Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 22 Jul 1924

Vol. 8 No. 17

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. VOTE No. 57.—POST OFFICE (RESUMED).

Debate resumed on amendment by Deputy Gorey:—

"That Sub-head A be reduced by £100."

Mr. GOREY

When dealing with the remarks I made under this sub-head last night, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs did not offer us any further information. According to the Estimates the headquarters offices are costing £108,840; the Metropolitan offices, £459,480, and the Provincial offices just £3,000 less than a million. I am not making any remarks with regard to the headquarters' offices, because I recognise that they serve the whole Saorstát. But when we come to the Metropolitan offices, and see that they are costing just half a million, and that the post offices in the rest of the country cost roughly a million, we wonder why the Minister did not include the city in his scheme of ruthless economy, as he called it. He said that the same curtailment was in operation in the city as in the country. But in the country districts we have had sixty-five offices closed, and I understand it is contemplated to close about twenty more. How many offices have been closed in the metropolitan area? I understand that the Glasnevin office was closed, and that it is open again. I have not heard of any other city post office being closed. I want to know where they have been closed.

I do not object to two post offices being in one street, as they may be necessary, but when we have ruthless economy being carried out all over the country, when post offices are situated six Irish miles from each other in the rural districts, why is it absolutely necessary that there should be post offices in Dublin within 150 yards of each other? If the Minister wants to justify himself in the rural districts he had better do the thing properly. Here is half a million to be gambled with. What the Minister has succeeded in saving by his economies in the country districts is very small indeed, and for the sake of that small amount he has created the utmost dissatisfaction. He has alienated the sympathies of almost all the rural population. It is these little pinpricks that count. People ask why the country is not enthusiastic about the Government, why those on the register do not vote at elections, and why some people are becoming Irregulars. It is because of this maladministration, this total disregard of the viewpoint of the people of the country districts. There is no Deputy that I have more respect for than the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. I recognise his honesty. I recognise that he is one man who is trying to do things according to his lights, but in this matter his viewpoint is that of a man who has been born and brought up in a town.

Mr. JOHNSON

He is an honest poor man.

Mr. GOREY

The Deputy will deal with the matter in his own way. The Minister must be animated by the viewpoint of the townsman—the town is the world to him and he does not recognise the country districts at all. It was painful to listen to the Minister last night when he described the services in the country as luxurious and unnecessary. If these words have any application at all they must apply to the towns or the cities. They certainly do not apply to the country districts. When the Minister was talking about luxurious and unnecessary services, I think he must have been drawing on his imagination. If the Minister went down the country for a holiday, he would certainly know the inconveniences which the people in the rural districts suffer from. If some members of his family had to go four or five miles to post a letter, and if he had to pay for every telegram delivered to him; if he was responsible for running a creamery and had to pay for every telegram received, sometimes as many as 20 a day, he would know what it means. I want to know how the Minister justifies these two votes—the Metropolitan Vote and the Provincial Vote. I want to know how many offices have been shut down in the metropolitan area. The Minister ought to have this information, and I ask for it.

Dr. MYLES KEOGH

Deputy Gorey has asked what offices have been closed down in the city. I want to know what particular reason there is for closing down the Wentworth Place Post Office. That Post Office was next door to Boland's Mills, was right opposite Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital, and the Archer Ford-Car people. There are also builders' yards and blocks of houses in the district, so that thousands of people were using the office. I hope the Minister will be able to give us a just reason for closing it down.

Mr. LYONS

I am sorry Deputy Gorey did not move that this Vote be reduced by £800,000 in order to give Deputies a better opportunity of criticising the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs on account of the manner in which the service is carried on. The Minister told us that if the letter rates were reduced there would be a loss of £300,000 on stamps alone. In some country towns the morning delivery varies from 11 o'clock until 12.30 and later. Some time ago I called the attention of the Minister to the postal service in the village of Glasson. Glasson comprises three islands in the Shannon on which there are 150 or 160 families. These people received the post three times weekly in the past, but now there is only one delivery. The postman who went to the islands was in receipt of 30/- a week. He has now only 7/- weekly on which he is expected to live. If there is to be economy surely it should not be at the expense of the workers. I think it is wrong to make such drastic changes. When postmen with long service are discharged or resign vacancies are not now filled by regular postmen. Auxiliary postmen are appointed and no matter how long they serve they will not be entitled to any superannuation. Is it the idea to replace the regular postman by auxiliary men? Auxiliary postmen are paid about 30/- a week and they work from 6 in the morning until 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening. Surely that is not a satisfactory wage for such work. It is not owing to the high wages postmen receive that the letter postage is 2d. There must be something wrong some place else. I notice that on the headquarter's staff there is a decrease of £7,104. That saving, no doubt, was effected in wages. The upkeep of the provincial offices has decreased by £89,350. Is it the intention of the Minister to provide good postal facilities throughout the country? In Athlone people who live within five minutes walk from the Post Office do not receive their letters until 1.30 p.m.

When attention has been called to these matters the cry has been: "We must reduce the staff." The result is that the present staff is not large enough to deal with the work. I would like to ask the Minister if postmen are engaged in an insured occupation, and if dismissed, or if they resign, will they be entitled, when they cannot find other employment, to unemployment benefit? Are contributions deducted from their wages towards National Health and Unemployment Insurance benefits? The Minister mentioned that postal facilities were now provided on Good Friday. I would like to know if postal facilities will be granted to the rural districts on bank holidays? Do Deputies know the financial loss the stopping of the deliveries on bank holidays has been to the postmen? Under the British Government the postmen were entitled to the full day's wages for the bank holiday, and if they worked half a day they were entitled to another day's wages. That is, they were entitled to two days' wages for the holiday. The Minister made a great saving by knocking off one day's pay for each bank holiday. In some cases 12/6 was knocked off the wages of a man who was getting £3 17s. 6d. weekly. That was not enough so the Department had to go further. In order to make postmen realize that they had a Government of their own, it was necessary to reduce wages so that there might be a saving in the administration of the post office.

The Minister has closed sixty-five of these sub-offices, and I understand he is expecting to close another twenty. I would like to know what the actual saving is on the closing of these offices. The real victims in my opinion of the closing of these sub-offices are the people who live in the vicinity of them. I would ask the Minister to release the hold he has on these people who are his victims, and again give them the opportunity of having the facilities which they enjoyed hitherto of a sub-post office in their own townlands. A question was raised yesterday with regard to the delivery of telegrams. According to the Minister, a charge is put on the delivery of telegrams to persons residing one mile, two miles or three miles from a post office. I believe that in some cases the extra charge for the delivery of these telegrams is 2s. 6d. What I want to know is, does that 2s. 6d. go to the telegraph messenger who delivers the telegram, or to the State. I mentioned last year on the Post Office Estimate that it was time the price of stamps on letters and postcards was reduced. In my opinion a penny ought to be sufficient for a stamp on a postcard, but under the present arrangement you must put a three-halfpenny stamp on it. I wonder is the extra halfpenny due to the fact that a green dye is used now instead of the red one which we were accustomed to when the British were here. I think that if the price of stamps was reduced that you would have more letters and postcards sent, and that instead of a loss there would be a gain to the Government Exchequer as a result of the change. Of course I know, too, that the Minister is very fond of the postmen, and that he does not like to have them carrying a big load. The Minister mentioned yesterday a matter regarding parcels.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The question which the Deputy is addressing himself to now was disposed of yesterday. What is before the Dáil is an amendment moved by Deputy Gorey drawing attention to the alleged differentiation between rural areas and the city of Dublin.

Mr. LYONS

Surely Middle Abbey Street Post Office is in the city of Dublin, and that is what I am going to allude to.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I am not concerned with what the Deputy is going to allude to, but rather with the matter that he mentioned, and, as I have pointed out, that was disposed of yesterday. The Deputy should have made his speech yesterday, and he will now have to keep to the question raised by Deputy Gorey's amendment.

Mr. LYONS

I went into the Post Office in Middle Abbey Street yesterday with a parcel weighing eight ounces. The postage on it cost me nine pence, and if I had to send it by letter post it would have cost me 1/3.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy has had his opportunity now and he must sit down.

Mr. McKENNA

Deputies in the Dáil, representing rural constituencies, if they are to voice the opinions of their constituents must, I think, support the amendment that has been moved by Deputy Gorey. We all admire the great attempt that has been made by the Minister to try and make ends meet so far as his Department is concerned. We all know that for over thirty years, since about the year 1887, the institution of which the Minister is now head, never paid. It never paid when the British were here, but even so, they never attempted to do what the Minister is attempting to do now, and that is, abolish a lot of sub-offices in rural areas. I think there is very little more that I can add to what has already been said on this matter by other Deputies. I desire, however, to say that it is most unfair to the rural areas to have all these sub-offices abolished. If that policy were applied all round there would be some grounds for the Minister's action, but in my opinion it is very unfair to penalise one section of the community.

Major COOPER

Deputy Lyons has asked the Minister so many questions that he would require the lives of Methuselah's cat if he were to answer all of them. I will try to help him by meeting Deputy Gorey and Deputy McKenna in their arguments to a certain extent, because they have not gone closely into the details of this Vote (A2), to which Deputy Gorey has moved a reduction. I quite sympathise with Deputy Gorey's complaint against the reduction of rural post offices. The saving effected is not very great. As far as the sub-postmasters are concerned, the amount is only £5,000, and I think that is hardly commensurate with the amount of inconvenience that is caused. Deputy Gorey contrasted the conditions in the country with the conditions in the towns, but I think there is one point which he overlooked. It is quite true that the figures are rather startling, and I trust that the Minister will give us a definition as to what is meant by the "metropolitan area." The metropolitan area, as I understand it, includes not only the City of Dublin but also the townships and even outside the townships in the County Dublin. What is really an expensive item in this Vote is that the metropolitan offices include a staff of indoor supervising officers, sorting clerks, and telegraphists, etc. There are 942 of them, and only just over 1,000 throughout the rest of the country. In the metropolitan offices all the telegraph work for the whole country has to be done. If Deputy Gorey writes a letter to Deputy McKenna, asking him to come to the Dáil to make a speech, that letter goes through Dublin and has to be sorted in Dublin.

Mr. GOREY

If the Deputy looks at A1 (Headquarters Offices) he will find that I did not deal with that at all.

Major COOPER

I am not dealing with A1, but with A2, and I am contrasting A2 with A3 (Provincial offices). There are no telegraphists in A1. The point I was making was that if Deputy Gorey sends a telegram to Deputy White to Tirconaill, it has to go through Dublin, and has to be handled by the Dublin telegraphists. In fact, these people in the metropolitan offices, while serving the city and suburban areas of the city, also serve the whole country, because Dublin is a sort of clearinghouse for the whole country. It is quite arguable, of course, that it should not be so, and that there is too much concentration in Dublin.

It might be argued, for instance, that the work could be done more expeditiously by having large central telegraph offices in Athlone or Mullingar. That, I say, is a quite arguable point, but under the present system I maintain that that is an altogether exaggerated Vote as regards the metropolitan offices, because these offices, I hold, are doing work for the whole country. The number of sub-postmasters in the city is 150, while the number in the country is 1,985, and in addition there are 58 postmasters in provincial offices. In the metropolitan offices the number of outdoor supervising officers, postmen, messengers, etc., is 1,057, while the number for the provincial offices is just 6,000. These figures show that this is a very inflated Vote as far as the metropolitan offices are concerned, because the sorting clerks and telegraphists, who should only work for Dublin alone, are really working for the whole country. That explains why the Vote for the metropolitan offices is so big. I sympathise with Deputy Gorey in the plea he has put forward against the closing of so many sub-post offices in rural areas, but at the same time I cannot vote for the amendment he has moved, though I did vote with him last night on the motion that the Vote be referred back.

Mr. CONLAN

I sympathise with the views expressed by so many Deputies as to the dissatisfaction that has been caused by the closing of so many sub-post offices throughout the country. I desire to refer to one in particular in the County Kildare. This sub-post office was in the village of Johnstown Bridge, and its closing has caused great dissatisfaction and inconvenience to the people in the locality served by it. The result of the closing of that office is this: the poor people drawing the old age pension have to go a distance of from five to six miles to the nearest post office for the purpose of drawing their pensions now.

Mr. P.K. HOGAN

I support Deputy Gorey in regard to this Vote, but I would like to bring before the House another point of view, and that is the inefficient service rendered to the dairying industry of this country in the administration of the postal service. We find it very hard to market our agricultural produce owing to the very bad postal service. It is three days before a letter posted in England is delivered to the creameries, and that is a very wretched service. We have complaints from English merchants in regard to the unbusinesslike methods of the managers of the co-operative creameries, but the managers of the creameries are not to blame at all. It is the postal service that is to blame. Frequently letters are let lie in the sub-post offices for twenty-four hours before they are delivered at the creamery. We certainly find the whole system of the postal service a great hardship in our rural districts. In some of the villages the Post Office Department differentiates very much between the marketing of agricultural produce and the buying of English draperies. Anyone setting up a creamery now, if he wanted to secure an efficient postal service, would be well advised to have his creamery situated in a village where there are draperies. He would then be pretty sure to have his letters delivered daily, but if he sets up his creamery in the country, he could not rely on getting his English letters twenty-four hours after they had arrived.

We spent a considerable amount of time passing a Dairy Bill through the Dáil which I am sure will give good results. We, in the rural districts, wished that there could have been tacked on to it a clause giving us greater postal facilities in marketing the butter that we will produce under this Bill at a higher standard than at present.

Mr. McGARRY

I am afraid, A Chinn Comhairle, that what I have got to say is rather in the nature of a personal matter than directly concerned with the Vote. I do not know whether I could get it in at this point, but perhaps I could get it in as a personal explanation, and I would ask your ruling.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I do not like personal points.

Mr. McGARRY

I made a statement yesterday that was denied by the Postmaster-General, and now I want to make it clear.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Perhaps it is better to do that now.

Mr. McGARRY

I said yesterday that the Postmaster-General admitted that he employed agents to come up here to the Lobby to hear what Deputies were saying, and I said that this was a most improper action, and the Postmaster-General denied it. Unfortunately, I had left my copy of the evidence before the Broadcasting Committee behind me, and I could not contradict him at the time, and probably if I did so I would have been ruled out of order. Now, at page 106 of the evidence given before the Wireless Broadcasting Committee the Postmaster-General said: "It will be within the recollection of the Committee that both Deputy McGarry and Deputy Figgis have uttered a libellous statement against me, which was with drawn and apologised for. It will also be remembered that I stated here on more than one occasion that the libel originated in the House, and also that I was satisfied the libel originated with those Deputies and was propagated by those Deputies."

I never apologised to the P.M.G., and he can have the name of my solicitor, and I will instruct my solicitor to accept a writ for libel any time he likes. But that is not what I want to say in connection with the denial. Deputy Magennis, at question 862, asked:—

"Does the P.M.G. say that he had employed agents to discover if slanderous conversations were going on among Members in the Lobby."

And the answer was:—

"I had invited friends to ascertain if they were both within and without the Lobby."

"Is the Captain Moynihan whom you mentioned late of Oriel House? —Yes."

Mr. GOREY

On a point of order, I think this matter is of such importance, and cutting right across the matter that is being discussed here, as it does, that I do not think it is proper to discuss it at this stage. It is not fair to Deputies who want to deal with the matter immediately under discussion, and it is not fair to Deputy McGarry.

Mr. McGARRY

I suggested that at the beginning, but An Ceann Comhairle ruled I should go on.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I was wholly misled. I thought Deputy McGarry was going to soften what he said yesterday, and that is why I let him speak. But he seems to be making it worse. That Broadcasting Report has nothing to do with this discussion and nothing to do with the Estimates. It does not concern, in any way, the policy or administration of the Department of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It is a personal question as between Deputy McGarry and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He made a statement yesterday, and the Minister made another statement. I think we should let it lie at that. If Deputy McGarry had consulted me on this question I might have found some opportunity for him, but it serves no good purpose whatever to go into personal matters here. I thought Deputy McGarry was simply going to withdraw what he said yesterday.

Mr. McGARRY

Why should I withdraw?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I have no desire that you should withdraw it except that it would be less personal.

Mr. McGARRY

Before you allowed me to make the statement—

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy was allowed to make a statement and the Minister has contradicted it, and I think that should end it, particularly as regards this particular Vote.

Mr. McGARRY

If the evidence in print is contradicted—

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I will not hear Deputy McGarry upon this any further.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I want to ask a question with regard to unemployment insurance.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That is a separate question and will arise later. This amendment of Deputy Gorey's deals with the question of postal service in rural areas.

Mr. MORRISSEY

My question, I think, arises indirectly out of the curtailment of the rural services.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Very well.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The point I want to put to the Minister is if the money stopped from postmen and auxiliary postmen is a contribution towards the sum of their unemployment insurance card. I brought this matter under the notice of the Minister on the Estimates last year, when a number of auxiliary postmen had been reduced to three days a week owing to reduced delivery. Their wages in some cases ranged from ten shillings per week, and notwithstanding that they could only get work every second day from the Post Office, they were not eligible to draw unemployment insurance benefit. I would like to know from the Minister when he replies if he has tried to adjust the work these men are performing, or tried to enter into any arrangement with the Minister for Industry and Commerce whereby these men may be allowed to get unemployment insurance benefit for the days they cannot get work.

Mr. WALSH

The adjustment of unemployment insurance to meet the case quoted by Deputy Morrissey is not altogether a matter with which my department can deal. It is a general one. I see the justice of the case, and, as a matter of fact, it may be possible to do something. I will go into it very carefully.

Mr. JOHNSON

Is the Minister aware that certain industries have, as a matter of fact, entered into an arrangement of the kind now suggested?

Mr. WALSH

I have an idea that some such arrangement has been come to, and in this particular case it will be gone into carefully. I think that that also disposes of the other point with reference to the insurance of postmen. Deputy Cooper disposed of the question of the respective charges in Dublin and the provinces very fully, except, perhaps, he failed to mention one item, and that is the maintenance of the different railway services, and also the cross-channel mail service is included in this particular Vote. I can assure Deputy Gorey that we do not pay anybody in the metropolitan area, which includes the city and county, for knocking his heels against the wall. The same measure of retrenchment and of hard maximum output is insisted on here as elsewhere. Only two post offices have been closed in Dublin.

Mr. GOREY

Two in the city and county.

Mr. WALSH

Yes. The work in these offices was insufficient to keep them going and to justify their retention. In regard to the closing of offices in the country the facts are otherwise to what have been stated. It would astonish some Deputies if they knew the very meagre output in these offices. I have given facts and figures to Deputies who have protested against the closing of these offices, and when they saw them they agreed that the justification for their retention considering the cost was very little.

Mr. GOREY

Is cost the only consideration?

Mr. WALSH

There is another consideration. In many cases we found offices open in close proximity to one another. Some were opened in days gone by when it was apparently easy to influence British Ministers to do a turn for a district. You found instances where sub-offices were within half a mile or mile of each other, both of them doing very little. In regard to Wentworth Place, mentioned by Deputy Myles Keogh, we do not consider that there is sufficient justification for the retention of that office, and I see no reason to alter the decision to close it. Deputy Lyons has referred to what he alleges to be a worse delivery in certain towns. There are a number of places in which we have to decide whether a morning delivery would suffice for the whole day or whether a morning plus cross-Channel delivery should be combined. In the majority of cases the option of deciding is left to the local people. Our job is to facilitate the people to the best advantage without undue loss. We have to take the question of loss into consideration whether we like it or not. In reference to the creameries, we have not, so far as I am aware, made the postal deliveries to creameries any worse. Not only that, but we have a big list of creameries at the moment which we hope we will have joined up telephonically in the future. This extension of the telephone service is going to cost the State something, but we are doing it to help industry. It is not quite an easy matter to get the Minister for Finance to sanction an experiment of this kind. Our predecessors, with all their wealth, never did it. Were it not for the fact that we felt that we had made a case by retrenchment in other directions, we could not do it. My critics here could not do it. The big extension of the telephone service was due to the fact that we were able to save in another way. Everyone here knows, as well as I know, that if we did not cut our cloth to a reasonable limit we would be quickly told about it. It has been suggested here that if there had been an extension of that cutting we would also have been told about it. The policy we adopt is to bring the loss on the Post Office to a reasonable limit. We are approaching that stage, and once we have come to it, and get the Ministry of Finance to permit a grant, we can strike out in useful directions and we will do so. We do not say that because we save in one direction we will not go on in another. It is quite immaterial to me, personally, whether we lose £600,000 or £1,000,000. I am merely trying to carry out the wishes of the Dáil and the country, but there are limits within which we will be permitted to spend the nation's money. I do not know whether we are dealing with the entire Vote here now. If we are not I am not going to touch the question of telegraphs.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 10; Níl, 32.

Tá.

• Pádraig F. Baxter.
• John Conlan.
• Connor Hogan.
• Séamus Mac Cosgair.
• Patrick McKenna.
• Donchadh O Guaire.
• Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Patrick K. Hogan (Luimneach).
• Nicholas Wall.

Níl.

• Séamus Breathnach.
• Seán Buitléir.
• Seoirse de Bhulbh.
• Louis J. D'Alton.
• Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
• Patrick J. Egan.
• John Hennigan.
• William Hewat.
• Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Patrick McGilligan.
• Eoin Mac Néill.
• Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Martin M. Nally.
• Tomás de Nógla.
• Peadar O hAodha.
• Criostóir O Broin.
• Seán O Bruadair.
• Richard O'Connell.
• Partholán O Conchubhair. Aodh O Cúlacháin.
• Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
• Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
• Eamon O Dúgáin.
• Seán O Laidhin.
• Aindriú O Laimhín.
• Séamus O Leadáin.
• Fionán O Loingsigh.
• Séamus O Murchadha.
• Seán O Súilleabháin.
• Caoimhghín O hUigín.

Amendment declared lost.

Sub-head A agreed to.

Sub-heads B, C, and D agreed to.