Am I to understand that the same procedure will apply to this Bill? Can I get an indication whether we shall finish it to-night?
Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, 1959: Committee Stage (resumed).
I want to read the report of what the Minister said. It seems to me that he did not deal at all with the arguments I put forward on the amendment. As I understood him, he said: "Trust father and the Government Departments." That was my interpretation of what he said—"Trust us and you will be all right."
Is this Bill not in Committee Stage and therefore the same situation could not arise?
The Committee Stage is being resumed and therefore any decision regarding the remaining Stages will have to be taken later.
I should like to know if those who are interested in the Bill have any objection to our completing the remaining Stages to-night?
We do object to taking the remaining Stages to-night. This is a serious objection on the basis of the amendment which I put down.
SECTION 2.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
In line 28, to delete "twenty" and substitute "ten."—(Dr. O'Donovan.)
I think I said enough to reply to Senator O'Donovan regarding the allegation of excess capacity and I will leave the matter, in case anybody else has any observations to make.
I do not know why the Minister uses a phrase like "allegation of excess capacity". This is not an allegation; it is a well established fact for years and known to everybody who is interested in the matter. I have known it for five or six years. The Minister in his reply to my reasoned argument in which I quoted facts and figures—except for the point he made which I fully accept that the Pigeon House station is still ineffective—really did not deal with the case I made at all. I put down an amendment to this Bill and the position is: that the total spent for this section of the Bill, that is, Section 2, up to 31st March, 1960, was £114,000,000. If the Minister's Bill were to be accepted in full, the capital position would be come £120,000,000 plus £32,000,000, making a total of £152,000,000. The Minister is asking us to add a sum of £38,000,000 to the capital of the Electricity Supply Board as at 31st March last. My amendment would give the Minister £28,000,000, a very small part of which would go on rural electrification so that he would be left with sufficient money for the next four years. I do not understand why the Minister does not accept such an amendment.
After all, once we put this figure into the Electricity Supply Acts, it will be there and neither House of the Oireachtas will have any effective control over it, except the control of the Dáil at Budget time. It does not matter at what rate demand increases, the fact is that with the present installed capacity of 728 megawatts, plus the 80 megawatts which are to be added in the next three years or so the system will get through until then. But the Minister wants to add a colossal amount of further installed generating capacity. This, of course, it seems to me is partly to prove that, after all, the programme in 1953 was right. It was quite right except for the fact that a lot of ruffians came into the Government and developed a crisis and it was the crisis of that period—I am referring to 1956—which reduced the increase in consumption. I can quite honestly say, and nobody can charge me with playing politics, that there was no crisis in 1956. I always said that and I am repeating it now.
Is there to be a debate on that?
Surely if the Minister makes an observation, I can reply to it?
Yes, but the Senator's colleague disagreed with him, if I may say so. However, I do not want to interrupt the Senator.
That is all right. Perhaps more than one colleague disagreed with me, but may I say this, that perhaps some of my colleagues agreed with me also? We will leave it at that. I think it is a bit late in the day to be making that kind of point on this kind of legislation.
Before the Minister came in, when we were discussing the programme of legislation, I said that last night the Minister, in effect, said to the House "Give the E.S.B. this power to get this money and trust myself and the Minister for Finance that we will examine everything carefully, as we have examined these proposals with great care." I am not controverting what the Minister said the other night, but I do know and everybody knows that the greatly inflated programme of 1953-54 was imposed on the Electricity Supply Board. That is well known and the facts are too long known to be controverted now.
In support of his case against the case I made on the statistical facts, the Minister took the autumn of 1959 and said, and I accept the figure, that the 220 odd megawatts of hyrdo-electric generating capacity were the equivalent of only 40 megawatts. I am quite prepared to accept that. I do not deny it for one moment. If that was the case, Bord na Móna had the finest crop of turf ever saved in this country for generating. They were still using some of it well on into this year. In fact, it was so good they were able to use part of the half-saved turf of 1958 and mix it with the extraordinary turf of 1959. The generators were so built that there was a danger of the abnormally good turf of 1959 burning them out.
The Minister also suggested—indeed he did more than suggest; he stated flatly — that it was not the excess generating capacity installed that led to the deficit on the Board's accounts but the abolition of the rural electrification subsidy. This is the kind of argument on which you can go around in circles for days. The fact is that on a fair estimate, there was for some years installed generating capacity, which had cost about 10 or 12 million pounds, in excess of what was required. If you take the average rate of interest on money, the cost of that is just as big as the figure the Minister mentioned as the cost of the rural electrification subsidy, £529,000 a year.
I want to warn the Minister about this: it is all very fine to talk planning in great big capitals and put inverted commas around it, but you must have reason in your planning and you must be prepared not to imagine that the world never changes, not to imagine that because there have been exceptional financial conditions in these islands for the last year or so these conditions will continue in coming years. In fact, all the evidence points the other way.
The Minister also, as I understand him, suggested that we were hinting at some kind of disagreement inside the E.S.B. about this matter. I can speak only for myself: I certainly was not hinting at anything of the sort. I have been in contact with nobody on the board of directors of, or employed by, the E.S.B., with any civil servant or with anybody else about it. I knew sufficient basic facts myself to get the necessary material from the published reports.
If the Minister insists on this programme, which indeed, in my opinion, is altogether more than should be planned for now, he is going to have, as he says himself, I think, 340 megawatts more installed capacity—160 from milled peat and 180 from oil. It provides by 1968-69 for the absorption of the output of all the bogs which are considered economically usable for the generation of electricity. If in fact, either psychologically or otherwise, the people in charge of our electrical power resources are put in a position that they must go ahead with this inflated programme, it is quite obvious that the Government will leave for their successors the same kind of charges on the community as were left with that excess generating capacity which existed for so many years in the second half of the fifties. It is true that while the capital moneys are being spent, it will result in some increase in the national monetary income, but subsequent to that, when the moneys are spent, all that will be left if the installed capital, the real capital, cannot be utilised, will be commitments which will have to be met from the present income of the E.S.B. because there will be no additional income to meet them.
I may be doing the Minister an injustice but it is his remark about an "allegation" that suggests to me that he feels a sense of grievance about this matter. My criticism about this matter is personal to me and is quite honest and not antagonistic to anybody. As I see it, it is the honest discharge of what I conceive to be my public duty. I am prepared to agree to £10 million in this Bill which would give £28 million free moneys above what the E.S.B. have spent up to 31st March, 1960.
The Minister, of course, did not deal at all with my point. He had said that the existing moneys of the Board would be used by 31st March, 1961. I said that I could not reconcile that with the figures available to me up to 31st March, 1960. I simply cannot reconcile them because I know the rate at which rural electrification is going ahead throughout the country. Of course it has been spread out too long and should have been finished with by the end of the fifties, but we all know the rate: 40 areas at about £40,000 per area or £1.6 million. Let us call it £2 million per year. Whatever way one looks at it from 1st April, 1960, on the basis of my amendment, the Minister would have available a sum of something over £20 million for generation and transmission lines. Let me speak in ignorance for a moment. I cannot see what amount of extra transmission lines can now be required from this on. I know that there is rural electrification but that is provided for otherwise than in this section, and I cannot understand how, in this community with the exceptions I mentioned like the big projects using a large amount of power, the copper mines or the oil refinery, large amounts of transmission lines will be required from now on. I do not appreciate the reason why the Minister wants to put into this Bill this enormous amount of money and I do not think the Minister last night answered my case against it.
I want to support Senator O'Donovan's amendment to reduce the amount sought under this section from £20 million to £10 million. It appears to me, as a user of electricity and an ordinary citizen, obvious that what is happening is that the policy of the Board is creating the peaks which justify the Minister in coming here and asking for this additional capacity. Comparatively recently, the Board were trying to sell ordinary heating which is naturally a peak. When fog descends or frost comes in the window the cheapest and most efficient thing for the ordinary citizen to do is to plug in the electric fire. Very recently, I received notification that we could now have an afternoon boost for storage heaters. Storage heaters use enormous quantities of electricity. A small factory could be run on the amount of power which is required to keep an adequately equipped office or house comfortable according to the requirements accepted here. This type of load suggests to me, anyhow, that the policy adopted is a policy of encouraging peak load use of electricity. The whole idea of heat storage has been got away from, due to giving this afternoon boost at a time when the capacity is greatest.
I notice that Deputy Dillon said in the Dáil that the North Wall station works at about 30 per cent. capacity, that it was a stand-by station. The Minister said not at all times. Certainly, any stations that we can put up in this country will be inadequate if we are to encourage the type of load that is going to be switched on, using enormous quantities of electricity, just at the time when they are least required.
I also read with much interest the debate in the other House relative to the various developments taking place. It appears that milled peat, a most successful and probably a cheaper fuel to use, is not always available. The year 1958, a wet year, precluded the widespread use of that fuel as it could not be harvested. We are now at the end of 1960 and it will not be long until we are informed as to how much of the milled peat was made available this year.
It appears that we have a duplicate set of stations. Would it be better if we were prepared to work on the oil stations particularly when we are an oil processing country and use some of these peat stations as stand-by stations rather than leave the oil stations which are generally cheaper to operate and are situated in areas where distribution costs must naturally be cheaper? I think it is well, if we do not wish to saddle this or future generations with the burden of dear electricity, that we should look at the whole expenditure of the E.S.B. in as realistic and as detached a manner as possible.
In passing, I should refer to this point. The E.S.B. have erected a small station at Screebe—I think that is the name of the place—in Connemara. I understand it was many years before the Department of Lands were able to safeguard the interests of the poor farmers in Connemara in respect of adequate turbary. Also the residents of the Aran Islands have to go to Screebe to get the turbary. If the E.S.B. uses all the fuel in Connemara, it will make the position very difficult for these people. This has little to do with the amount of money being voted here but I wished to mention the matter in passing. These people would find life impossible without turbary and they must be safeguarded.
I know that in relation to the use of large quantities of electricity at peak periods, the Minister can indicate on the figures that such a capacity is required, but how much capacity is lying idle for most of the day and night? What encouragement have we given to industries engaged on shift work to use that valuable capacity, that enormous investment that is applied to the production of electricity? It may be used to its full capacity for only a few hours a day.
It is said that it costs somewhere around £500,000 additional money per annum to amortise the duplication of stations that exist. Between oil burning stations and milled peat stations, it must cost at least £500,000 in extra generating charges. I understand that in regard to the second point I make —that in relation to extra generating charges—the Minister disputed the figures in the other House. Perhaps he was right in disputing them but the cost of the capital equipment has to be borne by everyone who uses electricity in this country, whether it is for domestic or industrial purposes.
I would like to ask the Minister to strike a proper balance. If necessary, we should deny more rigorously the use of space heating in the valley period and encourage people to use it in the form of storage heating—that was done in the past—even if it meant reducing the night price for electricity. I am frightened by the amount of money requested here by the Minister for Transport and Power and his predecessors as Ministers for Industry and Commerce.
I oppose this amendment. First of all, I have the utmost confidence in the technical qualifications of the engineering staff of the E.S.B. I know that, technically, they are very highly thought of abroad. They keep in constant touch with happenings abroad. Consequently, we can be certain that any estimate presented by them is realistic and is presented in what appears to them to be the best engineering way and with the highest standard of engineering efficiency possible. That is the first ground.
In the second place, I am prepared to accept the Minister's assurance. This is an enabling Act providing so much money. Its issue depends on the sanction of the Minister for Transport and Power, in conjunction with the Minister for Finance. I take it that that involves rather tight control by the Department of Finance. One thing gives me great hope. The Minister stated in this Second Reading speech that he would not hesitate at any time he felt it necessary to call in efficiency experts to look over the system. I suggest, without the slightest reflection whatever on the E.S.B. and their staff, that institutions in this country or elsewhere benefit from a periodic check-over. Efficiency experts from outside the country who have experience of checking similar industry in other countries could apply standards and performance factors and calculate similar factors in our industry here. We could then catch up where there are discrepancies and have it explained to us if there is something wrong. That might improve efficiency. When I advocate such efficiency checks, I hold that they would be useful for universities or semi-State bodies.
If the Minister gives the assurance that he will not hesitate at any time he feels it necessary to call in such consultants, we can with confidence leave the figure at the level proposed no doubt after discussions on proposals and estimates submitted by the engineering staff of the E.S.B.
I support this amendment if for no other reason than to help us to get some kind of clear picture as to the future development programme of the Electricity Supply Board and Bord na Móna. I have already pointed to the fact that the reports published by the Electricity Supply Board do not enable members of the Legislature, to whom they are presented, to understand how the board is operating. In another context, I shall refer to the secrecy which surrounds all their activities.
So far as I understand the position —and I should like the Minister to deny this if it is not so—for every peat station erected, it is necessary to build an oil burning station or a coal burning station. What that amounts to is that the capital expenditure is twice what it need be because of the insistence on the utilisation of turf for electricity generation.
Let us get the facts clear. That is what I believe to be a fact. I believe that the capital programme of the Electricity Supply Board in recent years is twice what it need be, or perhaps more than twice what it need be, because for every peat burning station built, another station comes into operation because the peat burning station is not generating sufficient electricity as required.
Specify.
As I say, I cannot specify, and the Senator cannot specify if he reads the reports of the Electricity Supply Board. If he writes to them and tries to ascertain information, he will not get it. If one is a Deputy and puts down a Question, one is likely to be told by the Minister that it is a matter of internal administration and that he has no function in the matter. That is what we are getting to with semi-State bodies, and that is why it is right and proper for Senator O'Donovan to put down this amendment in an effort to try to find what the facts of the situation are.
It may be said that all this leads to increased employment on the bogs of Ireland. That may be so, but I venture to suggest that, in the long run, it might be far more economic and far better economics — more economic from the point of view of the E.S.B. and far better national economics—if instead of using turf to generate electricity, we used it for ordinary domestic consumption.
As I understand the position, there is a tremendous demand for briquettes which is not being filled, the reason being that the turf produced by Bord na Móna is being used in these peat burning stations which the Electricity Supply Board are compelled against— again as I believe the position to be— the advice and judgment of the technical staff.
I am somewhat—I do not like to say "amused" because it is not the correct expression—puzzled by the fact that my colleague, Senator Quinlan, said he was prepared to oppose this amendment and to support Section 2, because he had the utmost confidence in the technical staff of the E.S.B. We all have that confidence, but when we oppose the shoving of unnecessary capital on to the E.S.B., we are not in any way reflecting on the high competence of the technical staff which has made the E.S.B. the great public utility they have been for many years.
For the point I want to make it is not necessary that the Minister should be present. The technical competence of the people who operate and plan the various stations, whether they are hydro, peat or oil stations, is not in question. In fact, I am sure we could become lyrical about some of the achievements of the E.S.B. officers and technical officials.
I understand the new salmon lift that has been installed at the Shannon is unique. The officer who designed it did not claim any patent rights and people who are interested have come from all over the world to see something designed by an Irish engineer. We are aware of those enromour technical advances but they should not be allowed to stop us from considering what is wise policy with regard to generating capacity, and how our load should be set. Those are entirely different matters and they should be placed in separate compartments.
I disagree profoundly with Senator Quinlan when he says that because we have those wonderful technicians, we should leave it to them. They are not consulted in the policy decisions the board which is what we are discussing tonight.
I have not finished at all. I did not like to continue when the Minister had to leave for a division in the Dáil. I was referring to the pride we all have in this great public utility, the Electricity Supply Board. As I understand the position, as I said, I believe all this increase in peat burning stations is against the weight of technical advice within the E.S.B. I furthere believe, as I gather from a reply to an observation by Senator Quinlan, that sometime in the 1951-54 period, the Government took over the control of the generating programme of the E.S.B. The reason they did that, I understand, was that the technical officers in the Board were not in favour of these milled peat stations, but for another interest the Government then took over the Board, and now have decided to proceed with the remainder of these peat burning stations solely for the purpose of butterssing up the accounts of Board na Móna. That is what we are concerned with here. It is extremely difficult to come by all the facts, but we know it is provided in legislation that the generating programme of the E.S.B. is subject to the restrictions of the Government to which it was not subject before that Act.
We have the Minister telling us in this House that he is in regular consultation—one almost gathers weekly or fortnightly—with the Board, reviewing their policy and so on. If that is the way the independent statutory bodies are to operate, we might as well forget them as independent statutory bodies, because people on a board do not have the independence of action, when a Minister is knocking around all the time looking at its affairs, they would have if they were allowed to proceed according to what they thought was best.
I want to make another reference to what Senator Quinlan said about efficiency experts. The Minister has got so far into the active working of the Board that he said that he would not hesitate to recommend—I think that was the phrase he used—that these experts should be brought in. If the E.S.B. were set up as a statutory body to run the national electricity undertaking then I do not see what business the Minister has in saying: "I am strongly of the view that you should do this. I strongly recommend that you should bring in efficiency experts". If the Board the Minister appoints is fit to discharge its business, it does not require directives of that kind from the Minister.
On the subject of efficiency experts, I want to say that the last people I want to see coming into this country are efficiency experts because I believe that the people of this country, if they set about examining their own problems with their own genius and their own intelligence, are more capable of resolving them. As far as efficiency expects are concerned—and this point may well appeal to my friend, Senator Sheehy Skeffington—there is no group of efficiency experts that came into any of the larger firms or public authorities that has not made as one of its recommendations that this kind of office machinery or that or the other should be brought in, and when you begin to inquire about it, you find that the efficiency experts are all shareholders or members of the boards of the companies that supply those machines.
Nonsense.
A gross libel on people who are not able to defend themselves.
It is not a gross libel. I know what I am talking about. These are the kind of people coming in to get us to spend more money in England and other places on machinery we do not want.
I am not a bit surprised.
When we talk about efficiency experts, I want to say that the Board established here is quite competent to do its job within the framework for which its operations were so well designed. Let the Irish people proceed in their own Irish fashion, leisurely and inefficient as it may sometimes appear to be, but in the long term, very efficient and we will have all the electricity so much cheaper than we will have it if we bring in these foreign experts.
On a point of explanation, I think Senator O'Quigley misunderstood my reference to efficiency experts. The idea, of course, I had in mind was not at all the ordinary type of office efficiency expert, but rather the technical expert who surveys a whole situation and makes his recommendation on that and certainly has nothing to sell in any shape or form—somebody like Mr. Mellon who was called in in relation to the railways or Mr. Holmes in the case of agriculture.
The debate has ranged far and wide, and certainly far beyond the amendment of this section, but if the Senators wish to have it that way, I am perfectly willing, and we can stay here all night as far as I am concerned arguing about the E.S.B.
The Christmas feeling.
Yes.
The Minister is radiating good will.
I will try to restrain myself, but I must reply to the allegation of the Senator that the Minister is "knocking around the E.S.B". My Department was set up to supervise and look after the transport and power companies of this country and to have a general surveillance of their activities. At the same time, the companies by statute remain independent of day-to-day interference in the political field. I have to build up in my own Department what might be described as a mystique or an atmosphere which enables me to steer very carefully between what Senator O'Quigley calls "knowking around the E.S.B" and leaving them entirely to their own devices from year to year, they reporting to me whenever they require to borrow capital, and reporting to me on the occasion of their annual report.
It would take me at least half an hour to describe in detail how I propose to create a tradition for my Department which avoids the extremes either of "knocking around the E.S.B." or of standing so far outside that the Department is not doing useful work. I and my successors will be judged on our ability to steer that very careful course.
I will next refer to productivity and work study. I never said that Irish firms are incapable of doing their own business efficiently. What I have said is that productivity in general in all its forms is now a completely international science that allows for no state boundaries whatever, in which countries share their experiences, in many cases through the European Producetivity Agency to which we belong. Not only do countries share their experiences but experts in private organisations move from country to country, many of them speaking several languages, so that, first of all, there is that degree of international exchange.
So far as the State companies are concerned, I would recommend and have recommended to every one of them that they adopt the practice of many of the great companies with international reputations for splendid-productivity, magnificent labour relations, good wages. and an excellent quality product selling competitively. What these companies do is to invite in industrial consultants to study this and that phase of their activities, and, at the same time, if they are large enough, if they are of the magnitude of the E.S.B., C.I.E. or Bord na Móna, they gradually develop their own work study team. In the Imperial Chemical Company, there are employed 120,000 people and there is a permanent team of 1,100 work study experts. That is a company which comes, roughly speaking, within the category I have indicated so far as one can examine it from the standard of labour relations and the fact that the workers can invest their savings in the capital and so forth, so we can have the best of both worlds. We can have international advice and at the same time develop our own work study, too. A company with a work study team generally sends one or two of the staff to companies in the same field of endeavour if they will permit it, in other countries or in the same country. Therefore, there is a constant examination being made of systems of production and, at the same time, the company invites from time to time a consultant to examine this or that phase so as to keep productivity on a lively basis and so that a new view can be obtained on any phase of the company's operations.
Since Senator O'Quigley raised all sorts of suggestions that there is something un-Irish about work study, I should point out that the successful work study expert is one who regards the happiness of the worker as over 50 per cent, of the whole business he is doing—work study experts have long ago got away from the American who tried to enslave the worker—I forget his name——
Taylor.
The work cannot succeed if the worker feels he will take no part in the profit.
That animal has not been evolved yet.
Senator O'Quigley said the E.S.B. reports are obscure. I disagree with him. I think they are excellent.
We are not as highly intelligent as the Minister. We must make allowances for the average man in the Oireachtas.
He next suggested that a Fianna Fáil Government, through the selection of directors on the board, had forced the policy of using turf for generation down the throats of the board.
I never said that. The Minister has a guilty conscience.
There was nothing about the selection of directors.
Senator Burke quite clearly suggested that we should not have used turf as a fuel for producing power. Apparently the Fine Gael Party will split on that subject fairly soon. It is obviously true that it is through the sole imagination of the present Taoiseach and his belief in the use of peat that Bord na Móna started. The Government take complete and absolute credit for the initiation of that scheme.
When the Coalition Government was in office a question arose as to what the future policy would be. I am glad to tell the Seanad that the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton, forming part of a collective Government in which the majority were Fine Gael, did order the E.S.B. to go ahead with a specific turf station. In other words, he followed the Fianna Fáil direction knowing, I think, partly——
It was Labour policy from about 1936.
——any alternative policy would be almost suicide, politically. Unless the Coalition Government were operating what might be described as completely water-tight compartments, Deputy Norton must have got consent from the Minister for Finance who was Fine Gael, in order to carry on the policy of Fianna Fáil.
I do not think I need go into very great detail in regard to the suggestion that we have to double the number of stations because we have turf stations. It is so ludicrous as not to warrant explanation. There are certain liablities involved in a turf station as compared with a hydro station. If the Senator would like to examine the report of the E.S.B. he will find that the total cost per unit sent out for power produced at Ringsend, including depreciation and interest, is 1.043 pence per unit. If he will look at the corresponding cost at Ferbane, which is a milled peat station, he will find it is 1.056 pence.
That was the Pigeon House. Ringsend station is a different station.
They are across the road from each other.
The cost of milled peat has now come so near that of coal and oil that the advantages of employment and of using our own native product and of not having to import our material are overwhelming.
That is not the whole story at all.
Tell us the whole story.
We should like to know the Fine Gael policy. As far as I know, the Fine Gael Party, if uneasily, has supported the programme of making use of all the available peat resources for power in this country. Are they now going to change it completely under the influence of Senator O'Quigley?
Senator O'Quigley is small fish.
We examine everything.
They must have mislaid that policy out at Malahide.
I want to avoid repeating anything I said last night. I mentioned the various forms of control over the E.S.B. that exist. Senator O'Donovan repeated them. This programme may require alteration. I hope that in the course of the next eight years it will be upwards. If the programme requires alteration, that will be done in accordance with the negotiations between the E.S.B., ourselves and the Minister for Finance.
The Oireachtas has the opportunity of checking the work of the E.S.B. at the time of the Budget, as Senator O'Donovan said. They could also, if they wished, as was clearly indicated by the Taoiseach in a recent statement in the Dáil ask for a debate on the presentation of the annual report of any State company. They have at least two occasions during the year when they can raise the subject of operations of any State company. That, together with the control by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Transport and Power of the day, is sufficient to obviate any of the horrors we might be supposed to suffer because of gigantic expenditure by the E.S.B. The E.S.B. is 100 per cent in favour of this programme. If Senator O'Donovan is correct, the E.S.B. Board and Directors are gravely wrong. He cannot have it both ways. He will surely take my word that I have not added any amount to the sum provided in this section. If he takes my word for that, then the E.S.B. themselves are gravely at fault in advising me that they require this amount.
I do not know whether it will help to give some figures in regard to the use of this sum, £120,000,000, but if it will help, this is the statement and it can be found in the report of the Board for the year ended 31st March, 1960, page 11. It says:
The Electricity (Supply) Acts authorise the Board to incur capital expenditure not exceeding £100,000,000 for its general purposes. To enable the Board's development to continue, legislation increasing this authorised amount to £120,000,000 is under consideration. At 31st March, 1960, the board had approved expenditure totalling £101,105,557, of which £78,863,607 represented electricity assets actually in commission, the balance £22,241,950 representing either work in progress or work authorised.
Therefore, the £100,000,000 of the £120,000,000 consists of work which is either being completed or is in one form of progress or another or is authorised for construction.
In actual fact, the expenditure within the new total additional provision of £20,000,000 must include part of the cost of the programme between 1964 and 1965 and 1965 and 1968 as there is a need to make provision in advance, to order plant in advance, to engage in all kind of development expenditure in advance. So it is no use calculating the number of megawatts the Board will require by 1964 and working it out at so much per megawatt. You have also to include what is in fact a figure that is not absolutely known to me, the amount of the £20,000,000 required for plans that have to be put into operation in the period 1964-1968. If the consumption of electricity goes on increasing at the present rate of ten per cent, which now excludes the unusual boosts in power required for the Avoca copper mines and the Whitegate oil refinery, it will be necessary to revise this programme upwards.
I always believe in taking an optimistic view of the country's economy and I should like to feel that all of us, whatever Party we belong to, may look at the present growth of industry with some hope that in the future at least we shall keep, say, an eight, nine or ten per cent increase or more. If we can do that, our programme will have to be revised upwards. I think I have covered all the points raised and I do not think I can say anything more. I trust that the Seanad in view of the observations made, for example, by Senator Quinlan and some other Senators, will agree to authorising the figure in this section of £120,000,000.
Before the proposer of the amendment replies, I should like to say that I listened to the debate on both sides and to the Minister's answer. It strikes me the Minister has answered the case comprehensively. All of us know that the money asked for is required. It is not an excessive amount in view of what is contemplated and in light of what has been done by the E.S.B. over the years. I think we all are very proud of this organisation, although it is quite obvious that the different Parties vie for the credit and in a sense credit is due to both Parties. There have been occasions in the history of the E.S.B. when one Party fiercely attacks the other and vice versa, over the E.S.B., and they have switched as indeed they have switched on so many other things. We need not be surprised if again they are attacking each other in what seems to be purely mock combat, quite unreal. If the Coalition Government were in power, we would find them boldly asking for this amount and some other person like the Minister attacking them on the grounds that this was a betrayal of the country's resources or something like that.
There is one point which the Minister made on which he should be corrected, and this, in giving all the credit to Bord na Móna for producing electricity from turf when for years before 1946—when it was finally and very belatedly decided by Fianna Fáil to do so—they had been urged by experts to do it and had consistently turned it down before the war and up to the war and perforce during the war when they learned their sad lesson. They were very slow to learn about the value of producing electricity from turf but they have learned it now, and more power to them—more electric power to them. We have to recognise that credit for these ideas goes to the people who were urging that policy on Fianna Fáil back in 1935 and 1936 and urging it on the country as far back as the First Dáil.
Could I say in reply to Senator Quinlan that he could not have been in the House when I proposed this amendment because I paid specific tribute to the technical staff of the E.S.B.? In view of the fact that the particular official retired a week or so ago, one might be allowed to mention his name. I am referring to Mr. Joseph McDonald, the Chief Engineer of the Erne Scheme. There is no question about this. Sometimes I think that Senator Quinlan is a little innocent.
It is a good way to be.
I simply paid my own tribute.
"Pixilated" is the word.
There was a definite inference that somebody was saying something about them to the detriment——
We would like Fine Gael to speak with one voice.
I appreciate the Minister's statement at the beginning of his reply. I do not misunderstand him at all. When the Ministery of Fuel and Power was being established and before I knew who was to be Minister, I spoke in this House about it and my remarks, which I do not intend to quote, are in Volume 51, Columns 332-337. Anybody who wants to see them can read them there. Anybody who wants to see what I thought of the job that was being given to the particular Minister—and, as I say, at the time I did not know who was getting the job—can see what I said.
I appreciate what the Minister said and I appreciate the difficulty of his problem. He is concerned about a problem which is a perennial one of how to supervise, in any modern democracy, these semi-State bodies. If the Minister succeeds in solving that problem, he will make a name for himself. If he wants to see what a large group of people said, let me send for the huge file in the Department of Finance on the problem of how you are to control their financial operations if you are not to interfere with their day-to-day operations. He may find some wisdom there but it will not solve his problem. It all ended with nobody doing anything about it.
Let me be honest. There is no evidence up to the present that anybody has done anything about it. The Minister, I regret, proceeded to set up a number of cockshies which he pretended were the statements of my colleague, Senator O'Quigley, and suggested that he had inferred that there was something un-Irish about work study. What Senator O'Quigley said was that many of these experts suggested the installation of very expensive machinery. That is a specific statement but it is not suggesting that there is something un-Irish about work study. Neither did Senator O'Quigley suggest that in 1953-54 the Government had put some directors on the Board. They may have. In fact, I think they did but that is not what Senator O'Quigley suggested. It was something quite different.
What did he say?
We all know that the Board were sent for and hauled over to Kildare Street ——
Hauled?
Yes, hauled over to Kildare Street some time in 1953 or 1954, I cannot be precise about the date. The result was this enormous expenditure which was retained for a long period.
It was excess because of your slump in 1956.
Do not be always talking about slumps.
The Minister also suggested that it was Deputy Norton who built the additional turf station. The fact was that, in 1956, the inter-Party Government at the suggestion of Deputy Norton and Deputy Sweetman, changed the nature of two power stations for the production of turf briquettes because of the enormous excess generating capacity that would have been produced if the programme had gone ahead.
If?
Yes, if it had gone ahead as planned in 1953. Two of those bogs were put to use. One I think was Bangor-Erris bog and the other was the one south of Offaly, the one down near the Shannon.
Shannonbridge?
Yes, I think so— if that is the one near the Shannon. This year, briquettes are being produced. If we are to claim credit, that is a productive use of a thing we were committed to. That was how the millions of pounds spent to develop the bogs were put to constructive use. The inter-Party Government were in power and Fine Gael were part of it. Was that not a constructive idea which, I put it to Senator Sheehy Skeffington, emanated from the Fine Gael section of the inter-Party Government? Unless somebody else wishes to speak, unless perhaps Senator O'Quigley wishes to say something in view of the many charges levelled against him, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."
On the section, I want to make one or two observations on points arising from the Minister's speech. With so much business still to be done, I am not going to traverse what I said or try to clear up misrepresentations. What I said is on the record and the record speaks for itself. The Minister was talking about the establishment of the Department of Transport and Power and said he was burdened and charged with the coordination of all the semi-State bodies connected with transport and power like the E.S.B., C.I.E. and so on. You would imagine that these came into operation only in 1959 when the Department was established or that the liaison necessary between these bodies and the appropriate Minister must never have obtained. Long before the Minister was ever thought of as Minister for Transport and Power, the same liaison obtained between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the different boards over all the years. It may be that the Minister now has more time to spend exclusively, or to put it the other way, that these State bodies have to spend more time with the Minister, but obviously the Minister should not try to lead us to believe that up to the establishment of the Department of Transport and Power in 1959, there was never such a thing as liaison between the Minister for Industry and Commerce or any Government Department and these State bodies.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That Section 4 stand part of the Bill."
We have provision for an extra £2,000,000 for rural electrification. Could the Minister enlighten us as to what approximate percentage of homes in rural Ireland will be outside the scope of rural electrification when this has been provided?
Could I ask a question as Senator Quinlan has asked one? The Minister may not possibly be able to answer, but when this £32,000,000 has been spent, the whole programme will be finished and 800 areas will be developed. This is slightly different, but I would like to ask the Minister to give attention to it because I think it has some merits. I refer to the small areas, the little bits between the developed areas. It should be carefully considered whether the use of Calor gas or Kosangas, especially with the establishment of an oil refinery, or the generation of electricity privately by individual engines might prove a great deal less expensive than the £4.8 million calculated as the cost of covering these isolated areas with wires in the usual fashion. I make that suggestion. I do not know whether the Minister has got as far as that, but he must be coming very close to that now.
In reply to the two questions asked, roughly 75 per cent. of dwellings in the complete area will be connected when the programme is completed, and in reply to Senator O'Donovan, the Government of the day will, I imagine, in the early part of 1962 or possibly in the latter part of 1961, make some decision on what their attitude should be to the remaining 25 per cent of the people. The Senator is absolutely right in saying that Calor or Kosangas may be the best solution for some of the more isolated dwellings. I think the Taoiseach, when initiating the rural electrification scheme in 1945 or 1946, mentioned that it might be difficult to connect every household because of the extremely scattered character of our rural communities. We share with Sweden the unique distinction of being the most unvillaged community in Europe. So the whole problem will be discussed with a view to seeing whether another scheme can be devised for certain types of dwellings, whether the cost would be prohibitive or whether it would be better to provide some other form of assistance in line with the assistance available in congested or remote areas. This might apply to Calor or Kosangas as it does in some of the Fior-Ghaeltacht areas.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 5 to 11, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 12.
Question proposed: "That Section 12 stand part of the Bill".
This is an amendment of Section 7 of the 1927 Act which established the E.S.B. In his Second Reading speech in this House, the Minister said that what was being done in the amendment was merely bringing the position regarding rendering of accounts or auditing into line with modern practice. There are a number of things in the Electricity Supply Act of 1927 that are to be brought into line with modern practice. I do not think the Minister has given any adequate explanation for departing from the present position where the Minister may make regulations prescribing what is to be done. Presumably, these regulations are laid before each House of the Oireachtas. Perhaps the Minister would indicate who at present conducts the audit of the E.S.B. accounts?
The accounts of the E.S.B. are audited by a private auditor and not by the Auditor General. The auditors are Messrs. Kennedy and Crowley and Co., of Westmoreland Street. This section of the Bill merely enables the Minister for Transport and Power to give directions as to the form of the accounts in the audit. Instead of having to write statutory regulations with all the unnecessary administrative complications involved, I simply give a direction in writing.
In view of the fact that these statutory bodies are to be as free as possible from day to day interference by Ministers, would it not be a much more satisfactory thing for the E.S.B. to have their particular set of regulations, which they know they must adhere to, rather than that the Minister in the month of January should tell the E.S.B.: "Well, now, these accounts are going to be presented on 31st March. I want you to present them in a particular way." I very much doubt the advisability of vesting such power in any Minister for Transport and Power. The format of the accounts may change from time to time. It becomes too easy—that is the point—to change the format of the accounts purely by a direction, whereas it is not so easy to change them when it involves laying regulations before each House of the Oireachtas.
One of the difficulties in reading statistics and comparing them in respect of companies such as the E.S.B. is that you may find the accounts change from year to year. There will always be good excuses and explanations given as to why a different basis is to be adopted in relation to a different set of accounts. I am not at all satisfied that this is a desirable situation to have incorporated in the Bill and I do not think the Minister has attempted to give anything like a satisfactory explanation.
I should say, first of all, that I did not intend, as a result of this section being passed, to make some dramatic alterations in the format of the accounts or anything of that kind, but simply to bring the E.S.B. into line with other State companies in respect of which provision is made that the Minister can give directions. I think that in the light of the history of our State companies and our semi-State bodies, little fear need be entertained that there will be abuses as a result of the change. We have a very splendid tradition in relation to the account-keeping of our State bodies. My memory does not go beyond 1938 but certainly the tradition since then has been a fine one. Whatever difficulties they had have not been related to their method of keeping accounts—not so far as I am aware or have knowledge of. This is to bring the E.S.B. into line with other State bodies where similar provision occurs. The time, place and method of conducting the audit, the time, place and method of publication and sales, the character of the accounts which are to be published and put on sale are given by way of directions instead of by statutory regulations.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Might I inquire from the Leader of the House what his intention is with regard to the business now?
I am prepared to carry on until we finish the Committee Stage.
Do I understand the Minister to give something in the nature of an undertaking that the format—this is as far as I wish the Minister to go—of the accounts of the E.S.B. will not be so changed that it will not be possible in any particular year to make a comparison with the previous year? If a certain uniformity is maintained in the accounts, then I have less objection to the change and to vesting this power in the Minister than I otherwise would have.
I think I could say that so long as I have charge of the Department, I would be entitled—and so would the members of the Oireachtas be entitled—to see the published accounts presented in such a way that, even though there was a new format, the major and important items should be presented in a form in which there could be a comparison with the previous year.
I am perfectly satisfied with that.
I wish to make a query about various items arising out of the accounts such as the distribution of the transmission charges in the accounts between rural and non-rural areas. Is it accepted practice that Deputies or Senators wishing to get such information can have it directly from the E.S.B.?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I doubt if that is in order.
It arises in relation to the accounts—Section 12. We are dealing with the Minister giving directions as to the form of the accounts. I am raising a query as to the position in which there is no evidence in the accounts as to how a particular figure has been divided between two different activities. I gave an example, namely, transmission charges in arriving at the cost of current and distribution between rural and non-rural consumers. The basis is not stated in the accounts. I think that is something which is very pertinent. I wonder where the Minister would recommend that such information could be got?
I think the Senator is asking a very difficult question at this stage of the debate.
I am not asking the Minister——
There is information I could give now, for example, as to how fixed charges in rural areas are calculated and the basis of the fixed charge. There is information available about the deficit on the rural electrification account. That is clearly given but whether it would be possible to answer easily a question which involves separating a whole lot of items, I am unable to say. It is difficult at this stage to give a detailed reply in respect of that. If anyone challenges seriously the accuracy of the Board's figures in regard to the deficit on rural account and the build up of the fixed charges, I suppose the E.S.B. would naturally have to justify their figures, but there, again, I think there has been a very fine tradition within the E.S.B. and other State bodies. I doubt if such a charge would be made.
Those are the two principal issues embodied in rural electrification—the justification for the fixed charges in relation to the contribution by the Government, the consumers and the E.S.B. and the degree of deficit involved in the rural electrification network and the fact that it has to be compensated for by a surplus in the urban network.
I did not intend that the Minister should answer my query here and now. I just gave an example of one of the many queries that may occur to Senators and Deputies reading through the accounts. I want to know if it will be accepted as common practice that Deputies or Senators wishing to get a breakdown can get that information by writing to the E.S.B., or should they communicate with the Minister for Transport and Power?
My belief is that the E.S.B. would give members of the public, and particularly members of the Oireachtas, any reasonable information designed to relieve their fears, or would give evidence of a kind which would, perhaps, allay their fears in regard to how the accounts are presented. I do not think they are secretive to the point that such information would not be given.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 13.
Question proposed: "That Section 13 stand part of the Bill."
Would the Minister be kind enough to indicate the different people who are covered by subsections (1) and (2), and subsections (1) and (2) of Section 14. I must confess that this section means nothing to me.
These pension increases are directly related to the corresponding increases in the pensions of civil servants. They apply to two groups of pensioners: those covered by the general superannuation scheme whose pensions are calculated as percentages of their salaries and those covered by the superannuation scheme whose pensions are expressed as fixed sums. Sections 13 and 14 cover the first group and Section 15 provides for the second group.
The pension increases are divided up. There are three periods of retirement which are clearly indicated in the section and there are two separate increases arising from the corresponding increases to civil servants, namely, those affected in the 1959 and 1960 Budgets. I think that described the sections fairly adequately. There is nothing anomalous in them. They were agreed to by both sides of the tariff organisation of the E.S.B., and they were agreed to by the Minister for Finance. They follow completely on the lines of the Civil Service increases.
Would the Minister say if they are retrospective to the same date as the increase in superannuation to other public servants?
That is difficult to answer because the point at which the E.S.B. pensions were increased was not necessarily the point at which the Civil Service salaries were increased. The whole thing works in line, and if the Senator reads the section, he will see that provision is made to ensure that everyone is equitably treated.
I am satisfied with the limited information which the Minister is able to give at this hour of the night but I should like to suggest that in future when sections of this kind are being incorporated in a Bill, which relate to such things as pay settlements, as apparently these sections do, perhaps some kind of explanatory memorandum could be incorporated when the Bill is circulated.
Surely if those concerned are satisfied, Senator O'Quigley should be satisfied.
I want to make this point. A tremendous number of things go into Bills which are supposed to represent something people have agreed to. Recently, we passed a Bill here and people have been ringing me to know what the Minister ment by what he said in the Dáil because they are getting nothing like what they are entitled to.
I am willing to read a complete explanation of these three sections.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
It will not be necessary for the Minister to do that. Senator O'Quigley has said that he is satisfied with the information given by the Minister at this hour of the night.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 14 and 15 agreed to.
SECTION 16
Question proposed: "That Section 16 stand part of the Bill."
This is a very desirable section which provides a superannuation scheme for whole-time members of the Board. Under this section, the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, may make a scheme, and it is regarded as a superannuation scheme and he may make another scheme, amending the first scheme. It is perfectly clear from the section that the first scheme the Minister makes must be laid on the Tables of the Houses of the Oireachtas, but it is not at all clear whether the amending schemes are to be laid on the Tables of the Houses of the Oireachtas. I wonder would the Minister deal with that point? I should like the Minister to indicate also what gratuity shall not be paid to a whole-time member of the Board under section 2 of the Superannuation Act of 1942.
So far as I know, we have to lay all these Superannuation schemes on the Tables of the Houses of the Oireachtas; what applies to one would apply to another.
I am afraid that is not so. The section refers to a scheme and it is afterwards referred to in the Bill as a superannuation scheme. As I read subsection (2), there may be a subsequent scheme, referred to as an amending scheme, and it is differentiated from a superannuation scheme in the remainder of the Bill. Subsection (6) provides merely for the laying of a superannuation scheme before each House of the Oireachtas. I want to know why the amending scheme must not also be laid before each House of the Oireachtas.
I can look into that. I know there is no intention on my part of preventing publication of the scheme. Obviously, if one scheme has to be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas, it would be desirable to publish the amending schemes. On the other hand, there may be some specific reason why this subsection appears to apply only to the main scheme.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Perhaps we could leave it over to the next Stage.
With regard to Section 2 of the Superannuation Act of 1942, why is it that that may not apply to a whole-time member of the Board?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Perhaps the Minister would deal with those matters on the next Stage.
This scheme applies to whole-time members of the Board only. It is a new scheme which is in line with schemes for superannuation for full-time members of other boards. It is virtually exactly the same in the case of C.I.E. In principle, the scheme is exactly the same. There is no essential difference in it. Question put and agreed to. Sections 17 to 20, inclusive, agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Next Stage?
I take it these is not agreement that we should get the remaining Stages now. In that case, the next Stage will be taken on the next sitting day.
Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 21st December, 1960.
The Seanad adjourned at 10.25 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 21st December, 1960.