Like many other Deputies in this House, in the course of the past 12 months I addressed questions to the Minister in charge of this Department. The answers to some of the questions were satisfactory and the answers to other questions were not. I consider it incumbent upon me to say now that, so far as I am concerned, the attitude of the Minister was the attitude of a gentleman. It is a source of satisfaction to Deputies to be able to address questions to a Minister and to get the information requested in a manner which will not cause arguments and disunity in this House. I wish also to pay a well-deserved tribute to the officials of the Minister's Department. I found in the past 12 months, and for three or four years previous to that time, that when these officials were asked for advice or information affecting their Department, they gave it most readily. It is most gratifying for us in this House to be able to say that the officials of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs can at all times be depended on to give the advice and information which is so essential not only to Deputies but to the people down the country who are depending on the Deputies to help them.
I want to bring the matter of a daily postal delivery service in the rural areas to the attention of the Minister. There is a morning and evening postal delivery, six days in the week, in the cities and large towns, but in parts of the rural areas and in parts of South Cork—the Bandon postal district, for instance—the people receive letters only every second day or, roughly, there are three postal deliveries per week. Within the past two months I received a complaint from a farmer in regard to the postal delivery service in his district. He had placed an order with a person in Killiney, County Dublin, for some day-old chicks. He was notified by post that they would arrive at his postal district on a certain date. The difficulty was that on the date on which they were due to be sent by Córas Iompair Éireann to this particular postal district there was no postal delivery to the farmer's address. It was only by the merest chance that the farmer's young son happened to be some miles from home on that day and was in the vicinity of a district in which letters were being distributed and that he was able to get the letter which was addressed to his father, who was then able to collect the chicks. If the farmer had had to wait until the delivery of the letter in the normal way, it would probably have meant that the day-old chicks would not have survived until they were collected at the depot and that the money paid by him for the chicks would have been wasted. That is just one instance of the inconvenience and hardship caused to people in rural areas by the inadequacy of the postal service.
If the Minister is having this subject reconsidered I hope he will bear in mind the fact that a speedy delivery of letters in rural areas is vitally important to the people who reside there. It is possible that there may not be a large number of letters to be delivered in some of those areas. We should not forget, however, that young men and women have emigrated from those places and that, now and again, they are in a position to send a few pounds home to the old people. Naturally, they send the money through the post and very frequently the old people are watching and waiting for it to enable them to pay the baker or the grocer or some other bills which they incur. Sometimes a delay of even one day in the delivery of a letter which contains money can mean great inconvenience to the old people in the matter of getting their provisions and being able to pay for them on the spot, which they are always anxious and willing to do.
When the daily postal delivery service was instituted in the Cork area where, previously, there had been a postal delivery roughly only three times per week, it proved a godsend to the people there. One official in the Minister's Department who was responsible to a great degree for working out the machinery for putting that daily postal delivery service into motion came from the West Cork area and was aware of the difficulties which faced the people there. Unfortunately, in the middle of this very important work, that official, who was well known for the capable manner in which he discharged his work, died. The postal delivery service in the Bandon and other rural postal districts is a big problem. When the matter is being considered I hope it will not be considered in the light of the cities and large towns versus the rural areas. That attitude will get us nowhere.
Every Deputy who has spoken so far in this debate has mentioned the problem of the auxiliary postman. In the rural areas we frequently come across old men who have given a lifetime of service to the delivery of mails. Some people may say that these men spend only a few hours a day at that particular work and may suggest that they can take up other work also because their Post Office employment is only part-time. That may be true in so far as a young man holding the position of an auxiliary postman is concerned. As these auxiliary postmen advance in years and as they become old, surely it will not be suggested that other employment will be available for them. These men have to travel miles around in the rural areas on very bad roads in many districts. We know that in many instances there is no alternative employment for them. They depend solely on the income they receive from the Post Office as auxiliary postmen. This is a long outstanding problem. It is a problem for which the present Minister is not responsible nor is it one for which his predecessor was responsible. It is a system that has become rooted in the Post Office and which should have been got rid of years ago. By doing something to improve the lot of these men, the Minister would be breaking new ground. This is a problem which vitally affects the people concerned.
I know that they got an increase in wages within the last few years but that was not sufficient. If a man has given 25, 30 or 40 years' service he ought to be classified as a permanent official and, on retirement, he should be entitled to some just reward for his years of service in the office of trust which he has held. In the locality in which I live there were a permanent postman and there auxiliary postmen. The permanent postman retired. Two of the auxiliary postmen had up to 20 years' service, while the other had a longer period of service. They could not be offered the route that was being operated by the permanent postman. The Post Office, under their rules and regulations, had to insist upon getting a permanent postman for that district.
A permanent postman came into the district on several occasions. Finding that the problem of paying for lodgings was so difficult and having regard to the wages, each person who arrived in that area found it did not pay him to stay in the district. That position prevailed for a few years. We had auxiliary men who were born and reared in that parish, men who had given years of highly satisfactory service and yet they could not enjoy the advantage of that particular route, a route in respect of which there was a higher rate of wages than that obtaining in regard to the routes they were servicing. There should be some system whereby consideration would be given to these men. They have only a certain time in which to cover the mileage on certain routes in their district. Inspectors check these routes at various times. I have nothing in the world against the inspectors. They are doing their work honestly and conscientiously. Quite often it happens by accident, not by design, that on a particular day, when an auxiliary postman's route is checked, he has no letters for some of the residents who may be living at the furthest point on that particular route. There can, therefore, be arguments between the postal officials and the auxiliary postmen in regard to a quarter of an hour or half an hour's overtime. I would suggest to the Minister that something constructive should be done to give the auxiliary postmen their due. They should be offered some kind of permanence instead of having them depend on a few pounds' gratuity when they retire after 40 or 45 years' service.
For the last few years the question of public telephones has been to a large extent very well met by the Department. When the Minister's predecessor explained in the House the details of a scheme for Department officials, I admit that some of us may not have been too pleased. I, personally, was not too pleased. All Deputies have their own peculiar problems and I was afraid this scheme might work out in such a way that counties near to Dublin and other counties might get more than their fair slice of the cake. From what I have seen, I will admit that the distribution of public telephones has certainly been done on a very even basis. Progress has certainly been very noticeable.
Now that the problem has been dealt with to such an extent and having regard to the fact that the Minister and his officials have dealt with a heavy share of the demands, I would suggest that the Minister and his Department should concentrate on the problem which faces some of the rural areas owing to the lack of public telephones. Some of the people in these areas are very severely handicapped, particularly in a case of sudden illness, when they may require a doctor or a priest. In sending for either, the messenger may have to go a long distance. The necessity may arise at a time when the messenger may not be conveniently available. Facilities should be provided in cases such as these. They may be small but in themselves such facilities would be of great help to the people in rural areas and would do an immense amount of good for the rural community.
There is another section of the community, the farming community, for whom a public telephone is of the greatest importance. Owing to the advances made in the Department of Agriculture, farmers in certain localities may want to get on to places such as artificial insemination centres. They should have the use of a public telephone when the necessity arises. In the areas, where those facilities are not available, farmers have every right to complain. When Department officials are in a position to report an improvement in meeting the demand for public telephones for other purposes, they should then consider the centres which, up to the present, have no hope of getting these telephones.
I mentioned last year on this Estimate another item—the problem which confronts people in seaside resorts, where there are no public telephone facilities available on Sundays. On that particular occasion the Minister agreed that he would consider the matter. I am not suggesting that the Minister is losing sight of it. It is a matter of which we cannot afford to lose sight. Unfortunately, we read in the newspapers accounts of a few drownings at our seaside resorts every year. Perhaps, sometimes, we actually witness such drownings. As I mentioned last year, there were two very tragic drowning accidents in my own locality on a Sunday, last summer, but if a public telephone service had been available on that day these two lives would have been saved. In view of the fact that we have a long coastline and a large number of permanent seaside resorts, drowning accidents could become widespread. Therefore, I would urge the Minister to see to it that a public telephone service is available on Sundays.
I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the question of giving a weekly half-holiday to the staff of sub-post offices. I am aware that this system operates in some localities, but there are a very large number of places where it does not. It may be argued that some sub-post offices are glorified little grocers' shops as well as being post offices. However, I know of a lot of cases where they are sub-post offices and no more. Of course, there may be a few old cranks who may tell us that it would be impossible for them to carry on if these offices closed for a half-day in the week. They may argue that it would be very inconvenient for them if they could not go to the post office at their own convenience to buy a halfpenny or a two pence halfpenny stamp.
Some years ago, when it was suggested that postmen should not deliver mails on Christmas Day, one would imagine that the end of the world was at hand. However, people have now got into the habit of getting the last delivery of Christmas letters on Christmas Eve, and the postmen have earned the right to leisure on Christmas Day. In the same way, if the postmaster, the post-mistress or their employees were given the advantage of a half-holiday per week, the public would soon adjust themselves to the situation. After all, shops complying with the Shops (Hours of Trading) Act close for a half-holiday per week. I would like the Minister to give me some information on this question of a half-holiday for sub-post offices. Are there any discussions in progress at the present time between the Minister's Department and any union?
The use of delivery vans has been of great help in the speeding up of deliveries in rural areas. It is very gratifying to see letters being delivered early in the morning and collected in the evening by means of this service. I am sure you all heard the older people speaking of the mail coach. Long ago there were no conveniences such as buses available to the public and they depended solely on the mail coach as a mode of conveyance for the delivery of mails. While the mail coach was not a very rapid form of transport, it did its work well. Complaints have been lodged with me as to the excessive speed of the present Post Office delivery vans, and I have observed their speed myself. They are a direct contrast to the mail coach; the drivers believe in putting their boot down. While that may be all right on our main roads, it is a dangerous practice on our by-roads, some of which are badly kept. This high speed operates in many areas all over the country. In fairness to the drivers, they say they are forced to drive at this rapid speed because of the limited time available to them to cover their area. While I do not say that they should model their speed on that of the mail coach, I do not want to see these delivery vans—these headless coaches, as it were—travelling around our badly kept by-roads at a very high speed and leaving headless victims behind. I would like the Minister to have this matter investigated with a view to giving the drivers of these delivery vans sufficient time in which to cover their districts. It is not fair to be forcing them to cover a large area in a very short space of time.
In conclusion, I would like to say how grateful I am for the co-operation which I have got from the Minister and his Department during the past 12 months. If all Departments of State were to give us the same co-operation, I think we would be in a more satisfactory position when we come to examine the yearly Estimates.