Ba mhaith liom i dtosach buíochas a glacadh leis an Aire as ucht teacht isteach inniu agus éisteacht leis na pointí a bheidh á dhéanamh agam i dtaobh na ceiste seo.
The question is to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to get the Fair Trade Commission to institute an inquiry into the charging system operated by Bord Telecom. I compliment Bord Telecom on the improved system that has been instituted in recent years. It is hard for us now to visualise the situation we had in my part of the country and many other rural areas where, as late as 1986, to make a telephone call one had to go through a series of operators. I would be the first to give due credit to the board for totally automating the system and for bringing us from 19th century technology to the very latest in digital technology in one leap.
It is time that we looked at the whole question of how Telecom Éireann charge for their calls. I have often argued that telephone charges, energy costs and insurance costs are the biggest burdens any industry face. Steps taken to equalise and reduce them would be much more important to both the ordinary consumer and industry than all the grants in the world.
Basically, the telephone service was developed from the original telegraph service which, as we know, ran along the railway lines during the last century. It is amazing to think that this history is still apparent when one examines the telecommunications charge structure for telephone calls. We have a late 20th century system being charged on a 19th century system. Despite developments in the technology of transmission, telephone charges are based on areas which are still based on the railway lines. A typical example of this occurs in my own part of the country with which I am obviously very familiar and this is replicated throughout the country. For example, in Cornamona where I live the telephone line and the postal service comes to us via Claremoris and Ballinrobe. As a consequence, living in Cornamona it is possible to make a local call to Claremorris or to Tuam but it is impossible to make a local call to, for example, Galway or Castlebar.
As you know until the phasing out of the manual service the transmission system was along telephone lines. This has largely been replaced by a modern system. We now use microwave lengths as a very important intrinsic part of the telephone service. Where each telephone in the old days had to have a single line, we also now use multi-line cables and we are even developing into fibre optics. This has meant that the cost of the infrastructure per call made has reduced dramatically in recent years. At the same time, there has been a very rapid increase in the number of telephones throughout the country, but particularly in rural Ireland. For example, there are many areas, including my own area, and throughout Connemara, where the numbers of telephones have increased ten fold since the mid-seventies. When one looks at the appropriate charging system that Bord Telecom should have, it must be first recognised that even for the urban subscriber the more complete the system, the more people on the system, the more options in the long term that subscriber has. Therefore, it is very important for the completeness of the system that it is attractive to have a telephone.
It is often argued that the extra cost of providing telphones in rural areas justifies the particular layout of the telephone charge areas. The reality is that it is only the exceptional long lying cases, as Telecom Éireann refer to them, that is where you have a phone maybe three miles from the local exchange, where there is any real extra cost in providing rural telephones. For example, as long as one person in Cornamona needs a telephone the line would have to come as far as Cornamona and the extra charge of putting 50 or 100 lines into a little village like that is not significantly greater than it is for putting in one.
At present, as we know, telephone charges are at four rates within the Republic. You have a local call rate which is 11.17 pence and has no duration limit on it. You have an A, B and C trunk rate with different charges for peak and offpeak hours. People living in STD areas can in certain circumstances ring people in adjacent STD areas direct and in other circumstances they cannot. The information regarding this is available to anybody. It is in the front of the telephone directory. However, there are a few areas in the country particularly on the west coast, for example, Caherciveen, Belmullet and Clifden, where one cannot ring in any circumstances in any direction outside the STD area without making a trunk call. It also must be stressed that the areas where you can ring outside your own STD area are not necessarily the areas of most usage or the ones that would be most convenient to a subscriber but are based, as I said before, on the layout of the postal service and the railway line. A good example of this arises in the Tuam-Headford area in Galway which is an 093 area and the code there means that people can ring Claremorris or Ballindine but they cannot ring areas from Claregalway into Galway city as a local call. For example, in Connemara, you cannot ring Kilkerrin to Rosmuc, neighbouring villages, as a local call. It is a trunk call. Within a local call charge area two computers could be connected and left running. Leaving aside rental, if they were left running continuously year after year the total charge would be 11.17 pence. We have to look at the logic of this. It is true that there would be an extra cost initially in providing the service but it would seem logical since this is a once off cost that the way to recoup it would be to charge more for installation in rural areas. There might be a fractionally more expensive cost but with modern telephones breakdowns are rare particularly with the digital system. The logical thing to do if you wanted to charge for that on a commercial basis would be to increase slightly the rental for the phone. However, Telecom Éireann policy is in direct contradiction of this. They have a uniform connection fee and a uniform rental, and they charge extra by the minute. What does this mean? As well as the rural subsidising the urban which is happening, we also have the situation where the rural person who makes many telephone calls is basically subsidising the subscriber who very rarely uses his system. This defies all commercial logic.
I do not dispute the necessity for Bord Telecom to make the telephone service economic. They must make a profit. However, within those parameters there has to be an element of public service in the provision of a public utility. One of the common elements of this type of economic public service is that the overall cost of providing the service is spread evenly among the various subscribers to such a service. The ESB charge extra for the initial installation of electricity but ESB unit charges for electricity are uniform throughout the country. Similarly, An Post charge the same for a letter whether you are getting a letter delivered from one place in Dublin to another or from Dublin to Galway, Cornamona or Clifden. Similarly, county councils make uniform charges, for water and spread the cost evenly among the subscribers. The reasoning and logic behind this is that if you continually weight all your services in favour of the centre you quickly arrive at a situation where you have totally denuded the countryside because people would leave the areas where there was a high cost for services. Bord Telecom recognise this. I accept that with modern services, for example, telex, although that is now becoming defunct, Eirpac services and so on they do not charge on the old system but have uniform charges throughout the country. In my business I can get in through my Eirpac system to Dublin at the charge of a local call.
We must have a positive policy to create active decentralisation. Anything that causes cost differences between urban, provincial and rural areas must be a hindrance to that aim. Further, as a country on the periphery of Europe our only chance of survival post-1992 will be to have a competitive cost structure. As a result of our location and the increasing part that telecommunications will play in business, it will be of paramount importance that we have an efficient and cheap telephone service. It is important that this does not put customers outside urban centres at a serious cost disadvantage. I recognise that Bord Telecom have taken steps to reduce the cost of international telephone calls but I would argue that was solely because it was cheaper to ring from, for example, America to Ireland than to ring from Ireland to America and Telecom Éireann were losing business. It is a terrible travesty of justice that people in business or private citizens phoning in their county towns have to pay at the rate of a trunk call. We all know what happens when you ring up the county council, or the Department of Agriculture livestock office or the local solicitor or hospital. You get through to the switch and they say: "I wonder if you would mind hanging on a few minutes?" If you are in Dublin or in a local call area it is no problem. But all the time the rural subscriber is left hanging on he is being charged. You get through eventually and begin to talk and then you are asked if you would mind holding on for a minute until the person gets out the file. You wait another three or four minutes while they get the file and look at it. You could tell them to ring you back but I think we all know that the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and it is very important to hold on to somebody when you have them, otherwise you go through the whole rigmarole again.
The Fair Trade Commission should look at this. It would do more for rural Ireland than many other proposed developments. It is something that would be simple and cheap. My proposal is — I would like to see this looked at — to have a step by step approach. In the long term all calls made in this island should be charged at the same rate as is the case with the postal service and the ESB. I accept that it is not likely to happen overnight and that we do not know what cost adjustments would have to be made to pursue such a policy. I suggest that a first step might be taken by making what is now an A rate call a local call; a B rate trunk call an A rate, and a C rate a B rate.
The effect of this on revenue could be monitored and a second step could be subsequently taken. This would also help An Bord Telecom to sell their Eircell system which is growing rapidly, more so here than in most other countries. I understand that international reports back up what I am saying. It has been proven quite conclusively that when such rational steps were taken with air transport, when it was opened up and the State monopoly was forced to compete to be customer led as the jargon is, it resulted in an increase in revenue. I want Telecom Éireann to be profitable, to be out in the market looking for extra business and for more subscribers. I remember, much to their surprise, one time canvassing a valley for telephones and out of 42 houses in one of the most remote rural areas I got 41 houses to sign up to take a telephone and they have never regretted the day.
I am absolutely convinced that if the Minister instituted an investigation by the Fair Trade Commission, everything I have said here would be borne out and that if An Bord Telecom changed their system they would be better off. A huge cost anomaly for rural Ireland would be eliminated and we would all be better off.
