and if the rest of the people are to suffer the still greater increase in fares and still further deterioration in services involved, it would be reasonable for them to insist that the work associated with the operation of these services should also be taken out of Dublin.

I want to express a personal opinion. It is a complete fallacy to believe that if the Dublin City services were on their own the cost of transport in Dublin would be lower. I believe the reverse would be the case. Senator Carter put his finger upon the key point in the argument. We have a national transport organisation. As a whole, it is losing money. Some parts of it are not losing: the Dublin City services and probably the Cork City services. I do not know. Senator O'Donovan has information about them that I have not got and that the Board Of C.I.E. have not got, because they do not keep the accounts for these parts of their organisation separately. Their hotels are making money and some of their other ancillary services are not losing money.

Are we to take out of that national transport organisation the sections that are making money or, at least, not losing money, and set them up as separate organisations for the exclusive benefit of some locality or are we to go ahead with this idea of a national transport organisation providing the best services it can for the people of the country as a whole and endeavouring so to arrange these services, the cost of them and the charges for them in a manner which will minimise losses on the undertaking?

This principle of a national transport organisation is quite sound. I think that the idea that the Dublin services should be segregated from it and treated separately is a bad one and that it would operate to increase the cost of transport in Dublin. No doubt other services could not be maintained and the effect of that would be serious, not merely for the country as a whole, but serious for Dublin. If the bus users in the rest of Ireland are to be penalised in the way suggested in this amendment, they might suggest that the country buses should not run into Dublin but to the other towns that would have to bear the cost of maintaining them.

There is no justification whatever for the contention here. As I said, the cost of omnibus services in Dublin is low judged by any comparison we can make. The effect of the increase in Dublin will not be to give C.I.E. enough money to pay the higher wages they will be paying out in Dublin. I am sure both Senator O'Keefee and Senator O'Donovan will deny the suggestion that the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that these Dublin workers would not get the increase in wages awarded by the Labour Court. If they do not get it from this source, who do they think should pay them?

The arrangement made by C.I.E. was the only one they could make. It was not sufficient to recover the higher costs they will have to bear but it will give them a substantial contribution towards that higher cost. The balance on that higher cost has got to be secured by making economies. These economies will have to be made where they can be made having regard to the reasonable requirements of the people of the country as a whole for transport facilities. I do not know if this amendment is seriously intended. I suspect it is not. I do not know if anybody is taking it seriously except perhaps Senator O'Donovan. Clearly, as far as I am concerned, it would be completely unacceptable.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Section 8 agreed to.

Sections 9 to 18, inclusive, agreed to.

SECTION 19.

An Cathaoirleach

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3, I suggest, might be discussed together.

Mr. O'Quigley

I move amendment No. 2:—

In sub-section (1), line 16, before "may" to insert "having consulted with the Minister".

During the debate on the Second Stage, I suggested there were certain matters in the Bill which called for further elucidation. In his reply, the Minister, because of the lateness of the hour, did not have an opportunity of dealing with them.

Section 7 of the Bill provides that the general duty of the board will be to provide reasonable, efficient and economic transport services, with due regard to safety of operation and the encouragement of national economic development and the maintenance of reasonable conditions of employment for its employees. On the Second Stage, I questioned how the board would be competent to assess what would encourage national economic development. If you isolate each branch line and take the decision to close it separately, it might be said that the closing of a particular branch line might not discourage national economic development, but, as the Bill stands, the Board of C.I.E. may, in its own discretion, close all the branch lines and if that were to be the case, I think it would have a serious effect on national economic development.

I asked the Minister how is the board to fulfil that part of its duty, to have due regard to the encouragement of national development. I do not see how a business undertaking, such as a transport organisation, as C.I.E. is, is competent to assess what will, or will not conduce to the encouragement of national economic development. In that respect, if the board is to fulfil its duty, I think it must have some assistance and in regard to the closing of branch lines, the board should have the duty of consulting the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He is the person who will be best informed as to what is conducive to national economic development; he is the custodian of the public interest in relation to transport and the general economy of the country.

The closing down of a branch line may be a great loss to the community affected by that decision. The Board of C.I.E. cannot, in the normal course of events, be aware of pending developments in industry or in relation to the establishment of factories. It may well be that a branch line would be just able to pay its way if a certain manufacturing undertaking or a new tourist development came about in the area. The Minister would know of these proposals in his capacity as Minister in charge of that aspect of the Government's work. I think, therefore, in providing in the Bill that the Board of C.I.E., before taking a decision to close a branch line, should consult with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, we are making a wise provision and it does not in any way fetter the discretion of the board. The board will have a statutory obligation to consult the Minister and get his views. Having done that and assessed the value of whatever may emerge from the consultation, it is still completely within their discretion to close that line.

This amendment is very desirable; it does not fetter the discretion of the board and does not impose any obligation on the Minister. I commend it to the house.

Mr. Murphy

I support this amendment. This amendment and amendment No. 3 are designed to achieve the same end, that is, that the Seanad should give to this reluctant Minister power and responsibility where he does not want anything. I should imagine if the Seanad had before it a Bill to close all the railways in this part of the country, there would not be a possibility of getting it through the House. But let us look at what the Bill provides. It gives power to C.I.E. to close lines where it is satisfied that the service is uneconomic. I happened to look at the Transport Bill which has gone through the House at Stormont and there the policy in regard to closing railway lines is better known. I think they are being a little more forthright in their approach because in the section dealing with railway lines, they define it as the power—no, the duty—of the Ulster Transport Authority to close railway services.

Again, they go by the same yardstick as we are asking C.I.E. to use, that is, where they are satisfied that a service is uneconomic and cannot be made economic within a reasonable period, they are to proceed to close those branch lines. But there is a certain procedure. They must go through the procedure of going to a transport tribunal and meeting any objections that may be put up there. There is another fall-back. In that Bill was introduced a section that says that the authority must comply with directions and policy given to it by the Ministry. Here the Minister wants to stay out of it altogether. He is giving the power to C.I.E.: he is imposing on them the duty—it is more than a power—to proceed to close branch lines, with no stay whatever in respect of the public and wider interests.

I noticed when the Minister was replying to the debate on the Second Reading, he made a point in regard to the question of closing railway lines. I think his argument was that the committee of inquiry was not competent and had not the necessary information to make clear-cut recommendations as to what lines should be closed. He referred to the question of fairs and he suggested that while C.I.E. might feel inclined to close a railway line, they would have to see whether the line should close or whether it was necessary to maintain it for the defence of the country or against a recurrence of emergency conditions. I am afraid that is a very rough and free rendering of what the Minister said. I have not got it before me at the moment. The point he was making was that C.I.E. should not be completely alone in this question of the closing of railway lines.

Now we are giving C.I.E. five years in which to put their house in order and we are giving them a subsidy of £1,000,000 a year for those five years to enable them to get things in order. All of us know that railway services are uneconomic. They are uneconomic even in Britain where there is many times the density of traffic. We can all be satisfied that, no matter what efforts the board make, no matter what co-operation is forthcoming from the trade unions, it would be a miracle if the railway system, or any portion of it here, could be made economic. Are we, then, to scrap it completely? If so, why do we not say so? Why do we not say, as they say in the North, that it is the duty of C.I.E. to close railway services?

The Minister is a very convincing speaker and has convinced many of us for a long time that this section is not what it sets out to be. I want to draw the attention of Senators to the fact that when this Bill becomes law, it is the Board of C.I.E. who will have the duty to proceed to close uneconomic lines. It may be all right when they close a branch such as the West Cork line. A few Deputies may be sore about it and, no doubt, will shout about it for a while. Then the board will quietly snip off the West Clare and, perhaps, the North Kerry will be the next to go and possibly the line through Roscrea and Ballybrophy to Limerick. Things must go on like that for the next five years. We are telling C.I.E. to do so, to cut out uneconomic railway services, and the Minister will have no power to intervene, if he is disposed to do so. The responsibility is being laid on C.I.E. and we are telling them to have the work done within the next five years. I suppose there is implied in that a threat that the whole organisation may be swept away, if the house is not in order at that time.

Even though a branch line may be uneconomic, who is to say that it should be retained because, for example, of its importance to the tourist industry? If C.I.E. proceed to close the line from Dublin to Wexford via Bray and Arklow, which I think could be clearly shown to be uneconomic also, is this House, or the Dáil or the Minister, to have any say in the matter? What we are doing under this Bill is keeping the Minister out of it altogether. We have abolished the Transport Tribunal and we are telling C.I.E. to proceed to close these lines where they are uneconomic and cannot be made economic in a reasonable time. If we do, that, I suggest that we will regret it.

C.I.E. should consider branch lines and should proceed to close those which are uneconomic, but the stage must be reached where the question of economy is not the only yardstick. The national interest should intervene. The best person to have custody of the national interest in this connection is the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He should have the power to say to C.I.E.: "No matter what you say about this branch line being uneconomic, you should not proceed to close it. You must try to carry it with the profitable sections of public transport."

I know the Minister is reluctant to accept this power and I suppose there are some political reasons why he should be out of the argument about the closing of branch lines, but as, shall we say, a statesman, he cannot avoid that. He must accept the responsibility as Minister of deciding that C.I.E. shall not go too far in drastic pruning of the railway system. If that happened, he might have to come back again and take the power the amendment asks him to take in this Bill. I suggest to him and to the Seanad that it would be prudent at least to insert that the Minister should be consulted in regard to the closing of railway services and I hope the Minister and the House will agree that the amendment should be inserted.

Mr. Baxter

There is a great deal to be said for the case made that you cannot advisedly leave the Minister out of this. We cannot consider railway transport, apart from national governmental policy. The transportation of goods and passengers is a matter of national policy. I do not think that any board, no matter how competent, with the powers given to it under this section, could visualise the consequences of any decision they may have to make under the section. The board can decide to terminate a branch service on the basis of whether it is uneconomic or not. There are other considerations. A branch of a railway may be closed. What is to be done then with regard to the transportation of goods that have to be moved in that part of the country?

The Minister does not drive his own car very frequently now. In that, he is in a much happier position than other members of the Oireachtas. If he had to drive up from the country and back again, as some of us have to do, he would have many a terrifying experience. The number of huge trucks on the road is growing every week. The roads were not built to carry them. If part of the Minister's policy comes to fruition in the way he desires, there will be more goods to be transported and there must be avenues over which they can travel. To-day, the roads are a menace to the peace-loving, quiet, careful driver. The number of fatal accidents week after week should cause all of us to ponder on what will happen when the quantity of goods carried on the roads increases.

Therefore, I say that the Minister cannot detach himself from the consequences of the decision he is taking now. It is not enough to hand over authority to the board and say: "You may or may not close that branch railway, just as you decide." The Minister ought to be brought in to exercise his judgment, which would be Government judgment, on what are the possibilities in the future with regard to the quantity of goods and services that have to be moved over a particular area. We must look on this in relation to the main roads as they are to-day. If the closing of a branch line means we are to have new roads or other roads widened, we will be committing ourselves to vast expenditure and I do not know what provision the Minister is making to meet that situation.

When I travel to Dublin—I think Senator Cole can bear me out in this— we traverse some miles of road which have been reconstructed. I am not against that because it is making conditions safer, but, although I do not know how much that work cost, I know it must have cost many thousands of pounds. Perhaps the worst stretch of road in the whole country is the road one has to traverse in order to get out of Dublin City. The north Dublin road is just terrifying, and nothing has been done in that regard since I came to Dublin, and that was not yesterday.

All these are problems for the future up and down the country. What has the Minister to say about them? What does he visualise as the possible expenditure on our roads in the years ahead in order that they may be made safer for the traffic which will be there to be carried? What does that mean to the taxpayer and ratepayer? Every member of every local authority in the country is gravely concerned at the steep and constant rise in local taxation. We are encouraged to spend money on roads for a consideration, that if we spend money, we will get a certain grant from the Exchequer. However, there is a limit to what the local authorities are prepared to spend or to the amount they can find to spend. In most instances—there are members of local authorities on both sides of the House who will agree with me—we are at the maximum point in this respect. It would be a very unwelcome decision if any local authority had to increase the rates so that they could spend more on the roads. Nevertheless, every branch line that is closed will mean a demand on the rate-payers for an increased rate for the widening and development of roads.

That is where the Minister and his colleagues, the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance, come in. They are all involved in this. What the movers of the amendment, and certainly what Senator Murphy said, appealed very much to me. The Minister must approach this not just as the Minister for Industry and Commerce passing over a decision to a group of people who can make the decision in the abstract. The problem has to be looked on as a whole and the Minister cannot absolve himself of a great deal of responsibility for the consequences of any decision made by the Board of C.I.E. in the closing of any branch railway line. The Minister ought to study whether or not this amendment does not embody a wise demand. Whether or not he accepts the responsibility now, somebody will have to accept such responsibility in the future.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I rise to support this amendment and I think the speeches made in favour of it are unanswerable. The Minister cannot really answer the case made by Senators O'Quigley, Murphy and Baxter; and, in fact, I think one very good speech in favour of the amendment was the speech made by the Minister on the previous amendment. He then made it quite clear that you cannot treat sections of the transport services in isolation. You cannot treat Dublin as an isolated case. You cannot say: "This section is making a lot of money and this other section is not. Therefore, let us close this other section, and let us devote all our attention to the one that is making money." The Minister put our case before us as cogently as it could be put. All this amendment is asking is that, if and when C.I.E. decide, because a branch line is "uneconomic," to terminate that service, they must first consult the Minister. I do not think anybody could consider that an unreasonable request. The supporters of the amendment are not asking that the Minister be given powers of veto. We are not asking that he shall have overriding powers. As Senator Murphy pointed out, even if the Minister advises that a line should be kept open, even if this amendment is passed, the board can still go ahead and close the line. The one thing that the passing of the amendment would ensure is that before an uneconomic line is closed, the Minister shall be consulted.

One can understand that the Minister does not want to be bothered by deputations and delegations from a particular area where a line is about to be closed, and I would suggest that that is the main reason why he may be reluctant to accept the amendment; but, as Senator Murphy pointed out, the Minister, in the final analysis, is the best judge, not of whether a particular branch line is economic or not but of the national interest in that connection and of how far the national interest is involved in the closing of a technically "uneconomic" branch line. Therefore the final responsibility from the national viewpoint should devolve upon him, even if it be for him a political nuisance to have to deal with deputations and representations, some of them admittedly coming from members of the Oireachtas.

I agree with the Minister when he says—and I made that clear both today and on the Second Reading—that you cannot treat individual sections of the transport system in isolation. I made the point that if you were to apply that to the delivery of letters, many postal areas would be closed altogether, because they "did not pay their way". The Minister misunderstood what I said about that on the Second Stage. He thought I said I would be quite happy if C.I.E. were as efficient as the Post Office. I said nothing of the kind. I said that, just as in the case of the Post Office, we have to carry certain technically "uneconomic section" even if they do not pay their way, so too with certain "uneconomic" railway lines. It may not be economic to carry letters to Inishbofin or the Aran Islands, but we must be prepared to serve those areas for the sake of the postal services as a whole. It is the same with transport. We must be prepared to "carry" the less economic or uneconomic sections.

The case the Minister made in justification of making Dublin help to pay for certain sections of the country's transport system would apply here. It is quite possible that C.I.E. might be in duty bound as a company, as a commercial undertaking, to try to close down a branch line because it was losing money, where in fact, if that were done, damage would be done to the transport system as a whole. For the very reasons that the Minister so well gave on the Second Reading, I ask him to accept this amendment, the very reasons which show that the railways ought to be continued even though parts of the railways cannot be shown to be paying their way in isolation. Perhaps I have worked to death the analogy of the Post Office, but Senator Murphy has mentioned the E.S.B. It is quite obvious that if you try to make every area of the country at present furnished with electricity an "economic proposition," paying its own way in isolation, you would have to cut down the electricity supply to a whole lot of areas which, from a national point of view, require to be so served.

All that is asked here is that if a line is to be closed down, at least the Minister must be consulted before that is done. The fourth sub-section of this section which deals with the closing of "uneconomic" lines reads: "The notice shall indicate the new or additional road transport services, if any, which the board proposes to provide in the area should they desire to close a line." The words are "if any", so that it is quite possible that an uneconomic branch line might be closed down by C.I.E. under the powers given in this section, and no alternative transport might be provided. That seems to be an additional reason why we should think the Minister, as representative of the community and the Government, ought to be satisfied himself of the wisdom of the termination of any such a service, before the company shall have power to terminate it. By pressing this amendment, we would simply be ensuring that every aspect, including the national aspect, of the situation should be considered before the board assumes the power vested in it by this section.

Professor Quinlan

I rise to support this amendment because it is most necessary that we should feel that the Minister had some power in this regard. I am speaking for an area in Cork City where we should apparently have some means of representation to C.I.E. I can say that there is a general local feeling of dissatisfaction with the way representations are received. In fact, the whole bus service for the western part of the city was changed from what to all of us locally appeared to be a very reasonable one to one that is chaotic, in relation to which the local expression is "Wait at a bus stop; there will be a whole convoy along any time now." It is most necessary that this simple protection should be enshirned in the Bill, and I heartily support the amendment and hope the Minister will accept it.

Mr. P. Crowley

I wish to add my voice very briefly to the people who have spoken in support of this amendment. I do so because I think any fair-minded person would have to agree that it is reasonable. I also suggest that it represents a very necessary precaution which we as a House should be obliged to take, if we are to ensure that essential lines of communication and transport are kept intact and maintained in working order to meet the very definite possibilities contingent on or arising from some other emergency. If all the branch lines are to be scrapped at the behest of the Board of C.I.E. without consultation with the responsible Minister or his Department, anybody will have reason to ask what is to happen. I also think that if any of us regard ourselves as serious when we deplore emigration and the flight from the land, we have to ask ourselves if we are not doing something here to speed up that flow from the land and add to those who have already emigrated.

Over and above those considerations, I submit also that as long as the taxpayers of the country have to foot the annual bill for the losses in the operation of the railway services, the representatives of the taxpayers have a definite responsibility to ensure that actions of this kind cannot and will not be taken, at least without consultation with the Minister as asked for in this amendment. I do not wish to go any further over the ground covered by other speakers, but these three reasons alone should serve to convince anybody of the necessity for the insertion of some precaution of this kind in the Bill.

Mr. Crowe

I am in entire agreement with this amendment as regards the closing down of our branch lines. There is a branch line in my own area, from Goold's Cross to Cashel. I can remember this line being laid down and the ratepayers in the area paying something in the vicinity of 2d. in the £, and I know of a case where one shipper alone from the town of Cashel paid as much as £700 during one month in 1956 to send cattle from Goold's Cross to Dublin. Senators will all understand what is meant in driving heavy cattle six or seven miles with no loading facilities whatsoever at Goold's Cross, although it is on the main Cork to Dublin line. They have facilities in Cashel, it being a good cattle-rearing country. I cannot see why that line should be closed down. There is an example of heavy traffic both as regards cattle and oil tankers. I may also mention that it is a good dairy area, and that specials run to a hurling or football match in Dublin or Cork would help to enable it eventually to pay a dividend. I consider that my friend, Senator O'Keeffe, was parochial in outlook when he mentioned Dublin City and its bus fares. We all know that C.I.E. is a national transport service and every part of the country should pay for it.

Mr. S. Lemass

There seems to be a good deal of confused thinking on the part of those responsible for this amendment. They appear to assume that the C.I.E. Board will act unreasonably in regard to the closing of branch lines; secondly, that consultation with the Minister will prevent them acting unreasonably; and thirdly, that the perservation of branch lines, whether anybody uses them or not, is essential for national economic development and the prevention of emigration. Let us get rid of some of the irrelevancies which have been brought into this discussion so that we can get down to the net issue.

Senator Baxter said that the roads are getting crowded by heavy lorries until it is now a danger to life to travel on them. That is happening while the branch lines are still there, as Senator Baxter appreciates. Apart from the fact that it is not true, it is evidence of the fact that he has not given any serious thought to this matter at all. The Committee on Transport pointed out that the number of our commercial vehicles in relation to road mileage was very low and in fact by far the lowest of all countries in Europe which, again, reflects our high mileage of roads in relation to population. On page 151, there is a table in which figures are set out showing the number of commercial vehicles in relation to miles of road, which is far lower than in any other country listed there and about one-eighth of the number on the British roads.

Mr. Baxter

That proves nothing.

Mr. S. Lemass

It proves as far as we are concerned that one of the facilities we have here is our uncrowded roads. If Senator Baxter reads our tourist publicity, he will find that that is a point we stress in it because it is something which helps to bring visitors to our country—the fact that they are safer on our roads.

Mr. Baxter

Is the Minister making a comparison between our roads and continental roads?

Mr. S. Lemass

The Senator spoke about the roads out of Dublin and pointed out the importance to Ireland of having good roads for the people who come here. I will agree there is some congestion near Dublin. Perhaps I might remind Senator Baxter of something. There was a plan to build new roads out of Dublin connecting with all the main arteries. It was brought into operation in 1947 and envisaged the widening of these roads and, in some cases, dual carriageways. That plan was stopped in 1948. It became a matter for violent political controversy. It was one of the extravagancies of the Fianna Fáil Party that was denounced up and down the country. It was stopped in 1948 and it has not started since.

Mr. Burke

We could not afford it.

Mr. S. Lemass

Can we get an assurance that if it starts now, the same political controversy will not surround the plan? No?

Mr. O'Leary

What about the Bray road?

Mr. S. Lemass

It was stopped half-way through. It is like a string of sausages now.

Mr. Burke

I hope they are good sausages.

Mr. S. Lemass

Let me be clear about one thing. The Minister has not been concerned with the closing of branch lines since Deputy Morrissey brought in the Transport Act of 1950. All this talk about bringing the Minister back into the picture is from people on that side of the House, all of whom voted to put the Minister out of the picture eight years ago. One of the difficulties about arguing with some of these Senators is that they are never in the same place twice. Since 1950, the power to close branch lines has rested with the C.I.E. Board only subject to the sanction of the Transport Tribunal. The Minister was not in the picture at all nor was there any obligation on the part of C.I.E. or the Transport Tribunal to consult them. Now they want to bring the Minister back into the picture.

Mr. O'Leary

He should have some power.

Mr. S. Lemass

Why should he?

Mr. O'Leary

Why not?

Mr. S. Lemass

The alternative to the proposal in the amendment is that this power to decide whether a branch line should be kept open or not, having regard to the economic results of its operation, should rest with the C.I.E. Board. Under the 1950 Act, the present position is that the power rests with the C.I.E. Board subject to the approval of the Transport Tribunal. The suggestion made here is that the power should remain with the board, provided they consult with the Minister for Industry and Commerce in advance. There is no suggestion in this amendment that the Minister will have any power to do anything about it. Surely it is the height of political folly to give the Minister responsibility without power. That is the suggestion here. C.I.E. would be under a statutory obligation to consult the Minister but nevertheless they would have power to do what they think is the right thing and to do it irrespective of any views the Minister may express.

There may be some case for maintaining the Transport Tribunal set up in 1950. I am prepared to argue that case. I do not agree with it myself but it is an arguable case. There is no arguable case for this amendment which will maintain a situation in which there will be a base for political agitation if the C.I.E. Board on commercial grounds decides to close down a branch line.

What is the case against maintaining the tribunal? C.I.E. is a nationalised undertaking not interested in private profit and managed by people appointed by the Government who are running it in the national interests——

Mr. O'Leary

Whatever way they like.

Mr. S. Lemass

I thought that Senator O'Leary as a loyal member of the Labour Party would at least favour the principle of nationalisation. Again, Senators will not stay in the same place twice running. Here we have a nationalised undertaking. We have a board appointed by the Government to run that nationalised undertaking in the interests of the community as a whole. Can we not trust them to do the job properly? If we cannot, let us get rid of them. Surely, it is far more intelligent to maintain a system in which responsibility for running that concern rests with those who have the power to do it rather than we should make them subject to somebody else who cannot be any better than they are? As I said in the Dáil, an intelligent Government will pick for the Board of C.I.E. the best people they can get, the people most competent, to ensure that that organisation is properly conducted. If the best people are on that board, then the people they put on the Transport Tribunal must be second best. That does not seem an intelligent arrangement to me.

Mr. O'Leary

They are still losing money.

Mr. S. Lemass

Of course, they are losing money.

Mr. O'Leary

Then they must not be the right men.

Mr. S. Lemass

That is a principle to which I heartily subscribe, but I did not expect to hear it enunciated by Senator O'Leary.

I want to say a few words about branch lines as a whole. I think it is extremely probable that over the next five years a number of them will close down because nobody wants to use them. Senator Baxter was talking about heavy lorries. Why are they on the road? Because the people sending goods by these lorries prefer to send them in the lorries than by the railways. It is true that in most parts of the country where there is a branch line there are people who want to keep it there, not because they intend to use it, but because they want it as a standby in case their lorry breaks down or some exceptional transport need arises. I do not think it is reasonable to expect the taxpayer to maintain an expensive railway system as a standby. Therefore, the proposition is that the C.I.E. Board will be entitled to close down a branch line if nobody is using is or if nobody is using it to a sufficient extent to justify retaining it.

Senator Murphy got mixed up between the provisions of this Bill and the provisions of the Belfast Bill he was quoting from. In Belfast, they stipulated in the measure they recently passed that the Ulster Transport Authority must close down a branch line if it is uneconomic or not likely to become economic. We have gone in the opposite direction. We do not require C.I.E. to close any branch lines. The statutory obligation is that they must not close it unless it is uneconomic or never likely to become economic. We are not putting on them the obligation to close any branch line. Indeed, the justification for closing a branch line would depend, not upon the balance between the revenue receipts and the operating cost of the line but on the value of the service and its contribution to the system as a whole. These are the important factors which the C.I.E. Board and only the C.I.E. Board can assess properly.

I know there is an idea in the minds of some people that without a railway line some town may not get a new factory. That is a complete fallacy. I at least can claim to know as much as anyone about the outlook of those interested in new industrial development here. What is worrying me is that none of them is interested in the availablity of a railway service. The problem is that the new factories will not use the railways. The people who plan new factories plan their transport organisation at the same time. There is no justification for this view that the availability of a branch line is essential to the establishment of a new industry. Indeed, all the evidence is the reverse.

As I have often said before my conviction is that railways can be made to serve a very important part within the national transport organisation. I believe that in relation to various types of traffic and certain seasonal needs it would be difficult to provide a reasonable service for the country without railways but that does not mean that every section of every branch line and every railway station in the country must be preserved. Indeed, if we are to maintain a workable railway organisation, we must obviously strip it of these uneconomic units and sections which are responsible for its heavy losses. That is something which has to be planned consistently by people who have given real study to the economics of transport operation as well as the transport requirements of the country. These people will be the management and Board of C.I.E. It is to them that the responsibility is given and, having given them responsibility, you must give them the power as well.

That is the purpose of the Bill. If it was a suggestion to restore the Transport Tribunal, I would have to argue on the lines I have done that that is an unnecessary provision which, in any event, did not prevent C.I.E. closing down any branch line they wanted to close down. But the worst possible arrangement is one in which you would appear to be giving the Minister some power to deal with the matter and giving him responsibility for decisions which would not be his. If there is a proposal to close down a station or a branch line or to curtail or withdraw services, those who want to maintain them will have to go to the Board of C.I.E. and argue the case there, and I am quite certain the Board of C.I.E. will never take a decision to close a line or withdraw a service, if the local interests can hold out any reasonable prospect that the service will be supported. Indeed, the whole purpose of the measure is to create a situation in which the Board of C.I.E. can say to the people living in localities served by branch lines that if they want to keep the branch lines going, it is up to them and it is within their own power to do it by securing enough business for it to justify its retention. That is something that has to be said by the Board of C.I.E. and not by the Minister.

It is important that these questions should be considered as commercial and economic questions and not settled by political agitation. Once you bring the Minister into it you bring in the possibility of political agitation in the belief that irrespective of the merits of any particular case political pressure can be exercised on the Minister to get him to reverse the decision previously taken by the Board of C.I.E. That is the situation which Deputy Morrissey as Minister endeavoured to avoid in 1950 by the device of the Transport Tribunal. I think it is something we should avoid and the proposal in this Bill is, I think, the best way to avoid it.

Mr. O'Quigley

The Minister in his statement has said that this amendment—I take it he includes both—was intended solely for political agitation. I would like to assure him that it was not——

Mr. S. Lemass

I did not say they were intended for political agitation. I said they would mean that the closing of branch lines would be made the basis for political agitation.

Mr. O'Quigley

The Minister said the amendment was put down for that purpose——

Mr. S. Lemass

No, but that is what the effect of it would be.

Mr. O'Quigley

It was put down after due consideration—which the Minister regards as woolly consideration—of the provisions of this Bill. The Minister has a great deal of experience in matters of transport. Nobody denies that, but I am certainly very concerned at the prospect of giving the Board of C.I.E. absolute authority and power to close any branch line they like, solely on an accountancy basis. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the Board of C.I.E. will have wider considerations before them when they are considering closing branch lines, considerations of the public interest. I did not put in an amendment—which I considered—"without the consent of the Minister" because that would certainly restrict policy. The Transport Tribunal has gone and in any case that is a slow and cumbersome procedure, but there should be the halfway stage between absolute discretion and the procedure of going before a transport tribunal that they should consult with the Minister and if they then decide, after consultation with the Minister, that the line must go, that is the board's responsibility.

I cannot see that, as the Minister has suggested, we are not trusting C.I.E. or the board we are setting up. Two heads are wiser than one and the hydra-headed C.I.E. can well benefit by the views and information that will be at the disposal of the Minister for Industry and Commerce of the day. That is reasonable and it certainly appeals to me as a sensible argument that there should be this consultation. I do not intend to go further into the arguments for it: these have been well enough aired already.

Mr. S. Lemass

It is extremely unlikely that any branch line or even wayside station will be closed down, without the Minister hearing about it.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister is most vehement when he has a bad case —that has long been noted about him. He was extremely vehement this evening and we can only conclude that he has a bad case.

I cast my mind back a decade or so to a case of one of these Acts in which "the Minister after consultation with the Minister for Finance may do so and so." Or perhaps it was "the Minister for Agriculture after consultation with the Minister for Finance may do so and so." The usual interchange of letters took place, the Department of Finance taking one view and the other Department a different view and it ended by the Department of Finance saying: "Look, you have consulted us and reconsulted us and you can still decide to go ahead with it." What is the difference between the section which led to that situation and this proposal? Such a section appears in dozens of Acts of the Oireachtas. All the amendment says is "after consultation with the Minister"; in other words, they must tell the Minister about it. As the Minister said, it is extremely unlikely, no matter what is in the Bill, that they would do anything without telling him: "We are going to close the line from point A to point B."

There is one difference, I think. As the section stands, they can do it. Suppose political considerations became intense, or that there was some clash of personalities, as happens, unfortunately, it would be better to have the provision in the Bill to cover such a situation. The Minister made the case that it was Deputy Morrissey, when Minister, who took the Minister for Industry and Commerce out of this and put the Transport Tribunal into it. That is all poppycock; that is another part of the Minister's tactics. The Transport Tribunal has been there for the past 40 years——

Mr. S. Lemass

Since 1950.

Dr. O'Donovan

It has always considered the closing of branch lines.

Mr. S. Lemass

It was not in existence before 1950.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Transport Tribunal was there in relation to the closing down of branch lines since, I think, 1920. It may have been called something else.

Mr. S. Lemass

If the Senator will turn to page 43 of the report, he will get the whole history of it and I suggest the Senator should have read that before he spoke.

Dr. O'Donovan

Let us be straight about it. I looked for it, but I could not find it. It was not in the index— there is none—nor in the table of contents.

Mr. S. Lemass

It is in the table of contents.

Dr. O'Donovan

Well, I missed it.

Mr. S. Lemass

Paragraph 73, page 43.

Dr. O'Donovan

This starts with the Railways Act, 1933.

Mr. S. Lemass

That is right.

Dr. O'Donovan

I thought you said the whole history of it was there. That is not far back enough. That is a bit of "smart-aleck" work which is typical of the Minister.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Read down 10 lines.

Dr. O'Donovan

I need not read anywhere. This is typical of the "smart aleck" tactics that go on on that side of the House.

Mr. S. Lemass

Be careful not to read it.

Dr. O'Donovan

It starts from 1933. I have said the Transport Tribunal was there long before that.

Mr. S. Lemass

This paragraph says:—

"Since the passing of the Transport Act, 1950, train services on C.I.E. branch lines cannot be permanently discontinued except under the authority of Exemption Orders made by the Transport Tribunal, established under that Act."

Dr. O'Donovan

Wait a moment. The point is that that does not deal with the case I am making at all. The case I am making is that whenever a branch line had to be closed, there had to be a hearing before the Railway Tribunal.

Mr. S. Lemass

Since 1950.

Dr. O'Donovan

Not since 1950. Whatever it is called—I do not mind what it is called; call it what you like —the fact is that the Minister was chancing his arm.

Mr. S. Lemass

Well, one of us is.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister was. I am quite certain about it. Let me deal finally with the point about the roads again. It is not strictly relevant to this. The roads in this country, as the Minister said, are as good as the roads in any other country, certainly in relation to the traffic on them.

Mr. L'Estrange

Not the county roads.

Dr. O'Donovan

If we talk about that, the previous Government were the first Government to pay attention to county roads and transfer the money to them. In the case of the Minister's Party, the argument was: why did not we go on with the huge main road improvement scheme?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

This is not the Local Government Estimate.

Dr. O'Donovan

I did not start it. I want to make the point that it is not quite fair of the Minister to make a quick point. He is quite entitled to do it, but it is not quite fair to make a quick point. If he starts a grandiose scheme of road building around Dublin——

Mr. S. Lemass

Senator Baxter was complaining about that.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister made his point: would we then accept it? Could he take it that there would be no political opposition to it?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Would there be?

Dr. O'Donovan

There is one thing that should be done on the main road beyond Newlands Cross, that is, to take the huge margin off the left-hand side of the road and bring it into the main road, but they would not do that because it is typical of these people who have been looking after roads that, if you do not approve of their scheme, that is, a straight line through the country, they will not do anything reasonable. The same applies to the monstrosity on O'Connell Bridge that everybody hates to look at. It is the very same idea.

Mr. Lenihan

This is not the Dublin Corporation.

Mr. S. Lemass

Back to transport.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister is not going to get away with the point that the insertion of "after consultation with the Minister" puts him in any worse position that he is in if he leaves it out. It puts him in a better position. It makes his Bill a better Bill. Admittedly, it will put the Minister in the position that he will probably have to receive a lot of deputations and, as he has a very big Department, largely brought by himself to that size, he has a great deal of day to day business to attend to—the Parkinson's Law—and, therefore, cannot attend to deputations of local people. I admit that there is that difficulty for the Minister, that he will have deputations and big numbers of people coming to see him.

Mr. S. Lemass

That has nothing to do with it.

Dr. O'Donovan

I do not see how he can get out of it.

Mr. S. Lemass

I want to give the power of decision to the board.

Dr. O'Donovan

They have power of decision under the amendment. Of course they have. The decision is with them.

Mr. Murphy

The Minister rather cleverly put up arguments which were not made at all in support of this amendment and then proceeded to abolish them. He said there were three arguments in support of the amendment. First of all, that it was supposed that the board would act unreasonably. I did not make the argument that the board would act unreasonably. The argument I was making was that we were laying down the law for the board. We were telling them they would have to put their house in order in five years and at that time the subsidy would cease and that within that five years, they must proceed to put the house in order. We are saying that one of the ways in which they do that is to close uneconomic lines. I do not think there is an answer to the assertion that I made that practically every railway line in the State is uneconomic and if the board are to interpret their duty as we are laying it down, they must proceed to close railway lines, whether we regard it as reasonable or unreasonable.

The second argument that the Minister said was made in support of the amendment was that consultation with him would prevent the board from acting unreasonably. I do not know what counter-argument to make to that, but it does seem to me that if the board are obliged to consult with the Minister, there will be some sort of stay put on them. They will not run helter-skelter, as they are being encouraged to in the Bill as it stands, to proceed to close railways.

The third point which the Minister said was made in support of the amendment—a supposition—was that branch lines should be kept open, no matter what money they lose. I do not support that approach to the question of pruning the railway system. Branch lines must be closed, if they are clearly uneconomic, but, again, we have reached the position that every railway line is uneconomic at the present time and we are not, therefore, simply talking about branch lines. We are talking about the railway system as we know it in this country.

The Minister was probably on a good wicket when he said that the amendment, if passed, would not give him a veto over the power of the board to close railway lines. If he would prefer to have the amendment stronger, if he would like to be given a veto power to tell the board that they cannot close a railway line, I should be prepared to support him in that. He does not. He simply wants to be kept out of it altogether, even though, two sections later, he comes in, in that he is giving himself power to issue an Order to abandon a railway line where it has already been closed. He wants to keep out of the question of whether it should be closed or not and later on he comes in and gives himself power to issue an abandonment order.

I do not think it is prudent for this House to put C.I.E. into the position that we are more or less instructing them to proceed to close railway services and that they have no comeback, no say whatever, the Minister having no responsibility, the Minister not being able to account to the Dáil as to what his views are in regard to any closures. I am not in any way farsighted in saying that, in a year's time, when questions will be put down in Dáil Éireann as to why such and such a railway line is being closed, the Minister will say, in effect: "You have passed the Transport Act, 1958. It is a matter solely for the Board of C.I.E. and I have no function." I am trying to give him at least a consulting function in the matter. If he wants a stronger function, if he wants veto power, I will support him in it.

Mr. S. Lemass

On a point of information, may I point out to the Senator that Section 21 which he quoted, referring to the abandonment of lines, does not apply to C.I.E. but to certain peculiar cases.

Professor Stanford

I should like to be quite sure on the point that Senator Murphy has raised. If we do not pass this amendment, will the Minister be free in future to say to Dáil Éireann: "I have no responsibility whatever for the closing of branch lines. I will not answer questions about the closing of branch lines in the Dáil"?

Mr. S. Lemass

That has been the situation since 1950.

Professor Stanford

In that case, it should be changed and I support the amendment.

Mr. S. Lemass

Let it be quite clear that the amendment will not alter that in the least.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I listened very carefully to the Minister's reply. I am afraid I was not convinced that any serious disadvantage would accure from placing the obligation on C.I.E. to consult the Minister before they decided to close a branch line. I do not think he showed what disadvantage would derive from consultation with him. There might, of course, be some disadvantage for him. It might involve personal inconvenience and so on.

Mr. S. Lemass

That has nothing to do with it at all. May I explain to the Senator? C.I.E. say a branch line is losing money or that a particular station is losing money. They go to the people of the locality and say: "This line is losing money and will keep losing money. Unless we get business for it, we will have to close it down." If the Minister were able to affect the situation, would not the people say: "We will kick up such a row that the Minister will not allow you to do it", instead of looking at it in a businesslike way and seeing what measures they can take to get traffic back on the line? We want to get this on a business basis instead of a political basis.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I am afraid of any basis that would be exclusively managerial or commercial. The Minister under this amendment would be granted merely an advisory capacity, but it would be possible (a) for him to state publicly what advice he had given the company, and (b) for people in the Oireachtas to question him on it. If he adviced the company against closing a branch line, I should be very much surprised if the company recommended closing it, but I should like to have somebody who was answerable to Parliament. This amendment does not give the Minister power to contravene a decision of the company, but it does require the company to consult the Minister, which would mean that before they decide to close a branch line the national aspect would be taken into consideration as well as the commercial aspect. That would seem to me a good thing.

Mr. S. Lemass

Putting the responsibility in any form on the Minister would cut across the whole principle of the Bill and I could not possibly agree to that.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 22 22; Níl, 22.

Tá

• Barry, Anthony.
• Burke, Denis.
• Carton, Victor.
• Connolly O'Brien, Nora.
• Crowe, Patrick.
• Crowley, Patrick.
• Davidson, Mary F.
• Fearon, William R.
• Hayes, Michael.
• L'Estrange, Gerald.
• Murphy, Dominick F.
• O'Donovan, John.
• O'Keeffe, James J.
• O'Leary, Johnny.
• O'Quigley, John B.
• O'Sullivan, John L.
• Prendergast, Micheál A.
• Quinlan, Patrick M.
• Roddy, Joseph.
• Sheehy Skeffington, Owen L.
• Stanford, William B.
• Tunney, James.

Níl

• Ahern, Liam.
• Brady, Seán.
• Carter, Frank.
• Cole, John C.
• Colley, Harry.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• Dowdall, Jane.
• Fitzsimons, Patrick.
• Hayes, Seán.
• Hogan, Daniel.
• Kissane, Éamon.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• O'Callaghan, William.
• Ó' Grádaigh, Seán.
• Ó Maoláin, Tomás.
• Ó Siochfhradha, Pádraig.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Ruane, Thomas.
• Ryan, Eoin.
• Teehan, Patrick J.
• Walsh, Laurence J.
• Walsh, Louis.

Tellers: Tá, Senators O'Quigley and L'Estrange; Níl, Senators Carter and Fitzsimons.

Amendment No. 3 not moved.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I declare the amendment lost.

Mr. O'Quigley

I move amendment No. 4:—

Before sub-section (2) to insert a new sub-section as follows:—

( ) Within three months of the passing of this Act and yearly thereafter, the board shall, in respect of each branch line on which a service of trains for passengers and merchandise or a service for passengers only or merchandise only is maintained, publish, in such newspapers circulating in the area served by each such branch line as the board shall think proper, the following particulars:—

(a) the volume of traffic and receipts in respect thereof carried by the train service on each branch line during the period of the previous 12 months;

(b) the expenditure incurred by the board during the period specified in the immediately preceding paragraph in respect of each such branch line, and

(c) in case such expenditure exceeds receipts, an estimate of the increase in traffic that would be necessary so that the expenditure and receipts would be equal in the next 12 months.

On the previous amendment, we had a considerable amount of discussion on the subject of the closing of branch lines. The Minister, in his reply on the Second Stage in this House, said at column 762, Volume 49:—

"The problem of railway operation can be viewed from one of two angles. It will disappear if we can get more traffic on to the railways. Alternatively, it can be removed by cutting the costs of providing railway services."

The purpose of this amendment is to deal with the problem in the first way, that is, to get more traffic on to the railways. The Minister in the course of his speech on the previous amendment said that no branch line would be closed down, if local interest could hold out any prospect that it would become economic in time. I am inclined to think that there are very few people living in any of the areas at present served by branch lines who know what the position of those branch lines is from the point of view of C.I.E.— whether they are paying propositions or not. The purpose of this amendment is to make it obligatory on C.I.E., within three months of the passing of this Bill, to give some information to the users and people resident in the areas served by the different branch lines as to the state of the finances of those branch lines. It does not seem to me that there will be any difficulty on the part of C.I.E. in providing that information, because presumably at present and within three months of the passing of this Bill, they will know what the economic possibilities of each branch line are. I assume that they keep the working of each branch line under close examination.

The Minister did say on the previous amendment that branch lines were useful for the traffic they provided for the main line. That was, he indicated, an aspect of the economic value of a branch line to the railway as a whole. It strikes me that perhaps this amendment does not go quite far enough. There might be some indication by C.I.E. as to that aspect of their problem. I do not think it is right to say that people would not use the railways, and that they are using trucks and lorries and private transport because they do not want to use the railways. I am quite satisfied from my own experience that there are many people who would not travel by their own private cars, if C.I.E. were providing a somewhat better service on certain lines. Perhaps a great deal of the increase in the volume of heavy haulage traffic on the road is attributable to the fact that C.I.E. did not cater for the needs of the people. It takes the view: "We are providing the services; let the people come and use them." That is not the view that C.I.E. should take. It should try to provide for the needs of the people and accommodate them as far as possible.

The Minister, in the same column of Volume 49, said in his reply:—

"Indeed, quite a comparatively small increase in the total volume of business available to C.I.E. would wipe out their deficit if that increase did not bring with it any increase in the operating charges."

If that be the case, people in areas which may have their branch lines cut off might be able to supply that small increase that will make C.I.E. a paying proposition.

I do not think that merely publishing the statistics suggested in the amendment will have a magical effect on the people, but it will provide business interests and people in public life with some idea of the problems in relation to those different branch lines. It might stimulate people into getting more and more traffic put on the branch lines, particularly when they know, as they will from these accounts, that there is a likelihood that otherwise they will be left without any branch lines, and that the decision will rest entirely, as now happens after the defeat of the previous amendment, with the Board of C.I.E.

This amendment is for the purpose of creating that body of opinion which will make it something akin to a patriotic duty in the minds of people to use the railway services. Perhaps many people would make their choice, where it is only a matter of slight difference, to have their goods consigned to them by railway, if they thought that they would not have themselves deprived of the branch lines into their own town or village. The purpose of the amendment is clear enough, and the information which it is sought should be published by C.I.E. should not be difficult to assemble and advertise.

Mr. S. Lemass

The information which the Board of C.I.E. would be required to extract and publish under this amendment is not ordinarily available to C.I.E., and its compilation would impose a very heavy additional burden on its headquarters staff and almost certainly necessitate the employment of considerable additional staff. The information, when obtained, assuming that measures to secure it were adopted, would itself be of very doubtful reliability and more doubtful value. I can see C.I.E. extracting information relating to a particular branch line, publishing it in connection with efforts on its part to attract more business to the line and for the purpose of arousing local interest in its preservation, but to impose on them the obligation to extract such information regularly and publish it as a routine measure would be a very different story.

The normal practice of C.I.E. is to apportion receipts in respect of passenger and freight traffic according to mileage. It is rather an arbitrary apportionment, but it is the measure which commends itself to their accountants. Similarly, expenditure is apportioned on an equally arbitrary basis. Indeed, there would be a considerable difference of opinion as to how charges, such as depreciation, interest on capital, salaries of staff, common to the whole undertaking, and so forth would be allocated to particular branch lines taken in isolation.

It has always been a matter of difficulty to get from C.I.E. any reliable information as to the economics of branch line operation. While estimates have been prepared, they were prepared for the internal use of the C.I.E. management, who would be fully aware of the limitations attaching to them and who would use the information with due discretion. The publication of that information would, I think, only give rise to a great deal of argument as to the basis of its compilation.

In any case, it seems to me that the amendment fails to take account of what would be the important considerations in the mind of the C.I.E. Board when considering the future of any branch line. The board will be far less concerned with the actual receipts and expenditure on that branch line than with its contributive value to the traffic generated on the system as a whole. That is, to a large extent, imponderable because in the case of any estimate that may be made, its reliability depends upon a variety of assumptions—assumptions as to how the traffic will flow if the line should be closed.

The C.I.E. Board, when considering the future of any branch line in relation to a suggestion that it should be closed, would have to have regard to the extent to which the substituted road services, whether C.I.E. or private services, would continue to feed traffic into the main line, how much of that would be lost to the main railway system and how much of it would go to its own public transport services and how much to private transport services. For that reason, the publication of the information suggested in the amendment would be largely pointless, as well as impracticable.

I do not think it desirable that it should be put on them as a statutory obligation to make these estimates and, much less, to publish them. As I have said, I can see C.I.E. publishing data and estimates relating to a particular branch line in a single case for the purpose of supporting some campaign designed to attract traffic back to it and permit of its retention, but to put on it this general obligation to publish this information in relation to all branch lines would be impracticable. Apart altogether from the heavy cost it would involve to C.I.E. and the additional burden it would place on its staff, the information itself would be so unreliable as to make it undesirable to publish it and, in any event, it would be far more likely to confuse rather than inform the public mind.

Mr. O'Quigley

I want to make a few observations on what the Minister has said. It certainly comes as something of a shock to me to find that C.I.E. have no precise information as to the extent to which they gain or lose on their branch lines, that they have not got the information readily available and that such information as they have available is of doubtful validity. The Minister said that the method by which they compute their profits and costs on various lines is by arbitrary apportionment of expenses according to mileage. He says there are other imponderable factors which they take into consideration in determining whether a branch line is economic or not. If that is the basis upon which C.I.E. will decide to close down a branch line, it highlights the necessity for the amendment which has just been defeated, because apparently C.I.E. will have no firm figures to point to in justification of their contention that they are losing financially on a particular line. There are a whole lot of other imponderable factors about which there will be at least two views.

The main purpose of the amendment is to bring home to people resident in an area through which a branch line passes the likelihood of the line being closed down for want of traffic. I should be quite satisfied if the Minister could give an undertaking on behalf of the Board of C.I.E.—I do not know whether it is possible for him to do that or not—that C.I.E. will bring to the notice of the public in the different areas served by branch lines their general attitude towards particular lines, the extent to which more traffic is needed in order to make them a paying proposition. As the Minister said, C.I.E. are to be given freedom to adopt an aggressive sales policy. I would ask that they adopt, perhaps not an aggressive, but a subtle policy to get people to use the branch lines.

Mr. S. Lemass

I can give that undertaking, because I know C.I.E. have done it in the past in relation to particular branch lines. They have published enough information relating to the operation of the line and the decline of traffic on the line to arouse public interest in the measures necessary to secure its retention.

Mr. O'Quigley

Would the Minister go further and say they would do that immediately on the passing of this measure so that people will know that C.I.E., having obtained their new charter, are starting off with a certain view?

Mr. S. Lemass

The point I want to make is that if the C.I.E. Board get a proposition from some of their officers that a branch line should be closed down, they will have to take into account not merely the cost of operating that line and the volume of the traffic generated but also these other matters I have referred to: the extent to which, if they close down the line, they will lose traffic to the main line system, the extent to which the traffic will flow to the main system, the extent to which traffic will go to its own transport services and private transport services. All these factors will be taken into account by the C.I.E. Board in making a decision. It is possible to give information regarding the actual traffic that originates on the line, even though it might be uneconomic, to enable decisions to be taken in regard to its future. There is an obligation on them in the Bill, where they do close a line, to publish the traffic potentiality of the line, so that any body proposing to operate a substitute road service will know how much business it is likely to get.

Mr. O'Quigley

I do not think the Minister is quite right in saying there is an obligation on them to publish. I think there is only an obligation to put it in the stations in a particular area. If there was any question of publishing it, it would reach a wider public. What will be available in the different stations of C.I.E. will be of interest only to the people affected when the station has closed.

Mr. S. Lemass

Publication only arises where they have decided to close down and are not providing a substitute service.

Mr. O'Quigley

Only a limited number of people will get the precise data. I am anxious that the widest information that can be easily assimilated by the public will be made available, long before any such action is taken.

Mr. S. Lemass

I know they have done that in instances in the past. They have published by advertisement in the newspapers information regarding particular branch lines, bringing to the notice of the public that, unless the traffic can be improved the board will have to consider closing down the line. Of course, they have agents actively seeking traffic and using that information in the course of their activities.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Murphy

I move amendment No. 5:—

Before sub-section (3) to insert a new sub-section as follows:—

( ) The board shall not terminate a service unless it is satisfied that such termination would not be inconsistent with the duties imposed on the board by sub-section (1) of Section 7 of this Act.

This amendment becomes even more necessary because of the defeat of amendment No. 2. The purpose of this amendment is to correct what I regard as a certain amount of conflict between Section 19 and Section 7. In Section 19, we give the board the power to withdraw rail services. We say it may do so, provided it is satisfied that the operation of the service is uneconomic and that there is no prospect of its continued operation being economic within a reasonable period. Those railway lines are part of C.I.E., part of the whole organisation, and in regard to the whole organisation, we have already told the board, by reason of sub-section (1) of Section 7, that it shall be the general duty of the board to provide reasonable, efficient and economic transport services, with due regard to safety of operation, the encouragement of national economic development and the maintenance of reasonable conditions of employment for its employees. There is not just one yardstick in the general direction we are giving to the board——

Mr. S. Lemass

There is another sub-section to the section.

Mr. Murphy

There is another sub-section. It seems to me that the board could terminate a train service by reason of the power and directions we are giving them in Section 19 and could, at the same time, be in conflict with the overall duties we are giving them in Section 7, of providing reasonably efficient and economic transport services.

I think the Minister will agree that the insertion of this sub-section will not create any difficulties for C.I.E. or for him. When we are telling C.I.E. what to do about rail services, we should make it clear they should carry out their duty in that respect with due regard to the general duty we are laying on them in the earlier section of the Bill. I hope the Minister will agree that the amendment could usefully be inserted in this section.

Mr. S. Lemass

It is clearly superfluous. There is not much point in putting in a section here referring back to Section 7 and telling the board to have regard to their obligations under that section. Section 7 has two other sub-sections. Senator Murphy has consistently refused to refer to the others.

Mr. Murphy

If you press me to, I shall read it.

Mr. S. Lemass

This Bill gives these directions to the board, that it will provide a reasonable transport service, that it will avoid losing money on the provision of that service after 1964. It gives what we think are reasonable powers to achieve both objectives, but we say in the case of rail services that, notwithstanding these general directions, the board must not close a rail service, unless they are satisfied there is no hope that it will ever become economic. The main purpose of the Bill is to create a situation in which C.I.E. services will not be losing money and requiring subventions from the taxpayers after 1964. Within that direction, it has the obligation of providing reasonable and efficient services and maintaining rail operations, where it is practicable to do so. There is not much point in inserting an amendment referring back to an earlier section, asking the board to have regard to its obligations under that section.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Section 19 agreed to.

Section 20 agreed to.

SECTION 21.

Question proposed: "That Section 21 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. S. Lemass

This section is not required to enable C.I.E. to abandon a line. The need arose really out of the circumstances of the Sligo-Leitrim line where the company was completely terminated and there was no question of providing an alternative road service by that company. The law made no provision for the abandoning of a line in that case. This section is required to do it.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 22 agreed to.

SECTION 23.

Question proposed: That Section 23 stand part of the Bill.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

This section gives the board power to close any canal, or part of a canal, belonging to it which has not been used for public navigation for three years or more. I feel we should not let this section go through without some further comment on the situation that would become possible by the passing of the Bill containing this section.

I do not think that we should allow the Bill to go through without saying again that some of us here—and I think quite a number of members of the public—feel dissatisfied at the way in which navigation by canal has been dealt with by C.I.E. If, for three years or more, navigation by canal has been actively discouraged or, at any rate, not actively encouraged by C.I.E., it might well be that the canal has not been used as it would have been used in other circumstances, and that we might lose the network of canals which could be a vitally necessary element in our transport system under emergency conditions, or, indeed, if properly used, under ordinary normal conditions.

Under this Bill, the canal system must be maintained in a navigable condition by C.I.E., but there is no obligation on C.I.E. to continue operating barges, and it is possible that private owners of barges might be systematically discouraged from continuing to use them on the canals by a system of heavy tolls and lack of active encouragement by C.I.E., which could lead to the discontinuance of the use of these canals, despite the fact that properly developed they could provide a very valuable alternative to the use of roads for heavy traffic.

In reply to Senator Baxter, the Minister referred to the "mileage" of roads in this country and in Britain, and said that our roads were much safer because we had, if I understood him, a far smaller amount of traffic for our mileage than there is in Britain or on the Continent. Mileage deals with the length of roads. It does not deal with the breadth of roads. Our "mileage" of roads is quite good as far as length goes. Our "mileage" as far as the width of the roads goes is very bad. If you get gigantic lorries on our roads, they fill the whole road space. Even some of the smaller lorries do that. A turf lorry can be a public menace on a small road, whereas on a big continental road it would fill only portion of the width of the road. It is for such traffic, big heavy stuff, cement, turf and so on, that the canals could be used, and I would maintain usefully developed.

It is obvious that C.I.E. intend to concentrate upon road and rail, and might well allow our canals to lapse altogether. Despite what the Minister said, most of us here recognise that our roads, though they are not congested to the same extent as roads in overpopulated countries, are getting towards that position. They are congested by reason of the traffic they are asked to bear and by reason of their narrowness which has nothing to do with "mileage". We spend a lot of money, over £10,000,000, keeping them up. A little of that money might well be spent, or a proportion of it, on making the canals navigable and useful in a modern sense. I would suggest that a body set up to do that, or even the Board of Works, if the canals were to be handed over to them, might usefully study continental and British practice, and bring canals into modern condition whereby they could be used mainly for commercial purposes, but also for purposes of tourism.

We have all received a circular from the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland where the phrase is used, "Every ton on the water is off the roads". That applies to merchandise and the particular kinds of merchandise which are common here, such as turf and so on.

I do not think that C.I.E. wants the canals; I do not think they have any desire to keep them. All I would say at this juncture is that I would urge the Minister to consider recommending to C.I.E., in connection with Section 23, which gives them power to close the canals, the alternative possibility of getting rid of the canals to some such body as the Board of Works, which, I understand, is in many cases responsible for drainage and maintenance of canals, or, if necessary, to a separate public company to be set up under a separate Bill. I would enjoin the Minister, in other words, to urge the necessity upon C.I.E. of not letting this means of navigation fall so much into disrepair as to disappear from use.

Mr. Lenihan

I would go some of the way with Senator Sheehy Skeffington in what he has said, but, in order to bring some reality into any discussion on canals and inland waterways, it would be as well to ascertain exactly what our canals are. First of all, there is the Royal Canal. That can be wiped out as a commercial proposition or as any sort of proposition in regard to its maintenance altogether. The Royal Canal, as anyone who has read the report of the Internal Transport Tribunal knows, has not been used for years by C.I.E. or anybody else. Its locks have fallen into disrepair and at the moment C.I.E. are spending £11,000 a year in maintaining the locks and that canal generally. The argument is coercive that that canal should be abandoned.

Apart from the Royal Canal, there is the Shannon Navigation, which operates also through a system of locks in some places and which is run by the Board of Works as the agent of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Then there is the Grand Canal and its offshoot, the Barrow Navigation. There is a very strong argument for bringing the Grand Canal system into the Shannon Navigation system under the control of the Board of Works.

I am not advocating that there should be any commercial use by any State organisation of the canals. The argument that the Grand Canal Company was operating any business even before 1950 cannot be sustained. They were on the way down and C.I.E. took them over as a concern on the way down. They have gone down further since C.I.E. took them over. In the year ended March, 1956, they lost £65,000. That is quite clear in regard to the operations of C.I.E. instead of the Grand Canal Company.

There is a strong argument for maintaining and continuing to maintain the Grand Canal which is the only water like between Dublin and the Shannon system. I can see the reason for abandoning the Royal Canal and even the reason for abandoning the Barrow Navigation. I would not advocate that C.I.E. or any national undertaking should operate the Grand Canal on a commercial basis, but there is a very strong argument for maintaining the locks system and maintaining the canal in navigable condition, which C.I.E. are not obliged to do under this section.

If the obligation to maintain the Grand Canal in a navigable condition is being taken from C.I.E. under Section 23, that obligation should be placed on some other body. The obvious body is the Board of Works which at the moment has an obligation to maintain the Shannon in a navigable condition.

There are plenty of arguments for maintaining the Grand Canal. First of all, it is a natural asset. It would be a shame to let go into disuse and disrepair an asset that cost millions of pounds to put there. It would cost very little to maintain that single artery year in and year out. About £20,000 probably would maintain it. One does not know what sort of industry could grow up around it in future, what sort of commercial use might be made of it in the future by some industry or, in some emergency, by industries. In addition, there is the tourist factor, the fact that it is an artery for house boats and pleasure boats, for people commissioning boats to move down the Grand Canal and go up and down the Shannon system. It is one of the most beautiful tourist attractions. The Shannon River has many fine scenic attributes. The plain fact of the matter is that increasing numbers of pleasure boats are hired by people who come here from abroad. They are being used at the present time in greater numbers than heretofore on that type of holiday. The Grand Canal is the artery through which they travel from Dublin and go north, and up and down the Shannon system.

There is the fact that the canal, if maintained as a running water system, could be valuable also from a fishing point of view, particularly from the point of view of developing coarse fishing. The canal is the ideal place in which to fish for coarse fish. The coarse fisherman does not find a big river suitable but the canal, where he can get right down to the bank is the ideal place for any type of fishing but particularly coarse fishing. If the abandonment of canals as a commercial proposition has to be accepted by reasonable people, I would urge the Minister to consider the importance of placing upon some other State body such as the Board of Works, as being most admirable to do it, the duty to maintain the Grand Canal as a natural asset which could be potentially useful from the economic point of view, which is at the moment a real tourist asset, and which for the expenditure of a very small amount of money could be maintained year in year out.

Professor Stanford

As I have already spoken on this topic on the Second Reading I do not propose to repeat now what I said then but I would like to be associated with both Senator Sheehy Skeffington and Senator Lenihan on this. I particularly welcome what Senator Lenihan said, a very practical and feasible suggestion. Many Senators and many people throughout the country would be very happy to reach some solution of that kind. The canals are a very valuable asset providing cheap and efficient transport in certain circumstances and at the same time are a valuable amenity for tourists, fishermen and others. It would be a national disaster if we abandoned this magnificent system of waterways. I agree that perhaps the Royal Canal must go but if the others went it would be a catastrophe. As Senator Lenihan has said, the future may give new life to these valuable arteries. I do urge the Minister to do what he can to maintain them in good working condition.

Mr. Burke

I, like Senator Stanford, spoke on this matter on the Second Reading, but on a slightly different facet of the topic. I said it was a pity that the canals had been taken over. The Minister replied to me rather forcefully that the canals were losing money, but I think it is a pity they were taken over because it would have been incumbent upon the Canal Company to find ways and means of making them pay, if they were not able to hand them over to State ownership. It seems to be the refuge of all people who are not able to make an undertaking pay to get the State to take it over. If C.I.E. had not taken over the canals, these people would be constrained to find ways and means to put their house in order. They should be allowed to operate in the same way as those in the fishing industry. The family groups should be sold the boats and allowed to operate them rather than have the State doing it. In Holland and many other countries, they have these undertakings as a family business and it is much more suitable to have slow moving transport of that sort so operated. We must keep the canals open because, if properly run, they can give us very cheap transport for moving heavy materials.

The people in England are becoming daily more conscious of the desirability of having holidays in Ireland and one kind of holiday that appeals to people more than anything else is a boating holiday. If you close the Grand Canal, anyone who wants to go on a boating holiday has to go overland to the Shannon and it makes it increasingly difficult; in fact, the benefits, principally of, say, a canoeing holiday are immediately and entirely removed. The Minister ought to consider ways and means of selling many of the very fine barges that are on the canal to private people, for instance, by advertisement, but the Board of Works ought to retain the canal and keep it in reasonable working order.

I do not know what can be done with the Royal Canal. I know there has been great difficulty in this connection, but maybe it could be sufficiently cleared so that canoes or touring boats could use it. That would be a much easier task than making it available for the use of large freight-carrying canal barges. I know the Minister is aware of the desirability of keeping our waterways open, but if he sells the boats to families, I believe they will operate them so as to give cheap and efficient transport.

Mr. S. Lemass

I should perhaps make it clear that so far as this Bill is concerned, it makes no change whatever in the existing position, except in consequence of the abolition of the Transport Tribunal. The position will be that C.I.E. will have exactly the same powers in regard to the withdrawal of canal services and the closing of canals as they had before, except that now they can take decisions on their own without the concurrence of the Transport Tribunal.

With regard to the maintenance of canals, I do not know what anxieties Senators may have in that regard. The Bill requires the C.I.E. Board to maintain any canal which is used by anybody and even the occasional passage of a boat paying tolls means that the right of navigation on it has to be preserved.

Professor Stanford

The tolls might be put so high that no one could pay them. There is the risk of penal tolls being put on so that in fact no boat could go through.

Mr. S. Lemass

What C.I.E. is concerned with is not the maintenance of the canal but with the operation of their service of barges on the canal. The Committee on Internal Transport Report said that if C.I.E. withdrew their service of barges, they would benefit to the extent of £108,000. A sum of £108,000 is not to be sneezed at and I do not see why we should require C.I.E. to forego that amount of money just because of some sentimental interest in the preservation of barge traffic on the canal. The fact is that nobody else is using the canal. There were at one time a number of private traders using their own barges and operating on the canal, but they have almost entirely disappeared. The traffic carried by traders' barges on the canal in 1956 was only 14 per cent. of what it was pre-war. I do not know if they have persisted since then.

I am quite certain C.I.E. would be delighted to hand over the canal to the Board of Works or anyone else, but the maintenance of the canal is not the important financial factor. The maintenance of the Grand Canal, including the Barrow Navigation, according to the report of the committee costs £27,000 a year. The main loss arises on the operation of the barge service. It is in that regard that C.I.E. are anxious to effect savings. There are considerations, I will admit, which may justify them in maintaining barge services. They are important for certain types of bulk traffic and C.I.E. will have to have full regard to all the possible consequences before deciding to withdraw their barge services, but there is nothing in this Bill that enables C.I.E. to close down a canal, if anybody wants to use it or if anybody does use it over a period of years.

Senator Burke said the canals should not have been handed over to C.I.E. I could not agree with him more. The taking over of the Canal Company by C.I.E. was recommended in the Milne Report for reasons which were entirely unconvincing but nevertheless acted upon by the then Government. I do not think, however, that we could convince the former shareholders of the Canal Company that it was a bad idea, for they got Government guaranteed 3 per cent. stock in return for shares on which no dividend was being paid. I do not think that we could persuade them to take back the canal.

Mr. Burke

Maybe not.

Mr. S. Lemass

Furthermore, if the Canal Company had not been taken from them, it would have disappeared long ago. I am not saying that the company would have disappeared. The company had an unrestricted right to operate road transport services, and, under different management, might have exploited those rights in a very profitable way. No doubt the only interest C.I.E. had in the company was to eliminate that possible competitor from the roads and take over the road services it had been operating. If the Canal Company had been left as private enterprise, the canals would have gone long ago, but the position that was created then cannot now be undone. C.I.E. have the canals and are under a statutory obligation to maintain them, so long as anybody wants to use them. There is a big question mark as to whether they will use them themselves.

Mr. Burke

Could families not operate barges?

Mr. S. Lemass

There are only two left.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

The Minister has mentioned one figure which the Beddy Report also gives, that the cost of maintenance of the Grand Canal concerned is £27,000 a year, which I take to be correct. He has omitted to mention that against that you can place £24,000 received for water rates, rents of canal property and so on, so that the real cost per year would not be more than £3,000.

Mr. S. Lemass

The maintenance of the canal is no problem for C.I.E.; it is the operation of the barges.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I see that point, but it seems to me that if the figure of £27,000 is given, there should be set off against it the £24,000 for water rates, rents and so on. I am glad to hear that the Minister favours, if possible, the handing over of the canals to some such body as the Board of Works. All of us here recognise that what we want is the maintenance of a kind of "right of way" across the country by water. The danger has been adverted to by Senator Stanford that C.I.E. might place penal tolls upon the canal system, and, by thereby discouraging their use, acquire the right to close this valuable right of way.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 24 and 25 agreed to.

SECTION 26.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I move amendment No. 6:—

In sub-section (1) (a), line 47, before "and" to insert "and bearing some clearly identifiable mark or sign that it is being so used,".

Sub-section (1) of this section says that the section applies to "(a) a vehicle being used by an authorised (merchandise carrying) company for the purposes of its business," and "(b) a vehicle being used for the distribution of Sunday newspapers under a merchandise licence restricted to that purpose." Sub-section (2), which is the operative part of this section, says "notwithstanding Section 34 of the Road Transport Act, 1933, a vehicle to which this section applies shall not be required to carry a vehicle plate and no plate shall be issued in respect of such vehicle."

The purpose of my amendment is to stipulate that a vehicle under paragraph (a), now being dispensed with the duty and obligation of carrying a vehicle place when it is being used by an authorised merchandise carrying company, shall, nevertheless, have the obligation to bear some clearly identifiable mark or sign that it is being so used. The point of the amendment is that if such a company as, for instance, C.I.E. has in certain circumstances and in certain areas to hire private lorries to do its business, it ought to be clearly visible to the public and to the Garda whose duty it is to see that certain provisions of this and other Transport Acts are not being transgressed. It ought to be made easy for them to be able to identify the circumstances in which such a lorry is playing. If a private lorry is hired by C.I.E., it should be possible to put the C.I.E. sign or symbol upon it, in order to make it clear to the public and the police authorities in what circumstances it is plying.

The obligations under Sections 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34 of the Road Transport Act are pretty stringent about vehicle plates for mechanically propelled vehicles, and the fine, even if the plate is being carried but is "illegible", is £10 for the first offence. These plates have to be of metal and "affixed in the prescribed manner". It is fair for this Bill to dispense with that duty in relation to a lorry hired by a company, but it would also be wise to place upon it the not very heavy obligation of, in the words of my amendment, "bearing some clearly identifiable mark or sign that it is being so used."

Mr. S. Lemass

That is the practice. By arrangement between C.I.E. and the Garda Síochána, there is issued to the owner of every lorry hired by C.I.E. for these seasonal traffics a paper disc which is affixed to the windscreen of the lorry indicating that it has been hired by C.I.E. for work over a specified period and between specified operating points. The Garda consider that that arrangement is quite satisfactory, and, indeed, they have more or less administratively got away from this obligation to carry a metal plate.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Since they have "more or less administratively" done that, is it not a recognition of the fact that they have no statutory obligation to carry any such paper disc?

Mr. S. Lemass

They have stated that it is the obligation to carry a metal plate that has led to this evasion of the Road Transport Acts. Lorries hired and plated by C.I.E., when they were plated, sometimes used that plate for all sorts of traffic, and of course the Garda in the ordinary course, nothing that the lorries bore the road transport plate, rarely questioned whether they were working for C.I.E. or the owner at the time. That is why the Garda think that the statutory obligation to carry a plate should be removed and that instead of a plate this type of disc on the windscreen should be carried. That is the practice.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

The Minister is telling us that the purpose of my amendment is being achieved already, but not under statute. Therefore, while the obligation to carry a metal plate will be abolished by this section, if we leave it unamended, but the obligation to carry any identifiable mark or sign would not be a statutory obligation, unless my amendment is passed. It seems, therefore, that my amendment, in effect, is giving authority for what the Minister says is now the practice.

Mr. S. Lemass

The administrative practice is for the purpose of getting away from a situation in which a lorry hired by C.I.E. will have a road transport plate, because it is this identifying mark which has led to the owners of such a lorry, when not working for C.I.E., to do other haulage business for hire, knowing that they were unlikely to be checked by the Garda. It is better that this arrangement for the paper disc to be substituted for the plate should not be a statutory one, because if then it is not found to be the best plan, it can be changed. Of course, the lorries owned by C.I.E. are clearly marked.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is the Senator pressing the amendment?

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I would be inclined to press this amendment to add recognition officially to the situation which the Minister tells us exists in practice. I do not know whether the House will agree.

Mr. S. Lemass

We do not need to make it a statutory obligation. The only people who have an interest in enforcing it are the Garda Síochána and they can be relied upon to enforce it thoroughly. I think the arrangement being operated between the Garda and C.I.E. is quite satisfactory.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator must make up his mind.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Might I ask the Minister if the Garda are completely satisfied with the present arrangements?

Mr. S. Lemass

Completely satisfied with the arrangement that will continue after this Bill is passed. The wisdom of this course was questioned in the Dáil, and after that we went back to the Garda, and they are quite satisfied that their enforcement powers to eliminate illegal haulage will be greatly enhanced.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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

Dr. O'Donovan

I move amendment No. 7:—

In sub-section (1) (b), line 49, before "under" to insert "printed and published in the State".

Senator O'Quigley asked me to move this amendment for him. Its purpose is plain. It is to ensure that we will not go out of our way to give a facility to papers published outside the State. The Bill, as it is, gives a relaxation for this purpose. While we all know that there are two Sunday papers, at any rate, published in Britain which everybody has been glad to see have increased their circulation in this country in recent years, the Sunday Times and the Observer, there are a big number of papers published in Britain which do not add anything very much to our knowledge of the world, because they go in for a certain type of article, and certainly the matter they print about Ireland is frequently extremely inaccurate. Therefore, I would suggest that the section be amended by inserting the words “printed and published in the State” before the word “under” in sub-section (1) (b) at line 49. I do not think it is necessary to say anything more about the amendment.

Mr. S. Lemass

If the purpose of the amendment is to impose some impediment on the distribution of Sunday newspapers, I should like to point out it achieves the very reverse effect. The argument is that vehicles plated for the carriage of newspapers are not infrequently availing of the plate to engage in some illegal haulage as well. The suggestion here is that we give that opportunity of possessing plates only to vehicles carrying British Sunday newspapers. If we move at all, I think we should move in the other way. However, in practice, it makes no difference. Only Irish Sunday newspapers are in fact carried by these licensed vehicles. The English Sunday newspapers are all distributed, so far as I know, in vans owned by the newspapers' companies and, therefore, require no licences.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Section 26 agreed to.

SECTION 27.

Mr. Cole

I move amendment No. 8:—

In sub-section (1), line 13, before "and" to insert "or to a railway for conveyance thereon and from a railway after having been conveyed thereon".

I feel that the Minister, after his remarks on the Second Stage of the Bill, would feel that he had to make some retraction if he accepted this amendment but I hope he will accept it. As well as being of assistance to the farmer, it should be and would be of assistance to the railway in that it will feed the railway to a certain extent. It is an amendment that would strike me as being of assistance both to the farmer and the railway before anything which is already in Section 27 allowing vehicles to bring cattle to and from a railway station.

To deal with one point which I think was not touched on in the Dáil, that is, the size of tractor trailers—so far as I can see, it was assumed in the Dáil debate by a great many Deputies that a tractor trailer used under this section would bring more-or-less the whole wagon of cattle that a railway wagon would bring. I have seen a great many tractor trailers, and I do not think any farmer would have a tractor trailer capable of taking a wagon of cattle, that is, anything from ten to 12 or more beasts, for the simple reason that such a tractor trailer would be of no use to him. For ordinary purposes, it would be too heavy, take far too great a load to be useful on the land. Therefore, his tractor is generally a small vehicle which will take very few cattle. Probably the usual farm trailer would take about half a wagon load of cattle, five or six cows.

For that reason, this amendment would be of great assistance to the farmers, because those small numbers of animals are far more difficult and more expensive to transport either to the fair or to the market. The trouble is usually with one or two cattle. If the farmer wants to get them somewhere without bringing them along the road or on a long journey, or for some other reason, he has great difficulty in doing it. Being a small lot and not very profitable, C.I.E. do not want to do the job and even ordinary licensed carriers do not want to waste time on such a job. Possibly they would not make their expenses.

A man living four miles from a railway station may find the nearest C.I.E. lorry depot 12 miles away and if he wants to bring say, three cattle to an exhibition and wants to get them to the railway station, he has to meet the expense of the lorry coming 12 miles to his place and then taking the cattle only three or four miles to the railway station. In cases like that, the tractor trailer would be of great assistance and I do not think it would involve any loss to C.I.E. I would urge this amendment particularly on the ground of the T.B. eradication scheme because that will involve serious trouble for farmers who want to transport cattle. I take it the railway company will be one of the first movers to provide what I might call—for want of a better word—attested transport and facilities for moving cattle from attested farms direct to an attested boat, probably better facilities than a lorry or anything else. They will probably be able to arrange to bring their wagon to an attested boat.

The farmer sending cattle away cannot bring them on the road and if he has only a few animals to transport it would be a great help if he could bring them by tractor trailer or get a neighbour to do it. From that point of view particularly, I would ask the Minister to consider this amendment seriously. I do not think it can do any harm to public transport or the railways or even to the licence-holders who do not want this traffic. I think it would be a great addition to this section.

Mr. Murphy

I would support Senator Cole on this amendment. The section as a whole is unpalatable to me, but it is more unpalatable without the amendment than with it. No matter what the Minister says, I think the introduction of the section will damage public transport, but at least if the farmer-carrier, or whatever he will be, is allowed to carry for reward to or from a railway station, there is at least the possibility that while he is doing that, he will not be taking traffic which would otherwise go to public transport. He will leave this traffic at the station for conveyance by rail.

I think there is a lot of merit in what Senator Cole said about the probability that in the near future with the spread of T.B. eradication, more and more cattle will have to be transported rather than walked along the public road. I should imagine when such cattle are to be moved that if the farmer cannot get a local tractor-owner to carry the cattle to the station, he will get it done by lorry, legally or illegally, and the traffic will not go to the railway and will hardly go to public transport.

For that reason, I urge the Minister to accept the amendment. I imagine a concession like this will readily be accepted by the Dáil, if the Minister agrees to its insertion.

Mr. S. Lemass

If I accepted this amendment, I think nobody in the Dáil would be more shocked than the Senator's colleagues who strongly resisted the incorporation of the section in the Bill and urged me to resist any effort here further to extend its scope.

May I point out that the situation is not quite as clear as is suggested here? The main difficulty about giving this concession at all is the danger that it will lead to an extension of illegal haulage. There is some possibility of checking on that, if the concession is limited to the carriage of live stock for a neighbour to the local fair or mart, but if it is to be extended to cover transportation to a railway station, then, of course, its scope of operation would be so considerably extended that enforcement would become increasingly difficult.

I met the National Farmers' Association in this matter. I introduced into this Bill an amendment which met in full everything they asked for. Why should we go further than they asked? They did not ask for this extension of the concession. They set out a reasonable case for the granting of certain facilities and I gave them those facilities in full and I do not think I should go further than they themselves thought necessary.

With regard to the adequacy of facilities, it will be clear that if in any district there are insufficient transport facilities, if anybody can show that his transport needs are not being met, I can give a licence to somebody to provide those facilities. Let it be clear that the person getting that licence will pay the full road tax and petrol tax.

This concession gives farmers the right to carry for reward for a neighbour, within certain limitations, at a very low rate of tax both on the vehicle and on the fuel. To enable them to extend their operations further than is permitted here would be to introduce not merely more competition with C.I.E. and more competition with licensed hauliers, which would be quite unfair competition, and I could not possibly on that account agree to the amendment.

Mr. Burke

I cannot understand the Minister. The Minister received a deputation from the National Farmers' Association. This House would have no usefulness at all if it were to accept that as an explanation.

Mr. S. Lemass

It is an explanation of the fact that the representatives of the farmers did not think that a further extension of the concession was necessary from their point of view.

Mr. Burke

And the representatives of the people in the Dáil often do not think of something that is thought of here. If we never think of anything except what someone else has thought of before us, we do not need to be here at all and we may as well be abolished immediately. We are here for the purpose of thinking of something that somebody else did not think of. That is the reason we are here. That is our raison d'être. I want that on the records of the House. I disagree strongly with the Minister. He has made no case for turning down this amendment.

Professor Stanford

I agree with Senator Burke entirely in his main argument, that we are here to make new suggestions, not bound by any outside bodies as to what we should say or should not say, but I think the Minister has made a case against the amendment.

Mr. Burke

Maybe so.

Professor Stanford

There are fairs and marts only in certain towns, but there are railway stations all over the country and, in whatever direction the lorry will be going, it could always be claimed that it was going towards a railway station. I do agree with the Minister.

Mr. Burke

That is not the argument the Minister made to me.

Mr. Lenihan

I think the Minister has gone far enough in extending the provision in regard to auction marts to fairs and markets. The amendment introduced on Report Stage in Dáil Eireann extends the section sufficiently and people should be satisfied with that. There is only one matter that I should like the Minister to bear in mind, that is, in regard to sub-section (2).

An Cathaoirleach

Perhaps the Senator would confine himself to the amendment for the moment. We can discuss the section later.

Mr. O'Callaghan

I should like the Minister to accept the amendment. I know he will not. It would be a help to the railway to extend the principle. If cattle are put on a tractor and trailer and taken to the railway, that will help the railway. If cattle are sent by lorry, they will be taken longer distances by road and the trade will not come to the railway. It would not be any harm at all for the Minister to accept the amendment and to go even a little further than the amendment asks.

Mr. O'Reilly

The Minister suggested that, because the National Farmers' Association has taken a particular view on this matter, that should be the end of it. Without casting any reflection on the good work done by the National Farmers' Association, I am prepared to suggest that they do not speak for all farming interests. Neither do they speak for all farmers. They do, of course, speak for a particular vested interest. There are so many conflicting interests in agriculture that it would be very difficult for any particular organisation to speak on behalf of all the farmers. There are dairy farmers, grain growers, and so on and there can be a conflict of interest. In that regard, the Minister should not be bound by a particular view expressed by the National Farmers' Association.

In regard to the amendment, the Minister should have another look at it. I suggest that Senator Cole withdraw the amendment and that the Minister have another look at this matter. It appears to me that the amendment is intended to bring traffic to the railways because it clearly refers to the conveyance of animals to and from a railhead for transportation on a railway. We should all like to see railways getting more business. Knowing the ramifications of private transport and illegal transport, my view is that the amendment would tend to prevent illegal transport. In practice, pedigree cattle being brought to shows in Dublin have on occasion been brought illegally in one way or another. We should face up to that fact. The Minister should have another look at this matter.

Mr. S. Lemass

If I have another look at it, I will take the section out altogether. I said to the National Farmers' Association: "If I bring in an amendment, I will be pressed at every stage to extend it until we have undermined the whole transport policy." That was the only argument I had against it. From the moment I introduced the amendment, I have been urged to extend it this bit, and that bit and the other bit. Let us see what the objection is. It was made clear to me—and I believe it to be true —that no farmer would engage in this business if it meant the risk that he would have to pay full tax on his tractor, that he would be interested only so long as he has the benefit of the £8 tax. He has that concession under the law only so long as the tractor is only occasionally on the road. If the tractor is on the road more than occasionally it becomes not under this Bill but under the Finance Acts, liable to full tax. Rather than take the risk of that, the farmers interested in getting this concession were anxious to see it limited in a way which would ensure that the risk of being charged full tax would not arise.

Mr. Cole

The Minister seems worried about the effect of this section. I do not think it will mean a great deal of extra haulage. It certainly will not in my part of the country. I know it does happen on a few occasions that a farmer brings his neighbour's cow or calves that are difficult to drive. That is the kind of thing it will affect. Normally, in my part of the country, fairs are not so distant that farmers will use the section as it is at present very much. I am quite certain about that. It is not so great a concession as the Minister thinks.

Mr. S. Lemass

It opens the way to evasion of the restrictions of the Transport Act to a much wider extent than anything that has operated heretofore.

Mr. Cole

Very little, I think. A tractor-trailer will take only a very limited number of cattle. Three or four cows would fill the normal tractor-trailer used in Cavan. I have only once seen a tractor-trailer that would take a wagon load of cattle and that was in Northern Ireland. This concession is not a great concession to the ordinary farmer, unless he is bringing one cow or calves that are difficult to drive.

Mr. S. Lemass

That is taking them to a fair or market. The amendment refers to a railway station.

Mr. Cole

The fact that he could bring a cow to a railway station——

Mr. S. Lemass

Wagon loads.

Mr. Cole

He cannot take a wagon load, unless he goes three times.

Mr. S. Lemass

That is business that is legitimate business for the transport operators and we must not allow a new type of operator to be developed or we can tear up the transport legislation altogether.

Mr. Cole

There is one very important matter. Where calves are being brought to the Spring Show—bull calves—it usually happens that one man takes a wagon. He may have only one calf. Another man may have two and another man three. They all collect for the one wagon and take the wagon between them. They would like to bring these calves in tractors. It will be necessary to bring them in some vehicle when the tuberculosis eradication scheme is in full operation because they will not be allowed to walk them on the roads.

Mr. S. Lemass

I have no objection to a man carrying cattle for his neighbour, so long as he does not charge. We have in mind people who will charge money. He can take his neighbour's cattle, so long as he does not charge.

Mr. Cole

It is hard for us to say whether he will charge or not. As regards the railway station part of it, the railway stations are mostly, and perhaps will be more so in the future, in towns. They will be in larger areas where Guards will be on the spot. It will be far more easy to supervise this part of it.

Mr. S. Lemass

The wider you make this, the more likely it is that a new type of transport operator will arise.

Mr. O'Reilly

I thought at first that Senator Cole's amendment was intended to cover only the transport of pedigree cattle. Having had another look at the amendment, I can see it does not specify pedigree cattle. Perhaps if Senator Cole would withdraw his amendment and if pedigree cattle could be specified——

Mr. S. Lemass

I should hate to give the Guards the job of checking that.

Mr. O'Reilly

The transport would be limited to pedigree cattle.

Mr. S. Lemass

The driver would have to have the certificate with him.

Mr. Laurence Walsh

We have been more than generous in permitting the carrying of cattle on farmers' tractors. We all know there is a considerable number of plates in districts through which men are making their living. I have heard dissatisfaction expressed by those people with the Minister's generosity and their views should be taken into consideration in this matter.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed: "That Section 27 stand part of the Bill."

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

A great deal has already been said on this section arising out of the amendment. I asked the Minister for some explanation on the Second Stage as to how he defined these various things, for instance, "agricultural tractor," whether in fact that might not be interpreted by the Guards to mean an articulated vehicle, and if not, why not? We have no definition here of an agricultural tractor. Perhaps there is a definition in some corresponding Act, but my criticism of the section as a whole is that it is another example of the making of piecemeal concessions in relation to transport, which seems to me to be bad.

We ought to be able by this time to plan our transport and the carrying of freight on a clearer and simpler basis. This is a concession to farmers allowing them to carry a neighbour's cattle for reward. Fair enough; I personally do not see why they should not do it, if they can compete equally, but they are not in fact competing equally and I shall come to that point in a moment. The Minister feels it necessary, for reasons he has mentioned, to hedge them around with all kinds of restrictions. Apart from the fact that the restrictions are annoying in themselves they will be hard to supervise and to apply. For instance, the farmer who is carrying his neighbour's cattle for reward, must not carry the cattle of that neighbour unless the neighbour in question is resident two miles or less from his farm. "Residence" means his house, I suppose. Does that mean the distance from his house to the outskirts of his neighbour's farm, or from house to house? How will the court interpret that two-mile limit? I should like to hear the Minister giving an answer to that. I asked that question on the Second Stage, but the Minister did not find time to advert to the point.

This will be then a very difficult section to interpret and apply. It may be that it is framed with the attitude of mind which says that this is a regulation which will be broken all round the place and that we cannot help that. If so, it is a very bad section. We have had too much of that type of legislation, and the Minister already has referred to the fact that the metal plate restrictions under the Road Transport Act, 1933, are widely disregarded. This is a section the restrictions of which will be widely disregarded, because they will be very hard to observe.

The second point is that in carrying this cattle the farmer can only bring it to or from a live-stock auction, mart or place where a market or fair is held "on the day" on which such auction, market or fair takes place. Therefore, he cannot bring the cattle overnight. It is up to the authorities, presumably the Guards, to check that this cattle is being moved from a farm with in two miles of the owner of the tractor, and that it is being moved "on the day" on which an auction is taking place. Then there is a provision that no one carrying such cattle can make a detour on a public road which goes just a shade outside 20 miles away from the owner's house. I suppose there would have to be a posse of Civic Guards on motor bicycles going after every such tractor and trailer to see if the driver makes any detour carrying him in either direction more than 20 miles from the carrier's residence. I should like to quote that:

"provided ... they are not being carried in either direction on any part of a public road which is more than 20 miles by public road from the carrier's residence."

If a Guard has to check that, he will be given a completely impossible task. Therefore, I think the section as it stands is a bad one.

I mentioned already that a way in which C.I.E. or private hauliers might compete with the farmers in order to have the thing done in the cheapest possible way would be to have a kind of "free-for-all." Of course the farmers, as the Minister himself mentioned, have got two very important advantages as hauliers, namely, in relation to road tax and the price they pay for fuel. I endeavoured to have that corrected by the amendment which was ruled out of order. I do not intend to refer to my amendment, because it was ruled out of order on the grounds that to pass it would be the equivalent of increasing taxation in that it would force such farmers carrying for reward to pay the full tax for their diesel oil or petrol. For agricultural tractors they are allowed in fact a rebate of 1/1¾ on 2/9½ per gallon duty on petrol, and if I am correctly informed what they pay in duty on diesel oil is one penny instead of 2/2 which the ordinary mortal has to pay. Therefore the farmer is at a considerable advantage over both C.I.E. and the private haulier. Consequently this whole section is ill-conceived and in the light of the Minister's statement, that if he looks at the section again he will remove the whole thing, I would strongly urge him to look at it again.

Mr. Lenihan

I think that Senator Sheehy Skeffington's criticisms with regard to the future administration of this section are unfounded. We can leave it to the common sense and discretion of the Garda to administer the section and bring charges under it in a common-sense fashion. I do not think there is anything in this quibble about the two mile limit, because we have had the three mile limit operating for years under the licensing law and the Garda Síochána enforced it in a common-sense way. They could do the same thing in regard to the two mile limit.

Professor Stanford

It changed bona fide to mean bad faith.

Mr. Lenihan

The Seanad should record its appreciation to the Minister for extending this section to the fairs and markets outside the live-stock auction marts. The proposal to restrict it to the auction mart would not have had any great practical effect, because the auction marts are limited entirely to cattle and are suited rather to large scale transportation which can be done by licensed haulier or by C.I.E. The powers under this section will be used primarily by small farmers bringing smaller stock than cattle in small numbers by tractor and trailer. I envisage pigs, sheep, lambs and calves going to small fairs and markets being brought in under the section. I welcome the extension to fairs and markets as well as to the auction marts, which so far, at any rate, in this country are restricted to cattle. As already mentioned, you cannot bring more than three, four or five cattle on a tractor and trailer.

The Minister is empowered under sub-section (2) to specify markets and fairs for the purpose of this section. I should like him to bear in mind, when making an Order, that the greatest use of the section will be in regard to the transportation of pigs, sheep and calves, and that they will be to the very small fairs and markets which he might not envisage when making the Order. It would be a mistake to confine himself to the larger and more obvious markets.

Mr. Carter

I do not see the point of this argument. If as Senator Sheehy Skeffington says, this section is ill-conceived, certainly his arguments against it are most confusing and I for one do not gather their point. Under the terms of this Bill, we are writing £16,000,000 off the books and at the same time giving a Grant-in-Aid of £1,000,000 a year for the next five years, as well as other concessions regarding interest. We must either be serious about this or flippant, and I think this is no time for flippancy in connection with the matter. We are imposing certain obligations on C.I.E. and at the same time relieving them of obligations. If at this stage we are to allow all sorts of illegal operators to engage in illegal haulage, we are only going to put C.I.E. out of business altogether.

The object of all transport policy has been to get C.I.E. into a position where revenue will balance expenditure. I would like people who raise arguments against sections designed to do this to give at least valid reasons and ground in support of their arguments, and to point out alternative ways and means of curing the ills that C.I.E. is affected by at the moment.

There is one point I should like to mention which is not a very easy problem, and I have no solution to offer to it: that is, the matter of lorries operating from Six-Counties bases in the illegal haulage of live stock here. They take the opportunity of coming in here, under a concession or agreement made between the areas, and engage in illegal haulage. It will be very hard to prevent them. They are using heavy lorries and trailers attached to each lorry. In that way, they are taking away a good deal of revenue from C.I.E. As far as I know, C.I.E. provides reasonable service in the Midlands for both auction marts——

An Cathaoirleach

This section has to do with the carriage of live stock for neighbouring farmers.

Mr. Carter

Yes, and I was submitting that if we are going to extend that, then we will injure instead of helping the company. In doing so, I was merely mentioning the fact that C.I.E., so far as I know, provide a reasonably clean transport service for the movement of live stock to and from auction marts in the Midlands at highly competitive prices, and if we interfere further in this matter, we are going to injure them instead of helping them.

Professor Quinlan

Before leaving this section, we should congratulate the Minister on the way in which he met the National Farmers' Association and also on his frankness in stating that this is a concession to meet the case put up by this body. If we have more of this approach to our organisations, it will be all for the better in the future. The Minister need not apologise to anybody for mentioning the National Farmers' Association. We may have many agricultural bodies, but surely there are minimum requirements so that a body may be recognised as an agricultural body—minimum staff requirements, office and so on. I do not wish to infringe on the section, but Senator O'Reilly raised the point about the different organisations. I suggest that it is time for the organisations to be given their proper use, as the Minister has done, and also that we should adjust our scales and recognise those organisations that are geared to modern tasks and deny the name of organisation to others that are nothing but names.

Mr. S. Lemass

There is another organisation that made representations to me, namely the Licensed Road Hauliers' Association, and they were rather vehement in their views about the amendment, so I could not meet both sides. It was with very considerable hesitation that I brought in this section in the Bill, because I was very apprehensive of the danger of farmers' sons setting themselves up in transport business because of this provision. I tried to frame the amendment in a way which would minimise that danger, but if in the end it does emerge that what I have described as a new type of transport operator comes into the picture, we will have to have another look at it and see what changes may be required. As it stands, I do not think the difficulty of enforcement will be considerable. The haulage must be to a fair or market. The Garda authorities will normally be able to know who is operating within the limit of any concession allowed here and who is going outside it.

The statement made in the Dáil and elsewhere was that farmers were reluctant to oblige their neighbours, even to the extent of carrying goods without reward, that they felt that when the Garda stopped them he would never believe them when they said they were doing it free and that, rather than risk the danger of prosecution for illegal haulage, they refused to oblige their neighbours. It was contended that this facility, apart from any monetary consideration that might pass, would open up the possibility of one farmer facilitating another.

The aim is to permit a farmer to oblige his neighbour. It will be appreciated that, apart from any penalty that may arise, if a tractor owner goes further than that, if his tractor is more than occasionally on the road, if he is doing something which is quite obviously not an agricultural operation as defined in the Finance Act, he becomes liable to pay the full tax and to lose his concession in respect of the duty on petrol, diesel oil or tractor vaporising oil, whichever he is using. It seems to me that, with that very considerable risk overhanging them, very few tractor owners will take the risk of doing more than they are permitted to do under the section. The impact of the full rate of road vehicle duty, plus the full rate of petrol duty, would be such as to make it impossible to use a tractor for ordinary agricultural purposes.

Mr. Burke

Would the Minister tell us what is an agricultural operation under the Finance Act?

Mr. S. Lemass

That is a matter determined by the courts.

Mr. Burke

Agricultural produce in general or live stock?

Mr. S. Lemass

When it is used primarily for agricultural purposes and only occasionally on the main roads.

Mr. Murphy

As I said earlier to-day, the Minister is very convincing. I see he has practically convinced himself now that the section is not as dangerous as he thought when introducing it. In spite of that, however, I am still opposed to the section. I think it was an afterthought, and definitely the Minister had to be persuaded to put in this section. I think it will be damaging in the long run. I, and the people associated with me, are not against farmers carrying their neighbours' live stock. What we are against is the probability of a new type of transport trickster being set up throughout the country. We feel that allowing farmers, or people who might now call themselves farmers, to set themselves up as transport operators is bound to damage the fabric of public transport, to the detriment, eventually, of the farmers as well as the rest of the community.

The Minister knows we have an example of that sort of situation in Northern Ireland. The farmers there were allowed to carry for reward for their neighbours. What happened, of course, is that they set up in business. They were supposed to be farmers, but they were only farmers for the purpose of getting this concession. As bad as the transport position is here, it is utterly chaotic in Northern Ireland. That is one of the main reasons for that situation, that you have a multitude of transport hucksters in Northern Ireland. They are now invading the Republic with their vehicles. These vehicles are not what you might expect. They are not little lorries owned by farmers or farmers' sons, but big diesel lorries with trailers. That is the reason we oppose the section, why we think it is dangerous and why we think it will be bad for public transport and for the community in the long run.

The Minister knows that the trade unions interested in public transport are opposed to this section. He knows that when the Beddy Committee recommended some concessions like this to farmers, the Provisional United Trade Union. Organisation made known their opposition. They were very surprised to find that the Minister, after the Bill had been printed and had got a Second Reading, put in this new section. He did not mention it in his policy statement in November, and it was natural to suppose he would reject that recommendation of the Beddy Committee. We feel he was wrong in giving way to the very considerable pressure put upon him. However, it is in this section now, and I know I cannot persuade the Minister to take it out. However, I was hoping that the people looking for a further extension might convince the Minister of the evil of the section, and that he would lose his patience and take it out, but, apparently, that is not going to happen now.

However, I would urge another thing on the Minister. He is introducing this. I think he is not terribly happy about the whole thing. People experienced in public transport know that it will give rise to more illegal haulage. To meet the position in some way, I would ask him to see to it that steps are taken to detect and prosecute for illegal haulage. I am satisfied, and people who have experience of the position throughout the country tell me they are satisfied, that the Garda cannot— I will just say "cannot"—detect and prosecute for illegal haulage. There is an obvious need for some special body of people to deal with this matter.

The Minister is opening the door to further ilegal haulage. He knows it is already damaging public transport here and that many of the Northern Ireland lorries coming in engage in illegal transport. He is attempting to correct that situation by another section. But it all depends on whether or not a serious effort will be made to detect and prosecute for illegal haulage. I have instances throughout the country where C.I.E. employees, satisfied that illegal haulage had taken place, complained to the local Garda but they were unable to get a prosecution brought. I could give the Minister other instances, but I think his own inquiries will convince him that there is a need for some special effort in regard to illegal haulage. In the view of people who have experience of the situation, we should appoint a special body and take it out of the hands of the Garda altogether. We should employ officers to specialise in the detection of illegal haulage and prosecution. If the Minister does that, at least it will be some recompense for introducing this section. I hope he will see to it that steps are taken along these lines.

Mr. Baxter

It is rarely I have the opportunity of saying much complimentary about the Minister, but, as I have the chance, I will say it——

Mr. S. Lemass

That is right; do not lose it.

Mr. Baxter

——just as I will challenge him and, if needs be, contradict his declaration, if I feel I am justified in doing so. I would not have risen to speak on this section at all but for what has been said by Senator Murphy. If we have that type of mentality to cope with in this country, we will have to start some new method of cultivating the minds of our people. If we are to add to the number of criminal offences and make one of them the carriage of goods produced here for sale and for export, I do not know where we are heading.

Mr. Murphy

Carriage of goods for reward.

Mr. Baxter

In reply to Senator Murphy's interruption, it is very difficult to get anybody in any organisation to give service without reward. There are certain voluntary organisations in the community, I agree, but one is troubled about the future of the country when one hears the sort of arguments that have been made here. From one point of view, we have the Minister seeking greater production, asking people to produce more, to work longer and harder so that we can sell more. I am sure we all want to do that, including Senator Murphy, but if you have to run a risk in order to take your neighbour's goods to market for reward, why should this be the case? Against whom are you committing an offence? Against some sort of State organisation. If this country requires anything to-day it is the spirit that will enable us to get more people to engage in productive effort so that we will have more goods to sell, and where you have goods to sell, you must first think of how to get them to the market at the lowest possible price.

I remember a story about a small group of farmers from the western end of my county who wanted to send their milk to the creamery. They live on the mountainside; they had an average of four or five gallons per person. No local transport was available. The nearest C.I.E. lorry was stationed at a centre six or seven miles away and the milk could be transported only by this lorry. The position in which these farmers found themselves was that, because there were only about 20 gallons of milk to be handled, the transport came for a day or two and then stopped, with the result that they were left with their milk. What were they to do? That is the sort of situation confronting people in many parts of the county.

If I had put down any amendment, I would have accepted the Minister's challenge; I would have lifted the restrictions altogether. In the old days, a man could drive his horse and cart as far as the horse was able to travel in a day and back. I do not see if goods are to be produced and production increased, why the same should not hold for a man and his tractor. I do not care what arguments are put forward. I think this is a definite restriction on production. I think the Minister in the long run would do a good deal more for production if he made it possible for the farmers to assist their neighbours in the transport of goods. It would be an encouragement which would lead to the production of more goods and that is what the transport system needs.

The truth of the matter is—and we all know it—that we have too many people employed on the transport system for the amount of goods carried. That has forced a new situation upon us and the Minister has gone some way towards dealing with it. I want to compliment him on that and there is no danger that anything that anybody will suggest will provoke the Minister to retract the section. The Minister did it under very considerable pressure, we are told. I think the words were used: "He was put under considerable pressure." Of course, he was. That is why he made a concession. He knows quite well that the demand is not from this side of the House, but from every side of the House for legislation of this nature. He is a very wise man. There is no cleverer politician in this State, and nobody can sense atmosphere better than the Minister. One must compliment him on it. He takes time by the forelock. He will go to the forefront and lead the way at times when it is profitable. Nobody, I think, would provoke him into retracting a concession made here. So far as that is concerned, I compliment him but I think he could have gone further and it would have been better for the country as a whole, if he had done so.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Section 28 deals with penalties for the second and subsequent offences of illegal haulage. It mentions the maximum fine of £320. It mentions in sub-section (2) that the vehicle used may be forfeited and in sub-section (3) that the moneys so realised may be disposed of as the Minister thinks fit. The point I want to make in this regard is that I notice that the punishment is meted out entirely to the owner of the vehicle, the giver of the service. Now it is a principle in ordinary law that not only is the thief punished, but a receiver of stolen goods stands to be punished too, if anything rather more severely than the thief. The receiver of illegal services, illegal haulage, seems to get off scot-free under this section. I should like to hear the Minister's opinion as to whether it would not be advisable not only to punish the law breaker who engages in illegal haulage in contravention of the provisions of this Bill, but also to punish the person who avails himself of that illegal haulage.

Mr. S. Lemass

That is provided for in existing law. I was trying to find out the date of the Act and it is the Transport Act of 1933.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Sub-section (1) here alters the maximum fine; does sub-section (2) apply not only——

Mr. S. Lemass

The purpose of this section is merely to prescribe minimum fines. That is the main change this section introduces.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

There is reference to a "maximum fine"?

Mr. S. Lemass

Yes.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

That also applies to the owner of the cattle illegally carried?

Mr. S. Lemass

The minimum fine applies only to the owner of the vehicle, but the person who gets the goods illegally hauled for him also commits an offence.

Mr. Murphy

Would the Minister say what efforts are to be made to deal with the problem of illegal haulage?

Mr. S. Lemass

The suggestion of a special force rather than the Garda has been considered. Whether that would mean more effective or less effective enforcement of the regulation is a matter on which there is a difference of opinion. The Garda is a very large organisation and even if only half of them were interested in preventing illegal haulage, they would probably be more effective than a small force.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 28 and 29 agreed to.

First and Second Schedules agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Bill received for final consideration.

Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."

Mr. Murphy

I should like to say, on behalf of the trade unions and on my own behalf, that we have been very much impressed by the consideration and courtesy we have received from the Minister in this complicated piece of legislation and particularly by the intelligent understanding we have found in the Department. The problem to be dealt with is a very difficult one, but we all hope the passing of this Bill will result in a situation in which public transport will provide an efficient and economical service for the whole community.

There will be a great number of problems both for C.I.E. and the trade unions in the necessary reorganisation in the next few years, but the Minister has made a good start in the discussions he had with the trade unions on the legislation. He has got their confidence. I feel that he is sympathetic to all their problems and they will be enabled, I hope, to deal with the problems which will arise with the management in a better way than would otherwise have been the case.

Mr. S. Lemass

Thank you.

Dr. O'Donovan

I just want to say a few words on Section 7 of the Bill, which is the general powers of the Bill, which replaces Section 15 of the 1950 Act. I do not know why this section is in the Bill at all. I think this kind of legislation stultifies the Oireachtas. This, of course, came from Britain, where, in the nationalisation Acts, they put in phrases like: "It shall be the duty of the board"—the Coal Board or any other board—"so to conduct its undertaking that taking one year with another, the expenditure shall not exceed the income". Senators will remember that when the Constitution was enacted in 1937 there was considerable criticism of the social clauses of the Constitution. Whatever demerits these social clauses have in a constitution, they have some purpose there. They show a social philosophy for the community. They really have no effect in a Constitution any more than they have in an Act, but they do serve a useful purpose.

Look at this section. I will not go through it in detail phrase by phrase, but let us take Section 7 (1):—

"It shall be the general duty of the board to provide reasonable, efficient and economical transport services with due regard to safety of operation, the encouragement of national economic development and the maintenance of reasonable conditions of employment for its employees."

If I may use the word that is there, "the general duty of the board", that sub-section is just general good thought. Then, to make matters worse, sub-section (2) says:—

"It shall be the duty of the board to conduct its undertaking so that, as soon as may be, and in any case not later than the 31st day of March, 1964, its operating expenditure, including all charges properly chargeable to revenue, shall not be greater than the revenue of the board."

Just look at us in this House enacting in July, 1958, something that we hope will become effective on the 31st day of March, 1964.

Mr. O'Leary

A lot of water will have passed under the Liffey bridges by that time.

Dr. O'Donovan

A lot of water will have passed under the political bridges by then, if I am any judge of the situation. Even that might pass, until you come to the third sub-section, which says:—

"Nothing in this section shall be constructed as imposing on the board, either directly or indirectly, any form of duty or liability enforceable by proceedings before any court to which it would not otherwise be subject."

At that stage what are we saying to ourselves? We are enacting law but it is not law. That is what we are saying. Here we are enacting a piece of law but it is not to be law at all. It is to have no practical effect. In other words, as I say, it is a piece of general good thought based on I do not know what. It is not social philosophy. This is just nothing; it is nil. It ends up by saying, "This section shall be nothing". Frankly, I think it is bad for the Oireachtas to enact that kind of legislation and I am not making the point politically; I am making it in all honesty. That kind of legislation is extremely bad. It is significantly worse, I may say, than Section 15 of the 1950 Act, which it replaces.

Mr. S. Lemass

It is not even different.

Dr. O'Donovan

Oh, yes, it is. Otherwise, why did you put it in at all?

Mr. S. Lemass

Not that sub-section. It is identical.

Dr. O'Donovan

You have repealed Section 15. That makes it worse still. What the Minister is now telling us is: "I ask you to enact all this and really it is the same thing you had already", if what he says now is correct. That is my belief about it. This kind of legislation is extremely bad. Otherwise, as I said on Second Reading, the Minister seems to have done his best. I suppose it is his fourth or fifth shot at fixing up the transport system of this country. Certainly, if it is not fixed up yet, the Minister cannot be accused of not trying.

Mr. S. Lemass

I should like to say, in conclusion, arising out of Senator Murphy's remarks, that I on my part would like to pay tribute to the help I got from the trade union committee in dealing with the many problems associated with this Bill and in a very particular way from Senator Murphy in dealing with one of the most difficult of all the problems.

With regard to Section 7, to which Senator O'Donovan referred, I presume that, for good reasons, there should be some section in the Bill which would say that the function of C.I.E. is to provide a transport service as distinct from selling oranges or something of that kind, but I would prefer to see the section as brief as possible. It was a compromise to meet the wishes of his colleagues in the Dáil that I introduced some of the words that are there.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister agrees with me.

Question put and agreed to.