I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £5,485,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
The net Estimate for 1956/57 amounts to £8,585,000 being a gross total of £9,108,150 less Appropriations-in-Aid of £523,150. The net provision represents an increase of £592,500 on that for 1955/56. As indicated on page 283 of the volume of Estimates that figure takes into account the additional provision for 1955/56— £85,000—made by the Post Office Supplementary Estimate and the Department's share—£200,500—of the Vote for Remuneration, both approved by the Dáil on the 22nd February last. In making comparisons between sub-heads of the Estimate this additional provision for 1955/56 has been taken into consideration.
The more substantial variations— those of £10,000 or more—occur on the following sub-heads:—
Sub-heads A (1), A (2), A (3) and A (4)—Salaries, Wages and Allowances: The increase of £225,200 is due to salary and wage awards, offset by a reduction of one day in pay days and by savings on retirements.
Sub-head D—Purchase of Sites, etc: Increase £26,000. The higher amount is required mainly for the purchase of sites for a central garage, an engineering workmen's headquarters and stores depot in Cork, new District Post Offices in Dublin and a new South Dublin City Engineering headquarters.
Sub-head E (1)—Conveyance of Mails by Rail: The increase of £30,100 is due to higher charges by the railway companies for the carriage of letter mails and to higher payment to the companies in respect of increased parcel traffic which is offset by increased revenue from the traffic.
Sub-head G (1)—Stores: the increase of £15,300 is mainly due to the transfer to this sub-head of the cost of petrol which was formerly borne on sub-head K.
Sub-head H (3)—Incidental Expenses: the increase of £10,300 is mainly required to meet additional publicity for Savings the cost of which is recovered as an Appropriation-in-Aid, sub-head T (5).
Sub-head I (1)—Salaries, Wages and Allowances (Engineering): increase £13,000, arising from Salary and Wage Awards offset by a reduction of one day in pay days.
Sub-head K—Engineering Materials: the increase, £89,000, is due to reduced use of Emergency reserve stocks and to an increase in the Non-Capital Engineering programme, offset by the cost of petrol transferred to sub-head G (1).
Sub-head L (2)—Contract Work: the increase of £35,600 is required for new equipment for the more economical working of the Telegraph service and for the renewal of equipment at Malin Head and Valentia Coast Wireless Stations.
Sub-head M—Telephone Capital Repayments: increase, £104,074. Funds for the development of the telephone system are provided under the authority of the Telephone Capital Acts (1924 to 1951) which authorise the Minister for Finance to issue sums out of the Central Fund for this purpose. Repayment of these funds is made by means of terminable annuities extending over a period not exceeding 25 years. In consultation with the Minister for Finance provision is made each year under sub-head M for the repayment of the instalments of principal and interest on the annuities created. The increased provision in the sub-head is an indication of the continuing expansion of the telephone system.
Sub-head N (1) Superannuation Allowances, etc: the increase, £39,800, is mainly due to higher pensions, retirement allowances and marriage gratuities arising from salary and wage awards.
Sub-head O (2) Civil Aviation and Meteorological Wireless Services: the increase, £32,400, is required for the provision of Radar equipment at Dublin airport and an emergency generator at Shannon airport.
Sub-head T Appropriations-in-Aid: the increase of £28,274 is mainly due to anticipated increased receipts from the Social Insurance Fund and the Savings Bank Fund for administrative expenses.
Postal Service: mail services worked satisfactorily during the year and a good standard of regularity and puncuality was maintained. There was an upward trend in the volume of traffic.
Letter traffic last Christmas again created a new record. The public responded well to the Department's appeal for early posting. As a result the huge volume of mail was handled expeditiously and that posted by the advertised dates was delivered before Christmas.
In the foreign parcel post service the maximum weight limit was increased from 15lb. to 22lb. as from the 1st December 1955 with all countries which accept parcels up to the higher limit. This extension of the weight limit should prove of benefit to users of the post engaged in the export trade.
The general reorganisation of postal delivery services in rural areas was continued. A daily frequency of delivery and a better standard of service were provided in the head office districts of Bandon, Castlerea, Enniscorthy, Galway, Killarney and Tralee. The reorganisation of the Limerick head office district is well advanced and it is hoped this year to undertake the reorganisation of the services in the head office districts of Bantry, Castlebar, Ennis, Mallow, Waterford and Wexford.
During the past year seven new sub-offices were opened and money order and Savings Bank facilities were extended to 19 existing sub-offices.
Arrangements have been made to issue a special postage stamp in connection with the presentation to the nation by the United States Battle Monuments Commission of a statue of Commodore John Barry which is to be unveiled in Wexford next September. The stamp will be issued in two denominations, 3d. and ? and will be produced by the recess process.
Last year, following the report of a departmental committee, I circulated a White Paper to Deputies dealing with the problem of the increasing losses on the telegraph service. It also outlined the measures proposed to be taken to reduce expenditure on the service and to increase telegraph revenue. Most of these measures, including rate increases, either have been, or are being, implemented.
There has, as anticipated, been a further decline in telegraph traffic, the number of telegrams handled during the last financial year being 2,860,000 as compared with 3,160,600 odd during the previous year.
The modernisation of operating methods in order to secure economies is going ahead as rapidly as the necessary equipment can be obtained and brought into service. A telegraph automatic exchange had already been installed in Dublin to enable teleprinter centres to exchange telegrams directly with each other or with any teleprinter centre in the Six Counties or Great Britain, thus eliminating a considerable volume of retransmission work. Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford are already working through the new exchange. The other offices will be connected to it according as line equipment on order is delivered and installed during the course of the next year.
Savings in staff and increased revenue have already reduced the deficit by a fairly substantial amount, but there has been an offsetting rise in basic costs due to the general wage increase in November last. The loss on the service is still of considerable magnitude and efforts to reduce it further will have to be continued and redoubled.
A telex service, which enables subscribers to communicated directly with each other by means of tele-typed messages, was opened in Dublin in January last. This kind of service had been developing rapidly abroad and there appeared to be prospects that firms here interested in adopting the most modern telecommunication methods would be interested. The venture has been justified; there are already 30 subscribers and messages are being transmitted to and received from Great Britain, the Continent and distant parts of the world. The initial installation of equipment is now being doubled to cater for more subscribers and traffic.
During the course of the year it is proposed to inaugurate a greetings telegraph service which will make provision for the delivery on an ornamental form in a special greetings envelope of messages of greeting, congratulations, etc.
The growth of the telephone service continued during 1955. Trunk calls totalled 13,734,000, an increase of 7.5 per cent. over the 1954 figure. Local calls increased by 5,000,000 to 88,000,000. A total of 7,841 subscribers' exchange lines and 10,203 new telephone stations were provided and 7,000 miles of new circuit were added to the trunk network. At 31st December last the number of effective waiting applications was about 4,200. The latest estimate is 3,600.
In the Dublin automatic area the recabling of the underground network has been proceeding as rapidly as available skilled staff resources have permitted and the scheme as a whole is now more than half-completed. The central city business areas were tackled first and it is hoped that this part of the recabling scheme will be finished this year. Underground schemes are also proceeding in the suburbs, but it will take a considerable time to reach all the suburban areas in need of relief.
Of the total waiting applications only about one-third are in the area outside of Dublin and the bulk of these were made within the past year. At most of the larger provincial centres, applications are attended to promptly or within a few months. Considerable progress has been made in clearing arrears of long outstanding applications, involving abnormal work, which were deferred in favour of the rural call office scheme. I am glad to say that this scheme has been completed apart from two offices which we hope to provide with telephones before the end of the month.
As already mentioned, some 7,000 miles of trunk circuits were added to the system during 1955. These included additional circuits on some 200 main and other routes throughout the country. The underground cable scheme to Sligo will be completed this month and there should be a considerable improvement in trunk services at exchanges along the cable route and in adjoining areas served by the cable. Additional circuits will be provided on a large number of other routes where relief is most needed.
In Dublin, extensions of automatic equipment were carried out at Terenure, Rathmines, Clontarf and Ship Street exchanges and Lucan, Leixlip and Greystones manual exchanges were converted to automatic working. Subscribers in the latter areas are now able to dial Dublin numbers. A new permanent automatic exchange has recently been brought into service at Whitehall and temporary exchanges are being installed at Walkinstown and Nutley Lane in advance of permanent exchanges required to meet development in the surrounding areas. A further development this year will be the conversion of Castleknock exchange to automatic working.
Outside Dublin, new automatic exchanges have been brought into service at Mullingar and Cobh and at some smaller places. Automatic conversion schemes at Drogheda, Sligo, Limerick and Longford are expected to be completed within the next 12 months.
Extensions or replacements of switchboard equipment were carried out at 120 manual exchanges. These works included installation of modern switchboard equipment at Ballina, Tralee, Monaghan and Wexford.
The number of kiosks erected during 1955 was 69.
As I explained at some length very recently on the Telephone Capital Bill, our telephone construction programme will have to be restricted while current capital difficulties persist. I shall not take up the time of the House by covering the same ground again beyond saying that we will try to make the best use of the limited funds available for both urban and rural areas and that the position will be kept under continuous review so that normal development may be resumed as soon as circumstances permit.
New departmental buildings were completed at Kilrush and Rathluire and others are nearing completion at Drogheda, Naas, Cootehill, Limerick and Sligo. Schemes of extension and improvement, including the provision of new public offices, were completed at Ballina and Monaghan Post Offices. Improvements were also made at Cahir, Fermoy, Roscommon and Ballymote Post Offices and similar work is in progress at Carrick-on-Suir, Dundalk, Kilkenny and Longford Post Offices.
It is hoped that work will start during the year on the erection of new buildings at Galway, Athenry, Letterkenny, Loughrea and Crumlin (Dublin). Improvement schemes at a number of other post offices and the erection of several small automatic exchange buildings are also scheduled to commence. Progress is being made in the planning of new post offices for Wicklow, Droichead Nua, Thomastown, Youghal and Callan and on schemes of improvements at Carrick-on-Shannon and Ennis.
My Department has recently acquired a substantial property in Cork City which is to be used as a central garage and engineering workmen's headquarters and stores depôt.
Preliminary sketch plans for the new Dublin Central Sorting Office have been agreed with the Commissioners of Public Works and an estimate has been worked out as to the cost of erecting and equipping the proposed buildings. I am hopeful that the position will shortly be reached when it will be possible to commence the preparation of contract drawings.
Deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank rose from £14,515,000 in 1954 to £15,401,000 in 1955 and withdrawals from £11,099,000 to £12,632,000, a net surplus of £2,769,000 as compared with £3,416,000 for the previous year. Interest earned during the year is estimated at £1,677,000 and the total amount standing to the credit of depositors on the 31-12-1955 is approximately £71,186,000.
Deposits during the year by the Trustee Savings Banks amounted to £1,208,000 and withdrawals to £756,000, an increase of £45,000 in deposits and £248,000 in withdrawals. The balance to credit of the Trustee Savings Banks at the end of the year, including £310,000 for interest, is approximately £10,991,000.
Appreciable amounts were withdrawn from the banks about the times of the opening of the C.I.E. and E.S.B. Loans floated in 1955 and it would appear not unlikely that these withdrawals were made for the purpose of reinvestment in these loans.
The estimated combined balances, Post Office and Trustee Savings Banks, on 31-12-1955, amounted to £82,177,000 compared with £76,967,000 on the same date in 1954.
Business for the year showed a decrease as compared with the previous year. Receipts from sales amounted to £2,105,000, repayment of principal to £1,438,000 and interest to £478,000. Corresponding figures for 1954 were £2,361,000, £1,318,000 and £445,000. The decrease in sales was very probably due to the natural decline in purchases in the fourth year of the fifth issue. As in the case of the increased withdrawals from the Savings Bank, the increase in repayments of certificates—judging from the time when they were sought—would appear to have been largely due to certificate holders investing in the E.S.B. Loan.
The amount of principal due to investors at the end of the year stood at £13,646,000 compared with £17,976,000 at the end of 1954.
I am particularly interested in staff relations in my Department which employs about half the civil servants in the State. I am glad to say that the conciliation council which was set up under the conciliation and arbitration scheme for the Civil Service has contributed much towards maintaining and developing good relations between the Department and its staff. The council has considered wage claims on behalf of nearly all the departmental grades in the Post Office and only a small number of cases had to be referred to the arbitration board.
During the past year the council has reached agreement on increased wage rates for post office clerks, postal sorters, telephonists (male and female), boy messengers, cleaners, doorkeepers and a number of smaller grades.
Consideration of wage claims is not the only purpose of the conciliation council and I have recently asked it to examine the question of staff redundancy arising out of the reorganisation of the telegraph service. We have already taken some steps to meet the situation. Recruitment to the clerk grade has ceased since 1952 and a number of officers previously employed on telegraph duties have been transferred to other work. The problem is to absorb the redundants into alternative jobs with the minimum of hardship and disturbance to the staff concerned. It seems inevitable that some of the staff will have to be transferred and that the prospects of promotion for the clerk grade will be worsened. I have brought the matter before the departmental conciliation council in order that the Administration may have the benefit of the staff's views in trying to find the best solution to the problem.
I have recently established a sub-postmaster's consultative council which provides a means of formal consultation between representatives of the Department and of the sub-postmasters' union on matters affecting the remuneration and conditions of service of sub-postmasters. As sub-postmasters are not civil servants they are excluded from the scheme of conciliation and arbitration which was designed exclusively for, and is entirely confined to, serving civil servants.
The revision of working methods generally in the Department with a view to increasing efficiency and reducing costs continues to receive close attention and some very worth-while results were obtained during the past year.
When speaking on the Estimate for the Department last year I referred to the overall deficit on the working for 1954-55 and estimated that it would show an appreciable improvement compared with the deficit for the previous year. While the year's working did, in fact, result in an improvement this was not as substantial as had been anticipated. The overall deficit turned out to be £246,000, roughly £50,000 higher than expected. The year's working was, of course, affected by the increased cost which had to be met in respect of wage increases secured by certain grades of the Department's staff, particularly postmen, through the conciliation and arbitration machinery, in connection with value of work claims.
These claims are on behalf of particular grades on the grounds that their particular work is underpaid and are to be distinguished from the general cost-of-living claims put forward from time to time on behalf of civil servants generally. Since the introduction of conciliation and arbitration machinery for the Civil Service practically every grade in the Department coming within the scope of conciliation has made such a claim and each year some of them have been settled or arbitrated. The cost of these in 1954-55 amounted to £33,600.
In the year 1955-56 the Department had to meet the full yearly cost of the previous year's conciliation and arbitration settlements which amounted to £126,000 and part of the annual cost of the awards on value of work and other purely departmental claims dealt with, amounting to £106,000. Furthermore, it had also to meet the cost-of-living increase in wages and salaries granted to the Civil Service generally which operated for five months from 1-11-1955 and amounted to £202,500. As a result of these heavy increased staff costs, the overall financial position of the Department has very materially worsened. For the year 1955-56 the deficit is estimated at £510,000, approximately, made up of:—
Postal Service Deficit |
£349,000 |
Telegraph Service Deficit |
£308,000 |
Telephone Service Profit |
£147,000 |
These figures show that, whereas last year the deficit on the working of the telegraph service decreased by £70,000, the loss on the postal service increased by £250,000 and the profits on the telephone service fell by £81,000.
Deputies will, I am sure, agree that this serious disimprovement in the overall financial position of the Department could not have been allowed to continue. Indeed, if steps had not been taken to halt it, the financial position at the end of the current year would have turned out to be substantially worse than for 1955-56 because the full yearly cost of the general Civil Service cost-of-living settlement, £491,000, has to be borne together with £125,000 in respect of value of work and similar claims settled last year.
Having given very full and careful consideration to the problem, I satisfied myself that the Department's serious financial position could not be improved unless the services it affords to the public were drastically restricted or the charges for its services were increased. Restrictions of services, to have any substantial effect on the loss would, however, have had to be very extensive. They would have involved a very serious worsening of the facilities afforded to the public and the discharge of very large numbers of the staff. For these reasons I was not prepared to restrict services and I was forced to the conclusion that the Department's charges would have to be increased.
As regards the telegraph service, I considered the improvement in the deficit as satisfactory and I am hopeful that, with the reorganisation of the service and the more economical methods of working to which I have already referred, the improvement will be continued. I decided, therefore, that, for the present at any rate, no increase in telegraph charges should be made.
The growing postal deficit and the fall in the profit on the telephone service were, however, most disturbing, and to meet these I recommended to the Government that increases in certain of the charges for both services would have to be made. Having considered the matter, the Government decided that there was no alternative but to increase charges in order that the Department's unsatisfactory financial position should be very substantially improved. Increases in certain postal charges were accordingly introduced on the 4th June and revised charges for telephone calls on the 1st July.
In conclusion, I would like to express my appreciation of the zealous and efficient services given by all grades of the staff during the past year.