I am sorry that Deputy Casey's unfair observations in regard to Deputy de Valera have caused this debate to end in an unpleasant spirit. The general debate has been most friendly. In the main, the criticism has been constructive. A number of very pleasant observations have been made to me by Deputies on all sides of the House on the character of the Estimate speech and its comprehensive nature, and it gives me very great pleasure to reply to as many of the points as were made and as many of the criticisms as I can.
A number of Deputies referred to the fact that the Minister for Transport and Power and his officers do not interfere with the day to day activities of the companies over which we exercise some general supervision. This must be examined from a commonsense point of view. Quite obviously the State companies must be allowed to operate as much as possible as private companies with full liberties in initiative, with full liberties in regard to control of staff, and with full liberties in regard to the day-to-day operations of their concerns.
The purpose of the Department is, first of all, to prepare legislation when it is required, to examine the demands for capital for future productive purposes and the promotion of the various companies, to examine how capital already provided is being spent and whether or not it should be remunerated at any given stage in a company's operations, to examine the general policy of each of these companies in relation to the national economy as a whole, to see if they are contributing to the national economy, and to see if there are any elements in their operations which are hindering other companies or other interests. In that we should also have regard to the necessity of there being reasonably good relations between employers and workers in these companies and we like to assure ourselves in every way possible that industrial relations are operating on what might be described as an optimum basis.
It is the duty of the Department also to exhort all companies at every possible opportunity to adopt dynamic cost reducing, output raising techniques, to lower their costs as much as possible, to provide the very best possible service at the lowest cost, and to keep in line with modern practice but that does not mean that we see these companies every day, or that we write to them every day, or that we are in contact with them every day. It means that we have meetings with the Boards of the Companies and their chief officers from time to time. We compare the progress they make with the progress made by companies of renown in other countries. We make general comparisons—always general comparisons—always exhorting them on a general basis, but not interfering with the day-to-day operations of any particular company.
We also study the quality of service they give the public in a general way, comparing it with the quality of service given by other companies abroad, to ensure that their customers, who are the public, are being reasonably treated, that for the money they pay they get good value. I count it entirely wrong and against the interests of these companies, and the public in the long run, if we were to make pin-pricking interferences with their day to day operations. What we do is to examine these questions in a big way and, as I said, have discussions with the Boards on the basis of general efficiency, general mode of production, general relations with workers, and general costings. I thought that would be fairly obvious to most Deputies but I think it is just as well that I stress what is our purpose.
It would be very inadvisable for me to encourage Deputies to ask individual questions as to why railway carriages on a certain line were dirty, but what I would wish to encourage Deputies to do is to complain to the companies themselves, and to encourage the public to make complaints to these companies if the service they receive is poor. I think this procedure is fair and reasonable. I would intervene if I became aware that a large number of Deputies were getting a large number of complaints in regard to a particular company, if I became aware that quite evidently a large number of the public were complaining about the services provided by the company for them.
Then it would cease to be a day-to-day question. It would become a matter of public interest and I would certainly intervene with the Board of that company and ask why the volume of complaints had reached such a level that I had to have regard to it. That is a very different matter from my having to answer questions in detail as to whether the remuneration of certain employees of a company being transferred to another company was to be the same as the other employees of that company, when I know that the industrial tribunal—a trade union committee—had good relations with the company's management and that the men's interests were being looked after. There would be absolute chaos if I interfered unilaterally in a particular case because a Deputy asked questions.
I could repeat examples of that ad infinitum, showing the very great undesirability of my answering questions of a day-to-day character when it would be better for the people concerned if the Deputy addressed his questions to the companies themselves. So far as I know Deputies receive courteous replies reasonably promptly in regard to the questions they ask. There again, if there are many complaints that the replies they receive are long delayed, are discourteous, or show lack of regard for the matters complained of, it would be part of my general responsibility to see that the public relations of these companies were improved so that complaints would be properly and efficiently investigated, whether they come from Deputies, Senators or the general public at large.
I hope I have made this matter sufficiently clear. Of course, quite a considerable amount of freedom has been allowed in the course of this debate by the Ceann Comhairle and Leas-Cheann Comhairle. They have taken a liberal attitude in regard to the extent and detail of the questions asked. This would be a matter for the Ceann Comhairle and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to control in future. Now that we have a separate Department, the position is different. I think it very proper that the Ceann Comhairle has allowed a very liberal amount of detailed comment. I think it could be useful in future years. It gives me a fair idea of what people are thinking of the general progress of these companies, and the rather detailed matters raised in these questions I can consider myself, discuss with the officers of my Department or refer to them for consideration.
Deputy Booth raised the question of the general control of State companies and he suggested that we ought to have further thoughts on this subject which has been so much discussed in other countries as to how far State companies should be free of examination by the Parliament of the country concerned, free of investigation by Committees of the Parliament and by the Minister himself. I think the best thing I can do is to remind Deputy Booth of a question asked by Deputy McQuillan in regard to this matter on the control of State and semi-State bodies.
The Taoiseach, in replying, said:
In the case of those of the principal State-sponsored bodies referred to by the Deputy which do not receive annual grants but the capital of which has been wholly or mainly subscribed or guaranteed by the State, I would, if there is a substantial demand in the House for such a procedure, be prepared to consider whether there is need for an arrangement whereby the House would be asked to allow time periodically for discussion of a motion dealing with the report and accounts of each such body which have been laid before the House pursuant to statute.
So the Taoiseach has suggested a method whereby, in addition to the debate on the Estimate, if a number of Deputies asked for a particular debate by resolution, on the presentation of the annual accounts of one of these numerous State companies, that might be arranged. The Taoiseach has said that he is prepared to consider an arrangement whereby there could be such a discussion outside the scope of the debate on the Estimate itself. I do not know if that is likely to arise in future. I hope these State companies will continue to be run and administered so as not to warrant such a particular examination but it is impossible to foretell the future.
Now I should like to deal with matters related to the C.I.E. Deputy McGilligan, in the course of his speech, suggested that the C.I.E. was interpreting the terms of the Transport Act of 1958, which directed the C.I.E. to become an economically-run organisation as soon as possible, making no loss, by ruthless pruning, by reduction in services at the expense of the public.
A number of other Deputies, without definitely saying as much, asked me questions as to whether C.I.E. was going to pay at the expense of the public in a large measure, so I want to make it perfectly clear that, so far as I am concerned, my interpretation of the Act is that C.I.E. should be economically run, should cease to impose the burden of taxation on the public which at the moment amounts to 3d. in the £ on income tax, 3d. on every 20 cigarettes, 4d. on every gallon of petrol and 4d. on every gallon of diesel oil, to use a combination of taxes to illustrate the subsidy. I hope that that subsidy will eventually end, but that the services of C.I.E. will improve, will become more modern, will become more attuned to modern conditions, that if the railway lines have to be replaced by buses, the buses will provide a better service, letting passengers up and down at more numerous points, and that the railway service will improve, that there will be greater turn-over of business of every kind, enabling still better service to be given to the public.
I should also make it clear that since the Transport Act, 1958, was passed I am not aware of any deterioration in the service of C.I.E. I am aware of a railway line that has been closed and where two buses daily have replaced the train service and have provided an adequate service. One does not have a railway in an area where two buses can replace the railway. There the railway is out of date. There the railway operated under conditions where the only alternative was the horse. There the bus is more convenient and lets passengers down at more frequent intervals. In fact, on this particular line, I find it hard to believe but the fact is that the bus does the journey within ten minutes of the time taken by the train although the stopping points on the bus route are far more numerous and far more convenient to the people concerned than the stopping places on the railway line now closed.
As I have said, I want to make it absolutely clear that there is to be no ruthless pruning of the transport service in this country. C.I.E. is not bound under the 1958 Act to provide substitute services and that is the only section of the Bill of 1958 which was challenged by the Opposition. The whole of the rest of it was passed bag and baggage by this House after the then Minister for Industry and Commerce had made some concessions on compensation and a few other matters but, when he had made these concessions the whole of the Bill was passed unanimously, with the exception of that one section. In fact, I do not envisage C.I.E. on more than a very rare number of occasions abolishing a train service without providing an equally good bus service and freight lorry service. I believe also that they would only do so if they found that there was a private individual already prepared to take over the service and that they were not particularly anxious to provide a bus or freight service. I do not believe they will take unfair advantage of that section which, as I say, was the only one disputed in this House in any measure.
Deputy Russell hinted that if it was necessary to subsidise the railway, the railway should be subsidised. He was talking about indirect benefits provided by a railway service. Of course, one could go on the basis that the State should subsidise everything on the ground that there were indirect advantages of subsidisation. One can justify almost any subsidy if one seeks an argument sufficiently clever, agile and sometimes distorted but in the case of C.I.E., where there is such a surplus of transport around it and competing with it already, I feel that to subsidise C.I.E. unnecessarily and to subsidise C.I.E. any further than it is at present being subsidised and to adopt any other policy than has been decided by this House would be sheer inflation, the kind of thing we want to get rid of. It has a demoralising effect on the employers and the workers. It has a demoralising effect on the public and gives the public the false impression that so long as the taxpayer can keep on oiling the wheels everything will be all right and, as we all know, we are not going to become a great nation by following that principle.
I have dealt to a fair extent with the question of lines that are closing. So far, the lines that are closed have been substituted by a very small number of bus services, for example, the Cahirciveen-Valentia railway line has been substituted adequately by two bus services a day with a third three times a week, indicating the very low volume of traffic transferred from the rail service to the road service.
In a number of cases the Minister for Local Government is giving for one, two, three, or four years a grant to county councils to do a once-and-for-all improvement to their roads where the roads are likely to be very much affected, sometimes only in very small areas around bends and so on, by the ending of the railway service. The Kerry County Council, for example, is getting £50,000 over a period of four years. At the end of that period the capital improvement required for the roads will be completed with the aid of these grants and I do not think there will be any complaints.
There are many areas, of course, where the traffic is so low that the only improvement required is the easing of certain bends. Quite obviously, if it is really a fact that the whole of the rail services if transferred to the road, would increase road traffic by three per cent. over the country at large, the amount of damage that can be done to roads and the dangers that may occur through transfer of traffic to road services is not likely to be very great and can be reasonably met by these contributions that are being made by the Minister for Local Government, which are not likely to be large save in isolated cases in isolated stretches of road.
I should also say that the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of Transport and Power have in the past ten years received almost no complaints of note when any utterly uneconomic railway service has been closed. It is a remarkable fact that people both here and in other countries have an almost hysterical feeling when a railway is going to close, as though the end of the world is coming. Although a railway service, while extremely economic and right in certain places, is utterly out of date in other places and in circumstances where a bus service is more appropriate, nevertheless, people have this strange feeling. But, it is a temporary feeling and it passes away and we have had very, very few complaints, hardly any at all, and only complaints of a character that can be quickly rectified.
Certain Deputies have spoken about railway lines that may close in future and have spoken about the disaster that will occur. My answer is that if enough people are using the railway the line will not close and the disaster will not occur. What the Deputies call a disaster occurs when practically no one is using the railway. These are the hard facts about the situation. I have asked C.I.E., as I indicated in my opening speech, to make the examination of the lines that are likely to be classified as uneconomic as quickly as possible over a period of the next 12 months so that decisions can be taken which will give a feeling of certainty to the staffs, will give the staffs a feeling of security in regard to their future position along those lines that are obviously going to be retained and will leave as few lines as possible in a questionable position. I am quite sure that the C.I.E. Board will follow the course which we have suggested and with which, in fact, I know they agree.
There have been suggestions that it was wrong to pass on to the public increase of wages in the case of State companies and, in particular, in the case of C.I.E. State companies naturally must follow the pattern of wage increases elsewhere and I am sure I am right in saying in the case of the State companies that if an improvement in productivity can enable part of the wage award—or even the whole of it—not to be passed on, that will certainly be done. But if productivity does not increase sufficiently, inevitably the wage award must be passed on to the public in the form of increased costs of services as in the case of private industries. To do anything else would simply involve us in the principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul and we would get nowhere.
A great number of Deputies referred to the question of C.I.E. pensions and I accept the difficulties of the present pensioners but there is a Social Insurance Bill coming before the Dáil under which the position of C.I.E. pensioners will be improved. That will necessarily involve a study of the whole pension position in C.I.E. and it will involve equally a study of whatever differences will arise between one group of pensioners and another. I am quite certain that C.I.E. will make a study of the pension position and will do what they can about the matter. I think I can entrust it to them. The present C.I.E. pensions are calculated on an actuarial basis and the funds they hold could not be used to increase pensions as was suggested by one Deputy. Any increase in pensions is a matter which would involve C.I.E. itself and the workers. They are both involved; the workers must be consulted if there is any change. It would seem to me that the first thing to do is to study C.I.E. pensions in relation to the Social Insurance Bill and Deputies will have an opportunity of doing that when the Bill comes before them. I think they will find that a very considerable number of pensioners is covered by the terms of the Bill.
Deputy McGilligan asked questions about the staff employed by C.I.E. and the G.N.R. from 1958 to 1960. In 1958 the C.I.E. and G.N.R. staffs numbered 22,623; in 1960, C.I.E., which is combined with the G.N.R., employed 22,000. The annual wages and salaries bill for the 22,623 was £10,362,000 and the annual wages and salary bill for the 22,000 was £10,866,000, so that there was a slight increase in the wages and salaries bill for a very slightly reduced number of workers.
Deputy McGilligan also asked for the increase in C.I.E. rates and charges since 1958. In May, 1958, there was an increase of 5 per cent. in passenger charges and provincial bus fares and an increase of 5 per cent. in road freight charges and, in the case of city bus fares, the stages were shortened and the minimum 2d. fare was abolished. There was an increase in rail freight charges in January/February, Passenger train and provincial bus fares were increased by 7½ per cent.; rail freight charges were increased by 10 per cent. and city bus fare stages were shortened. I should say in that connection that a comparison of rail fares and freight rates between this country and other countries in the sterling area and particularly Britain, shows that the charges here are reasonable. There is no gross inflation of either bus fares or road freight or rail freight rates as a result of these increases. While I hope that the use of work study techniques will cut out costs and increase output and enable C.I.E. to avoid increasing charges in the future they must naturally bear in mind current costings. I hope they will be able to make progress in that direction and that the charges will not become excessive.
