Committee on Finance. - Vote 61—Posts and Telegraphs. – Dáil Éireann (12th Dáil) – Friday, 28 Feb 1947

Committee on Finance. - Vote 61—Posts and Telegraphs.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Little)

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £377,815 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1947, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (45 and 46 Vict., c. 74; 8 Edw. 7, c. 48; 1 and 2 Geo. 5, c. 26; the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1928; No. 14 of 1940 (secs. 30 and 31); No. 14 of 1942 (sec. 23), etc.), and of certain other Services administered by that Office.

The Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, already approved by the Dáil for the financial year ending 31st March, 1947, amounted to £3,549,320. Due to causes which could not have been anticipated this provision will be insufficient, and an additional sum of £377,815 will be required to cover essential expenditure up to the end of the financial year. The actual excess over the approved Estimate amounts to £392,400, but there is an off-setting saving of £14,585 representing increased Appropriations-in-Aid, leaving the net excess at £377,815.

Of the excess, £225,070 is required under sub-heads A (1), (2), (3) and (4), and of this sum £189,030 is in respect of increases in remuneration resulting from the recent decision to consolidate the pay of civil servants as from 1st November, 1946. The balance of the additional provision under these sub-heads is due to increased staff and extra duty necessitated by general expansion of business and to the improvements in the remuneration of sub-postmasters, effective also from 1st November, 1946, of which the Dáil had already been informed. The amount required for sub-postmasters to the end of the financial year, namely, for five months, is £31,000.

The causes of other increases are, broadly, as follows:—Sub-head D, increase £3,550, due to the purchase of premises at Distillery Road, Dublin, for use as a garage for engineering branch vehicles. Sub-head E (1) and (5), increase £55,525, due mainly to payments to Córas Iompair Éireann in respect of increased mail traffic, and to new air mail services, including daily services to U.S.A. and Canada. Sub-head G (2), increase £4,600, the result mainly of contracts for uniform clothing, due for delivery in 1945-46, not having been completed until 1946-47, and of replenishment of stocks as the supply position permitted. Sub-head I (1), increase £27,655, due mainly to increased staff remuneration on consolidation and to provision for abnormal storm repairs. Sub-head K, increase £54,000, due to increased purchases of engineering stores required for an expanding programme of work, delivery of which was not expected in the current financial year, and to abnormal storm repairs. Sub-head N (1), increase £22,000 due to an unanticipated increase in the number of retirements. The increase in the receipts under sub-head T, Appropriations-in-Aid, £14,585, is attributable, mainly, to additional receipts from Savings Bank funds and receipts for agency services performed on behalf of other administrations. I anticipate that our main Estimate will be introduced very soon when there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss matters.

Mr. Norton

The Minister would be lonely, apparently, if somebody did not raise something on this Estimate. I only want to raise one matter, and that is the question of the provision for stores under sub-head G (2). I notice that there is provision for an additional expenditure of £4,600 and, so far as it means the provision of a greater quantity of uniform clothing, I welcome it, because during the last seven years a very serious situation has existed from time to time in respect of uniform clothing and, particularly, in respect of protective clothing. I know that the matter is not wholly within the control of the Post Office Department, that it has to rely on imported supplies, and that these have not come with the regularity that was previously the case. But a very serious situation has developed in respect of protective clothing. The Minister knows the kind of weather we always experience here in winter; he knows, in particular, the kind of exceptionally severe weather we have experienced for the past three or four months.

When you remember that postmen may be required to walk as much as 18 miles in rural areas every day in snow and rain and may be required to cycle 26 or 28 miles for six days of the week in snow and rain, you get some appreciation of the necessity for protecting them against the inclement weather in which they have to perform their duties. It is well known, I think, to the Post Office Department that the material which is being used in protective clothing is of very inferior quality. The Post Office tries to get that inferior material to last twice as long as it previously required material to last. But, of course, actual experience has shown how impossible it is for the Post Office to expect sub-normal material to last as long as normal material and that requirement has broken down.

The appeal I want to make to the Minister is this: We have been passing through very bad weather. Stocks of protective clothing have not been sufficient to provide adequate protection for those who are compelled to work out of doors in all kinds of weather. A postman cannot just say: "The weather is bad; there has been a heavy fall of snow and I will not go out today; I will work indoors." The postmen have to perform their outdoor duties in all kinds of weather. I appeal to the Minister to take every step available to him to provide protective clothing in every case in which it is certified that the present protective clothing is unserviceable. The Minister may tell me that the Post Office endeavour to do that. They say they do. But, from time to time, they say: "We have no protective clothing in stock", and this is said at a time when the papers are full of advertisements offering Army protective clothing at certain prices. If the Department itself cannot provide protective clothing from its own stocks, may I suggest to the Minister that he should endeavour to secure some of the waterproof protective clothing that is available for sale in shops and through private firms and to utilise that, at all events, to supplement the inadequate stocks which are at present held by the Post Office.

I do not say that that is a very satisfactory arrangement. I do not pretend it is an ideal arrangement. But it is much better than an arrangement whereby an officer is required to walk 18 miles in wet and snowy weather without adequate protection against the elements. I should like at all events, if the Minister feels that his Department is not able to provide a regular supply of protective clothing from their own stocks of material, that favourable consideration will be given to the question of purchasing auxiliary stocks through private firms so that these may be available to protect outdoor officers against the elements which they are compelled to withstand in present circumstances. Even from a Departmental point of view, the provision of proper protective clothing is a good investment, because if the Department, by reason of providing inferior protective clothing or unserviceable clothing, permits an officer to contract a cold or rheumatism or anything else, in the long run his sick leave costs the Post Office probably much more than the provision of proper protective clothing would cost.

I know that the general question of providing protective clothing in existing circumstances is difficult because of the fact that the Department has to rely to a considerable extent on imported material. No doubt it will endeavour to secure supplies of that material from normal sources of supply, but I should like the Minister to examine the question of supplementing the stocks by purchases from private firms until such time as the Department can get back to a position in which it can supply protective clothing from its own stocks.

Mr. Little

I shall certainly take notice of what the Deputy has said. As a matter of fact, already we have been discussing the possibility of looking about us because, as he said, it is extremely difficult to get a really satisfactory type of protective clothing at present owing to the fact that it has to be imported and that there is a shortage. We certainly will examine all the possibilities of these various sources which we see advertised. If anything can be done in that matter, it will be done, because we appreciate very much the work done by our postmen at the present time. I cannot but admire the way in which, in spite of the inclemency of the weather, they have been able to carry on with such regularity.

Another matter which I should like to mention, because I think the public would be interested in it, is the question of putting all trunk lines underground. It is the policy of the Department as part of the scheme of large-scale telephone development to place the main net-work of telephone trunk circuits underground in cables. This will have, incidentally, the advantage of rendering them more or less immune from damage in storms such as occurred lately, although the possibility of cable faults occurring which would seriously dislocate the service for a short time will remain.

The policy of placing trunk circuits in underground cables instead of running them overhead has not been decided upon because of liability of overhead wires to storm damage. Underground cabling is so very expensive—a cable from Dublin to Cork would, for example, cost close on £1,000,000—that it would not be warranted on this score alone. But the number of wires that can be carried on a pole route is, of course, limited, and in order to cater for the large expansion of telephone traffic which we expect to develop, trunk cables which can provide an almost unlimited number of circuits will be laid. Immunity from storm damage is an incidental, though valuable, benefit which will flow from the decision to place trunk circuits underground.

The public and Deputies will, I am sure, wish to know something regarding the extent of the damage caused to telephone and telegraph services by the blizzard on 25th February. We have been particularly unfortunate this year, at a time when our staff were making their maximum effort to prepare for a programme of rapid expansion of the telephone service, in that two of the severest snowstorms of our experience have followed close on each other. The storm of 2nd February caused severe and extensive damage to trunk lines throughout the country as well as putting 5,000 subscribers' lines out of order in Dublin. By stopping all new construction work, and by an all-out effort under exceptionally bad conditions, our engineering staff were able to restore all the trunk lines and 4,000 subscribers' lines by the 25th February when the further blizzard occurred. Now their work has to a very large extent been undone and it has been necessary to start all over again. Another 1,000 subscribers' lines in Dublin have been affected and the whole trunk system has been disrupted. The damage has been even greater than that caused by the storm of 2nd February, being particularly severe south of Port Laoighise, west and north-west of Mullingar and south of Wicklow. The engineering staff have succeeded in reestablishing communication with almost all main centres but in most cases direct circuits are not yet available and resort must be had to very circuitous routing. No direct circuits are available from Dublin to Arklow, Ballina, Cavan, Claremorris, Cork, Clonmel, Ennis, Enniscorthy, Limerick, Longford, Monaghan, Roscrea, Thurles, Tipperary, Tralee, Waterford or Wexford as well as to other less important communications centres. The repair work is being pressed ahead with the utmost possible speed but is severely hampered by difficulties of transport, owing to lack of trains and the impassable state of many roads.

I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the truly excellent work done by the engineering staff in minimising the effect of the snowstorms. They have been working, as Deputies know, under conditions of exceptional difficulty and hardship and have not hesitated to continue in their efforts to restore lines even when weather conditions were such that no one could have complained had they desisted. They are deserving of the best thanks of the Department and the community for their exceptionally zealous and meritorious service.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Friday, 28 Feb 1947

Committee on Finance. - Vote 61—Posts and Telegraphs.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 28 Feb 1947