Telephone Capital Bill, 1936—Motion for Money Resolution.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Boland)

I move:

That for the purpose of any Act of the present Session to grant further money for the development of the telephonic system of Saorstát Eireann and for other purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise,

(1) the charge upon the Central Fund or the growing produce thereof of a sum not exceeding £500,000;

(2) the payment out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas of any terminable annuities created for the purpose of borrowing under the authority of such Act; and

(3) in the event of such moneys being insufficient the charge upon the Central Fund or the growing produce thereof of the amount of any terminable annuities created under such Act.

Mr. Dillon

In connection with this Bill I think that in regard to the section providing for further telephonic development it would be helpful to advert, for a moment, to some suggestions made from time to time on the Minister's Estimates, with a view to the development of telephone communication in the country. I suggested, some time ago, that when further development was going to be undertaken, the general question relating to telephones and amenities should be considered from two points of view. At present, as a result of the slow growth of telephone amenities, one frequently finds that a trunk call in rural Ireland involves resorting to a very intricate circuit. If one is telephoning from Ballaghaderreen to a place like Ballyhaunis, one may find oneself going round all the way to Mullingar. I do not say you do, but two towns geographically closely connected may be only telephonically connected by a very involved circuit which might mean considerable delay. I suggested to the Minister once that it might be possible to arrange telephones on a county basis and to provide that you could get communication with any other town in any given county through a county exchange. It occurred to me that if such a plan could be developed it would greatly expedite trunk communication all over the country because one can well imagine several lines connected in, say, the county town of Roscommon with the City of Dublin and every call from anywhere in Roscommon finding its way to the central exchange in Roscommon town which would have communication with the rest of the country. It occurred to me, also, that if the telephone system were developed on these lines, it would be easier to revise the scale of charges on lines more readily comprehensive to the public mind. That does not arise directly out of this motion, but it is one of the reasons why development along the lines I suggest may commend itself to the Minister.

The Minister may remember that I suggested that a call within a county should be threepence; a call within a province 6d; and a call within the country 1/-. Flatteringly enough, I discovered that the Post Office in Great Britain shortly afterwards, for the purpose of night calls, in any case, adopted a scheme somewhat analogous to that which I outlined. I am suggesting that the Minister should follow the plan I suggest and not in any way follow any example set by the British Post Office—a thing I know he would be very reluctant to do.

I should like to hear the Minister's view as to whether it would not greatly expedite trunk calls to organise the telephone on a county basis. I am bound to say in that connection that the trunk service in rural Ireland at present is highly unsatisfactory. It is the exception rather than the rule to get a trunk call from the province of Connaught to the City of Dublin in less than half-an-hour and, in this day and age, I think that is primitive. The Minister will remember that I mentioned this matter to him before, and he then stated as the minimum standard of excellence that 15 minutes should elapse from the time the call originated until it was connected with the City of Dublin, except in the remotest areas. Since that day I have never got a trunk call from Ballaghadereen, in any case, within 15 minutes. You cannot lay the blame on the sub-post office in Ballaghadereen because I telephone as frequently from Dublin to Ballaghadereen as from Ballaghadereen to Dublin, and I have never got a call either way within 15 minutes. I think that is a matter deserving investigation.

I imagine that this matter would also arise on the section. I suspect that in the Central Post Office in Dublin adequate staff is not being maintained for the purpose of trunk calls for which one dials 31 or 36. It may be that we might waste money further developing certain Departments which were really proving unsatisfactory for the want of staff rather than for the want of equipment. We all know that when waiting for someone to answer a telephone the time passes slowly and exaggeration is bound to creep in when describing the length of time we have been kept waiting to make a call. I have now made it a practice to count the buzzes. I infer that there is a standard space of time between each buzz, which I estimate to be about three seconds. I take it that no reasonable citizen calling up the exchange for the purpose of getting in touch with the supervisor or the trunk operator should be kept longer than 25 seconds from the time the telephone begins to ring. I have recently been kept while the bell rang 28 times. I have dialled "0"—I am now speaking of the Dublin Central Exchange—and I have been kept an unconscionable time, so long that I abandoned "0" and went over to 31. I was kept there a very long time. I think 31 is the number which calls the supervisor. I was told by the supervisor that a good many complaints had been received that morning about undue delay. The conversation began by my being a little irate.

Mr. Norton

As usual.

Mr. Dillon

I was kept a long time waiting. But with the usual tact of telephone supervisors my representations were sympathetically heard, and then we both became sympathetic to one another. I admire the tact of the ladies who function as supervisors in the Dublin Central Exchange. We exchanged sympathetic condolences and she assured me that the reason was that they were rushed. I do not think they ought to be rushed. I admit that if you provide adequate staff there are periods during the day when one finds that this staff have not got enough to do. But I do not think you can help that in a public service such as the Post Office or telephone service. If reasonable provision is going to be made for the peak periods of work you must reconcile yourself to the fact that during certain periods of the day the staff will not be fully occupied. I do not think a public service should be run on the principle that an average staff should be kept because the inconvenience that accrues during rush periods to persons who urgently want to establish communication with neighbours is out of all proportion to any economy effected by keeping the staff below the point of efficiency at which it ought to be maintained.

Mr. Minch

I think that we are all agreed that the advances made recently towards reduction of costs and extra facilities are encouraging for the future of the telephone system. There are one or two point, however, which I should like to put before the Minister. I suggest to him that he should investigate the possibility of the closing hour in certain places, which is at present 8 p.m., being brought into line with the 10 p.m. closing hour in other country towns. I am sure his advisers and chief officers will know what I mean without my elaborating a whole lot of local grievances and annoyances. The fact remains that you can ring up a certain town or small village up to 8 p.m., but you cannot do it after that hour, whereas you can get another town a short distance away up to 10 p.m. There should be some uniformity as far as the closing down hour is concerned and let it be 10 p.m. wherever possible.

The other point has reference to the cost of extensions to telephones in business premises. I have heard complaints from business men that it is quite an expensive procedure. The cost is out of all proportion to the facility provided. A friend of mine wanted to get an extension of about 32 yards from one part of an office to another. He was charged an extra rental of something like £3 10s., which at 3½ per cent. represented an outlay of £100. That is the way he looked upon it. I want to direct the attention of the Minister to these matters, which are very essential to the general public. They arise every day. They may appear to be very simple matters, but they cause great inconvenience.

Mr. Norton

There are one or two matters to which I should like to direct the Minister's attention and obtain some information upon. I understood from the Minister's speech on the Second Reading that it was proposed to extend the automatic telephone to the provinces.

Mr. Dillon

He was out of breath when he made that statement.

Mr. Boland

It is hoped to do it in the distant future.

Mr. Norton

How distant is the future?

Mr. Boland

I could not say that.

Mr. Norton

What areas has the Minister in mind? Does he intend to give Deputy Dillon one in Ballaghadereen, or is the intention in the matter of the extension of the automatic service to be limited, say, to Cork, Limerick and, perhaps, Waterford? Has the Minister examined that question with a view to ascertaining the practicability of extending the automatic telephone services, on the basis on which they exist in Dublin, to such limited centres of telephone traffic as Cork, Limerick and Waterford? I gather from the Minister that when he used the term "extension of automatic telephones" he was not thinking of the extension of the system as in operation in Dublin. I should like to get some information from the Minister as to whether he contemplates the installation of the automatic system, as in operation in Dublin, in areas throughout the country, and if so, what areas. Deputy Dillon has made reference to natural irritability when he has not got attention the moment he wants attention. Of course telephone operators, if they knew Deputy Dillon well, would make a certain allowance in that respect for the Deputy's characteristics, but I should like to assure the Deputy that so far as the staff operating the telephone exchanges are concerned they work, particularly during the peak periods of the day, under extremely high pressure. When the peak periods are in existence it is an extremely difficult task for those girls to cope with the volume of traffic that comes in and that must be dealt with.

I want to say to the Minister that I think he could do more to provide staff for the peak periods of traffic than he has done up to the moment. I do not know whether the Minister has paid any official visit to the telephone exchange in Dublin, or whether he has any experience of seeing telephonists operate the telephone service which he controls. If he has not yet paid an official visit to the Crown Alley or Ship Street or Merrion Street Exchange, I suggest to the Minister that before the Report Stage of this Bill he should pay an official visit to those exchanges, and there observe the conditions under which his employees work. I think the Minister will have no hesitation in realising that they work at extremely high pressure, and that he ought to endeavour to relieve that pressure as much as possible. I know of no more irritating and nerve-racking operation than that of operating telephone exchanges, and dealing with a large number of calls, all of which demand almost instantaneous attention. The efforts of the operators to deal with telephone traffic during the peak periods of the day impose a very considerable strain upon them. I think the Minister could ascertain from persons who are in close touch with telephone operators that the strain which they endure has a serious effect on the health of many of the girls, and collapses of telephone operators are not an unknown occurrence so far as Dublin telephone exchanges are concerned.

The Minister is now embarking upon a scheme of further telephone development, and I hope that that development will be accompanied by a greater appreciation of the difficulties under which telephone operators work. A recognition that their burden ought to be lightened as much as possible will, I think, help to ensure that the further telephone development will be accompanied by an efficient service to the public and tolerably decent conditions so far as the operating staffs are concerned. At all events, the Minister is now, by reason of the introduction of new telephone charges, likely to create a telephone traffic formerly unknown in this country. I think the telephone traffic following the introduction of the new telephone charges is going to be unprecedentedly heavy. In Great Britain, two years ago, provision was made for reduced telephone charges and reduced telegraph charges, and everybody who was in touch with the position there in that respect knows that it was accompanied by colossal delays, and by a very heavy breakdown of staff arrangements. I am afraid the same thing is likely to happen here unless adequate provision is made for sufficiently augmenting the staff. I hope that the Minister, before the new telephone rates come into operation, will instruct his officials to ensure that the arrangement is given a fair chance, and that the introduction of the new telephone charges is not going to be the signal for widespread public complaint at the delay in dealing with telephone calls. The Minister ought to make sure that adequate staff is provided for the anticipated increase in telephone traffic which will follow the introduction of the new rates. If he instructs his officials to ascertain the position which followed the introduction of the new rates in Great Britain, I think he will find there a warning of the danger of being niggardly in the matter of providing sufficient staff.

I notice, Sir, that this Bill is to enable the Minister to borrow more money for telephone development, and I want to suggest to the Minister, now that he is developing to a greater extent the telephone services of the country, that some of the people who operate those telephone services might well receive from the Minister a much more generous recognition of their services than they get at present. I do not know if the Minister ever heard of a grade in the Post Office known as night and Sunday telephone attendant? Possibly, the Minister has not. He has only a shadowy idea of what kind of person that is, and of what kind of function he performs. I should like to tell the Minister that that gentleman often performs 22 hours' continuous work in the matter of telephone duties. He works from Saturday evening until Monday morning almost, with the exception of a short period of one and a half hours off to attend to his religious duties on Sunday morning. For that onerous work he is paid an unusually low rate—unusually low having regard to the Minister's general standards in the matter of payment. The low rate of wages paid to those night telephone attendants for the long hours of duty which they perform is something which I think ought to be remedied. I hope, now that the Minister is proceeding along the line of telephone development, he will look into the conditions under which those night telephone attendants work, and the rates at which they are paid. He ought to ensure, so far as he can do so, that those people will be paid a decent rate of wages for the responsible services which they give.

We had the Minister, on the Post Office Estimate, announcing that he was going to give reductions of £22 10s. to telephone subscribers. Many of those persons would not get £22 10s. for their year's work for the Minister. I suggest to him, now that he is in this generous mood of handing out £22 10s. in the form of reductions to telephone subscribers, that he should look into the conditions under which many of his employees are working. In respect of the telephone service which is now the subject of discussion I hope the Minister will find it possible to improve the rates which are paid in this case. If he does that, then the telephone development in the future will, I think, be under happier auspices than telephone development in the past.

Mr. Morrissey

I should like to get some idea from the Minister as to how much of this money which he is asking the House to vote is going to be spent upon the development of telephone services in the country, as distinct from the cities, because so far as the greater part of the country is concerned there has been no noticeable improvement in that service for the last 10 or 12 years. So far as the country districts are concerned, and so far as a great number of fairly large towns are concerned, the telephone services cease at 7 o'clock in the evening. Unless through the courtesy of the Gárdaí, the telephones become useless from 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening until 9 or 10 o'clock on the following morning. It seems to me that the Minister cannot congratulate himself upon the development of the telephone service merely by substituting the automatic system in Dublin for the old system, while down the country there is no advance whatever from the position we were in 10 or 12 years ago. As a matter of fact, so far as the country towns are concerned they are very much worse off to-day than they were 15 years ago, because at that time in many of those towns there was a night service which does not operate now.

I do want to suggest to the House, that if we are here voting the sum of £500,000, we ought to get an undertaking from the Minister that that money will be spent, or a considerable portion of it, at any rate, on improving the telephone service in the country generally, and that it is not going to be confined merely to improving the fairly good services already obtaining in the cities and large towns. I am sure there are other Deputies in this House, representing the rural areas and the towns and villages, who have had complaints made to them, as I have had complaints made to me, about this matter, and particularly about the closing down of the telephone service at seven or eight o'clock in the afternoon in these rural areas. As I have already said, if it were not for the courtesy of the Guards, people in these districts would be cut off from any kind of telephonic communication from that time in the evening until the following morning.

I should like to know also if the Minister is going to use this money for the purpose of getting a more general and extended use of the telephone in the districts where it is not now being used, and in getting a greater number of subscribers. So far as a great part of the country is concerned, the only thing they know about the telephone is that there may be a telephone call, if it is attached to the local post office, or that there may not be, and I think that in parts of this country it would be no exaggeration to say that you might travel 10, 15, or even 20 miles of the country without finding any kind of telephonic communication at all. It seems to me that the system is tending to become lop-sided, so to speak, and that the Post Office authorities are concentrating on Dublin and Cork and other big cities and not making the advance that should be made through the country generally and in the towns and villages. From that point of view we are very backward as compared with other countries.

I think the Minister is making a good start in trying to popularise the service by reducing the charges because, in country districts particularly, where the use of the telephone would not be heavy, and where there would not be a great number of calls, but where it is necessary at the same time to have a telephone service, the fairly heavy charges that obtained hitherto did not appeal to the people in these districts and it was certainly not any inducement to them to instal telephone services. I should like to get from the Minister, however, an assurance that he will do what he can in the Department to see that the country generally will get the benefit of whatever advantages are going to be offered as a result of the spending of this money which we are now asked to vote.

Mr. Kilroy

I should like to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that while there is, I understand, telephonic communication all over the island of Achill, there is no connection between Achill Island and Malaranny. This question has been before the Minister's Department for some time, and I have been written to about that particular matter quite recently. Now that telephonic connections are being extended in many places, I should like the Minister to reconsider this question of the connection between Achill Island and the Malaranny district. It is not a long distance—it is only about seven miles—and at this season of the year it is considered very important by the people of the locality, owing to the tourist traffic there, that there should be means of telephonic communication. As I say, I have been written to quite recently on the matter, and I would be anxious that the Minister should reconsider this question and try to have connection made between the two places.

Mr. G. Boland

I shall deal first with the point made by Deputy Kilroy. This question of extending communication to outlying districts is one that we are always being asked to consider, but it must be remembered that the Post Office is compelled to run on commercial lines, and unless the Government generally is prepared to subsidise these services, we cannot do it. I myself can tell Deputy Kilroy, that I am doing all I can to try to get an extension in places like Malaranny, but, so far, I have not succeeded. However, there are a few outlying districts for which I hope I shall succeed in getting the consent of the Minister for Finance, who, after all, is responsible for all the finance of the country, and who will insist that we run our Department within certain financial limits. That is the question that has to be borne in mind. I cannot promise anything, right now, to Deputy Kilroy except to say that the case he mentioned is a special case, and that there are other special cases like it, in connection with the islands round the coast, where the cost would certainly be prohibitive from the Post Office point of view. It is possible that the Government may do something and then our Department may get the credit of it, but as a Department we cannot do it with the financial resources at our disposal. I can say, however, that the islands are certainly being considered, and that Achill will probably come in for consideration. Anyway, I can assure the Deputy that it has not been lost sight of.

We have no record of any such thing happening. The average is as I said, and it is got from an examination of the telephone exchange books. That can be accepted as accurate. Deputy Dillon's experience has been unfortunate, as he calls at the wrong time and always seems to be unlucky. We hope the time to get calls through will be less when we get the new "trunks" down and that there will be no complaints.

Question put and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 3 Jun 1936