Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 28 Nov 1962

Vol. 198 No. 2

Private Members' Business. - Transport Bill, 1962—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. M.P. Murphy

I had almost concluded last night when the debate was adjourned. I should like, however, to refer to remarks made by the Minister in the course of this debate. As I mentioned yesterday, I should like to see CIE paying their way as early as possible. We all agree that subsidies are bad, if it is possible to avoid them. In the 1958 Transport Act, CIE were given the task of becoming an independent body, so far as State subsidy is concerned, by 1964 but we believe that the present trend indicates clearly that that cannot be done. If it were done, it would, indeed, be a miracle or it could result only from drastic measures being adopted by the Board such as they are adopting at the present time which may have an adverse effect on our national position later on.

The position was that for the year 1961 the deficiencies fell to a figure of less than £250,000 but we find that for the following year, 1962, the adverse balance was £1,696,000, which, indeed, is a sharp increase. As well as that, the Minister informed us that about as much more money was required from the central Exchequer to pay the charges on subventions to CIE over the past years.

In the Minister's remarks, the emphasis is on the closure of railways. He feels that the only way of making CIE a paying unit is to give them the unlimited powers they hold in closing railways which may be deemed to be uneconomic. I am satisfied that the Minister's view may be a sincere one and that he feels, with the trend of changes in transport, that it is just as well probably to close a railway completely as to wait for three or four more years, but in any case it is peculiar to find a man with that outlook making the statement he made on 14th November. I quote from Vol. 197, No. 7, column 1224 of the Official Report:

Deputy McQuillan spoke as though CIE were determined to close the whole rail system. It would be impossible for me to say what the railway system is likely to be five or ten years from now. I do know that CIE have asked for large capital grants in order to improve rolling stock and their premises and to modernise the whole system. We are lending millions to CIE for the improvement of their rail services.

That is a most peculiar statement in the light of the other statements made by the Minister in which he has approved wholeheartedly of the CIE policy of closing rail lines and that it is difficult, as he states himself, to anticipate what the situation in the country will be in five or ten years' time. Yet with such doubts in his mind, it appears that he has approved of lending millions to CIE to improve their rail services. Surely that is not a consistent policy? That part of the Minister's statement, to my mind, needs explanation. If the Minister has such faith in the railways that in the not too distant future the railway system will be wiped out save for the lines connecting the major towns in the country, why then is public money being utilised at the present time in handing over capital to CIE to improve its system? I think there is an obligation on the Minister to explain that reasoning of his, because I think there should be no need now for lending millions to CIE, in view of the policy which they are adopting.

If they are short of rolling stock on some lines at the present moment, will not the rolling stock used on the West Clare line, the West Cork line and on the other lines likely to be closed in the not too distant future be available to supplement the CIE service in any place where they need additional rolling stock? Indeed, it is very peculiar also to note that even though the Minister approves of the lending of millions to CIE he states that, by 1970, one person in every eight will have a car in this country. I hope that prophecy will come true because it would be a sign of progress, but if that is the position, it is evident that the need for a public transport service whether by rail or road will diminish seriously. I am sure the Minister took some time in making this calculation. If, as he feels, private cars will increase by more than 80 per cent. within the next eight years, why should he, as I mentioned, approve of big capital expenditure by CIE now on developing their rail service when he feels that rail service is likely to come to an end in the not too distant future in this country?

The Minister did not in the course of his lengthy statements make a case against this measure. I believe that the motive of the sponsors of this measure was to ensure that CIE would not adopt drastic measures that could not be repaired with a view to improving their financial position sufficiently by 1964 to warrant no further subvention from the State. The Minister did not answer the case made by the sponsors of this Bill. He mentioned that subsidies were bad and led to inefficiency and that where the State intended to wipe out any adverse balances in public companies it was not the best method of doing business. At the same time, he said that while there may be an arguable case now or later for amending or modifying this section in some very limited respects, to delete it altogether would be plain silly. The Minister clearly does not believe that CIE will be able to pay their way before 31st March, 1964. This section embodied in the Act is only wishful thinking.

I should like to mention again the capital expenditure approved for CIE at present. Will the loan charges on that expenditure not be charged against CIE in the ensuing years, or will those loan charges be added to any adverse balance they may have on their operations for that year? It seems to me that, instead of the adverse trend moving downwards, it is likely it may move in the other direction. CIE's main outlet for improving their revenue, increased charges, will soon defeat its own ends. Transport charges by CIE are exceptionally high. If they were to be increased any further, it would mean a loss of business to CIE.

I should like to elaborate on that. The single fare by road transport from my own town of Schull to Cork city is 17s. odd and about 35/- return. This is a rather steep charge. If three or four people turn up at the bus stop in Schull or Ballydehob and find they all intend to go to Cork city for the day, they may decide it is much cheaper to go along to a hackney owner and hire him to take them to Cork and back rather than avail of the CIE service. That is a big difficulty facing CIE service. present. It is difficult for them to stand up to that type of competition, which arises because of the sharp increases they have made in their road transport charges in recent times.

The people accepted the subsidisation of CIE because they felt CIE were providing a regular service in districts which could not be described as economic. Undoubtedly, there were a number of areas serviced by the CIE road and rail system which would not be economic propositions. Naturally, the people were inclined to subsidise CIE so long as they declared some of the services they were providing for the public were uneconomic. Now, however, they have turned over a new leaf. They state they are going to manage their business on economic lines and will wipe out all uneconomic business in future. Wherever a rail system is uneconomic—and, I understand, wherever a road system is uneconomic—they will delete it from their list.

If that is the case, the further question arises as to why CIE should enjoy the monopoly of transport they hold at present. The Minister states that this monopoly is of no great advantage to them. He states there are large numbers of public vehicles, merchandise plate vehicles and privately-owned vehicles, with all of which CIE have to compete. Despite the Minister's assertion, CIE have a certain monopoly, which they got from this House at a time when they were providing a national service. It appears CIE are no longer obliged to provide a national service but only to provide an economic service in areas where they can produce a favourable balance sheet.

Within the past 12 or 18 months, the Board of CIE have had to retract statements they made last year to the effect that once the three uneconomic lines—West Cork, Waterford and West Clare—were closed, no further rail closures would take place before 31st March, 1964. The people who made such statements did not display much keenness or foresight, because they had to retract them within 12 months and say it was necessary, if they were to achieve the target set them by the Transport Act of 1958, to examine the position of further railways with a view to closing them down.

Would not the best solution to this problem be a new Transport Bill, in view of the changes that have taken place in the past few years and the rapid changes that are taking place at present? Then the House would have an opportunity of examining the advisability of the Minister's policy in lending millions to develop CIE rail services and in continuing the monopoly CIE hold.

On this question of monopoly, every citizen who does not own a vehicle himself must have his goods carried for him by CIE or by the holder of a merchandise plate. They are the two sections at present enjoying privileged treatment under the Transport Act of 1934. We have had many changes since that Act was enacted 28 years ago. There is a completely different position now. There has been talk of economic methods of doing business. If I, as a private citizen, have goods to be carried to the market, to the fair or to the town, I should be allowed to decide the best and most economic method of transporting them. It is well known that, were it not for the restriction on transport here, goods from the farming community or any other section could be hauled at much cheaper rates than those of CIE or indeed those of the holders of merchandise plates.

If uneconomic districts will not get any preferential treatment in future, why then should monopolies continue? There is no case any longer for their continuance. Everybody knows that the merchandise plate, or plated lorry system, has been grossly abused. Those who had these plates in 1934 were entitled to preference, but it is a well-known fact now that some of these fortunate people are not now carrying on any transport business at all; they are remaining in their homes and enjoying an income of £1 daily for lending their plates to others in order to measure up to the requirements of that Act.

I do not know whether that practice is strictly illegal, but I certainly think it is a doubtful practice. Throughout the length and breadth of the country at the moment, we have these favoured people under the 1934 Act making good money from lending plates at £1 per day. So far as I know, the rate is more or less standard and, therefore, the holder of a merchandise plate enjoys a very special preference indeed. He enjoys a special type of treatment because the market value of his plate is £1 per day. I do not know if we should continue that type of treatment for such a person much longer. He has had the plate now for 28 years, right since the passing of the 1934 Act; he has been amply compensated and I think he should now be put on a par with every other citizen who might like to engage in the transport business.

I am asking the Minister now to give serious consideration and thought to this matter. I am asking the Minister and his Government to give serious thought to the introduction of a new Transport Bill and the implementation of provisions to cover our existing transport difficulties and solve our existing transport problems—road transport, rail transport, the monopolisation of transport by CIE and certain privileged citizens, the removal of certain illegalities that are known to exist in transport as it obtains at the moment, and the giving to private enterprise of the same opportunities to get into the transport business as CIE now hold.

I know that CIE must retain the railways because they cannot be managed by private enterprise. CIE have made it clear that they will maintain the economic lines but will have nothing more to do with the uneconomic lines. That is their business, but why should they have a monopoly of the road transport service? Why should they have a monopoly of the road freight service throughout the country? CIE are making a case for dismantling themselves. If they cannot do business economically, without the help of State subventions and without making drastic changes, and if they cannot cater for the lean areas as well as the fat ones, then the preferential treatment they receive should be removed. I have not the slightest doubt that, if that were done, transport would not suffer to any great extent.

I admit that CIE are providing regular services in all areas, and that is an advantage. At the same time, I feel that equally good services would be given in such districts if CIE were never operating. It is peculiar that such services are, in fact, being given at a rate in the neighbourhood of 50 per cent. of CIE charges, so that, if we are making the transport business an economic proposition for CIE and for everybody, it possibly would be a good idea to do away with monopolies. It would also be a good idea to give me, or anyone else, who requires the service of some person engaged in the transport business the opportunity of getting the man who will give that service at the most economic figure possible. Under the existing law, it is not possible to do that. Every private lorry owner is hounded by the police whenever he appears with a few pigs, a few cows, or some other type of goods in his vehicle. The law does not empower him to carry such goods for reward and that kind of traffic is, as I have said, left to CIE and those people who have enjoyed preferential treatment since 1934.

In conclusion, I ask that the House should consider very carefully the implications of the Minister's statement and the inconsistencies contained in his statement. On the one hand, he tells us there is not much of a future for the rail system, that it will possibly be closed down by 1970 and, on the other hand, he tells us that they are lending money to CIE for development. The Labour Party decided to support this measure because, having given it close attention and consideration, we felt that it was impossible for CIE to make ends meet before 1964. We also discount the statement made by the Minister that, if there is no fixed date for CIE to become an economically paying proposition, that would be likely to lead to inefficiency. I believe CIE is inefficient already. I am surprised to hear the Minister make such a statement because if, despite all the subventions CIE receive from the State and from the public purse, inefficiency exists, that is the responsibility of the Minister, of the Government and of the Board of CIE.

It is the Government and the Minister who nominated the Board. If the Board are guilty of inefficiencies in the discharge of their duties, it is the Minister's responsibility to report such inefficiencies to the Government and change the personnel of the Board. Possibly it would not be a bad day's work if the personnel of the Board were changed.

Dr. Browne

This Bill has served a useful purpose in getting discussion on some very vague aspects of public transport in the Republic. From that point of view, I think it has been well justified, though it is regrettable that the Minister's contribution, covering a 17-page speech, was devoted largely to muddled thinking, evasiveness and a mulish refusal to face the position as it is in our transport services and face the realities of our transport services as they are. He made the remarkable and quite unsustainable charge that we had not read the speech made by Deputy Lemass as Minister for Industry and Commerce in 1958, that we had ignored the speech and ignored the fact that it had been made in the context of the Beddy Report. That was a very extraordinary statement because the Minister was here in the House when I read out for him the speech made by the former Minister for Industry and Commerce. I think the speech is worth rereading. I shall read exactly the same passages. The reference is column 1598 of volume 167 of the Official Report. He said:

I know that at the present time there are few railway systems in the world which are not losing money and that in expecting the Board of CIE to achieve solvency it may be said that we are asking them to do something that other railway executives are not able to do even under more favourable circumstances.

Then he went on to say that that may be true and that we must not allow ourselves to be concerned with the experiences of people in other societies. Later on, he said that we must have evidence that the system is being worked in an economical and efficient manner and that the prospect of recurring losses will be reduced. At column 1599, he said that it was possible that the subvention of £1,000,000 a year would not be sufficient to close the gap between receipts and outlay in 1959 and 1960 and that CIE might have to resort to temporary borrowing to tide them over these years and went on:

I would hope, however, that this fixed subvention of £1,000,000 a year for five years will be more than sufficient in the latter years and that CIE will be able to pay off any temporary borrowing incurred in the earlier stages and have something left to carry on with, if complete solvency has not been finally reached by 1964.

These annual payments must cover all the needs of CIE including payment of interest on their stocks, all outlay other than expenditure on capital account. The dieselisation of the undertaking is, as the House knows, now nearly completed and it is not anticipated that any further capital expenditure will be required during that period.

That statement is particularly important and I said so at the time because it does represent as clearly as it is possible to represent or demonstrate to the House, that this sense of certainty, this aura of infallibility with which the Taoiseach, then the Minister for Industry and Commerce, surrounds himself is completely unmerited. He has been shown, out of his own mouth, to be a person who makes wildly unreliable assumptions and equally wild unreliable promises. It is now four years afterwards and there is one year left to 1964 and the Company is making one of its highest losses, £1.7 million, in addition to the £1,000,000 subsidy. We have, on the other hand, the fact that he was quite wrong when he said the dieselisation programme was complete and no further capital outlay would be required. Last July, we voted £6,000,000 to pay General Motors for a number of diesel electric locomotives which is a further instalment of capital outlay which he did not foresee at the time. I am not saying that nobody can be wrong but the Taoiseach seeks to give the impression that he is never wrong and that what he says must be accepted.

The present Minister dealing with his critics has adopted an old stratagem, and a particularly silly and childish one, that when one has not got an argument, one simply abuses one's opponent. The abuse he has levelled at members—he probably had Deputy T. Lynch in mind—was that the people concerned about the railways were concerned as railway hysterics because they were concerned about the reduction in the extent of the railway services. As Deputy O'Connor, one of the Minister's colleagues, said, it is very likely if we go on at this rate, we will end up with the railways at Kingsbridge, a gradual retraction so that there will be no railways left. But Deputy Lynch and these other Deputies are not the only admirers of the railway services. I wonder could anybody believe who made this statement?

I do not believe that railways are obsolete. I want to state a personal conviction in this matter. I believe that, as a technical device for the transportation of traffic, the railways are superior to road transport for most classes of traffic and certainly when the problems of peak requirements are taken into account. I expressed the doubt here in November whether it would be physically possible to handle our grain harvest, our sugar beet harvest, the pilgrimage traffic that develops during the year and the other special traffics in respect of goods or passengers that arise from time to time, without railways. It would be most detrimental to the development of our tourist trade if it became known abroad that no railway services were available in Ireland.

That is at column 1681, Vol. 167 of the Official Reports and it was the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, who made the statement. I think if anybody else had said that, he would have been charged by the present Minister for Transport and Power with being a railway hysteric.

Mr. N. Lemass

He could make the same statement today. There is nothing contradictory about it at all.

Mr. Donegan

He could make the same statement all right.

Mr. N. Lemass

There is nothing contradictory about it.

Mr. Donegan

It would not bother him at all.

Dr. Browne

I do not regard him as a railway hysteric for having said that. It is a realistic statement of the facts and I think it is cheap and petty for a Minister, when he finds himself in a position such as the Minister finds himself in, to attack the sanity, as in this case, of the individual. He has referred us back to the then Minister for Industry and Commerce and he is quite right. As everybody knows, there are in the theatre what are known as play-doctors and in the newspaper world, there are newspaper doctors and in the transport world, it could be said there are transport doctors and specialists and the Taoiseach can claim to be such a person. I think it was Deputy Burke who was the first to pay him this doubtful compliment when he said, "nobody in Ireland has more experience than you have"—that was Deputy Lemass—"in dealing with matters of transport". I think the Taoiseach would readily accept that as a statement of fact.

The position is that he has been called in on a number of occasions to try to diagnose the malady and provide the treatment, but it can be honestly said, whether it was Milne, or Beddy, or Lemass, or Andrews, going back to the 1920s or the 1930s and the whole way through, that there was a constant bungling and mismanagement in relation to the whole question of transport. Various reasons have been given for its failure but even Dr. Beddy has said that for 40 years there has been a dreary tale of losses. That was a confession of the fact. The position is that this specialist, the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, was called in in 1958 and he devised this new 1958 Act which was to be the Transport Act to end all Transport Acts. In fact, of course, it seems to me it has tried to amalgamate the worst of at least three different kinds of proposal. It is one of the appalling mythical monsters, the three-headed hydra: it is neither private enterprise controlled, nor public enterprise controlled, nor will they accept the question of subsidies. He attempted to ignore the economic losses and to take the attitude of some character who said in Alice in Wonderland: "If I say a thing, then that is so." The then Minister for Industry and Commerce said: "If we put this hotch-potch together, we will make it into a Transport Act" but he was wrong in regard to the capital outlay, the dieselisation programme and the company breaking even by 1964. He was wrong on every point as we have quite clearly demonstrated.

The number of apologia submitted by the Minister is indicative of the superficial and blind thinking that went into his brief. He suggested that we have a difficult problem in Ireland because of the sparsity of our population. By that, he left himself wide open. That is the result of the failure of our politicians to face up to the many problems of the world to-day. Whose responsibility is it that a country which supported three or four million people not so very long ago should now have the large proportion of its population concentrated in one or two large centres? This problem is caused by the failure of the politicians, just as they have failed to deal with agriculture, industry, the provision of employment and the provision of adequate health services. There is always that consistent adherence on their part to conservative policies, no matter what the consequence.

One of the most astonishing of the Minister's statements on this matter was contained in the earlier part of his speech when he said that this section, which this Bill now proposes to delete, is not mandatory. How can one hope to achieve any particular end when one says that the achievement of that end is not really mandatory? What is the use of putting a section into a Bill and then saying that one does not expect it to be binding in law? On any occasion on which I have seen or read of any negotiations between the trade unions and CIE, every report has contained a reference to this section, that the directors of CIE must break even, that they are in a very difficult position and that much as they would like to increase the wages of the workers, reduce the working hours, give better schedules and better timetables to the travelling public, they cannot do it because of the imposition on them by the Dáil of the obligation to break even by 1964.

This has been used since 1958 as the big stick to justify the repressive policies of CIE over the years, as a justification to the public and to the trade union movement, and in newspaper headlines and editorials, that they have been ordered to break even by 1964, that the deadline is 1964 and that they must meet it.

It is not sufficient for the Minister to say that such a provision was there before, that there was such a provision in the 1948 Act. The provision in the 1948 Act was to secure that revenue would not be less than that sufficient to meet the charges properly chargeable to revenue. The then Minister for Industry and Commerce discarded that provision in the 1958 Act because he wanted to put in quite a different proposition, that is, that they break even by 1964. If that provision is not mandatory, why should it be put in? If the Board of CIE have a discretion in this matter, why should this section, which we seek to have taken out, be put into the Bill at all? Why try to shelter behind it? It appears now that it is completely unimportant and irrelevant. That is the only meaning that can be taken from the Minister's suggestion, that this is not mandatory, that it has no force in law and that it can be ignored. Is that not all we are asking the Minister to do in this amending Bill?

Has the Minister not made the best case for accepting our Bill? He has spoken for days trying to defend a section which he says has no meaning, no binding power at all, which carries no weight and is not worth the paper on which it is written. Why has he attempted to defend its inclusion in the Act? Surely that is absurd. There is only one important consequence which must arise out of it, that is, that the trade unions may now ignore that section. It is no longer a binding force and they can all ignore it. The suggestion now is that it was put into the Act as an in terrorem provision, as a sort of bogyman for the Chairman of CIE and the Board of that body, and that the Oireachtas were not really insisting on the financial results mentioned in the section when they inserted it.

The Minister protested against the legitimate criticism which we levelled at Dr. Andrews' administration of the transport service but I think that very little more insulting could be said to a man than to tell him that a particular clause was put into an Act in order to ensure that he should achieve a particular end and then to tell him that that clause had no meaning. Does Dr. Andrews know that this section has no meaning, that it has no power in law, that it is not binding? Can he ignore it? Can we ignore it or is that why we are paying £1.7 million to CIE this year? Was this section inserted so that the Chairman of CIE could use it as a device to harry the trade union movement, quoting the Oireachtas, and saying it is because these people have put these impossible conditions upon them? He shares this secret with the Minister for Transport and Power that he can snap his fingers, that it has no validity at all. Is that the position, that Dr. Andrews——

An Ceann Comhairle

I think it was indicated last night that the Minister is responsible for everything in this Bill and that any criticism in respect of the administration of the legislation should be directed towards him and not towards any official, no matter how high.

Dr. Browne

One of the Minister's favourite gambits is to quote somewhere else and to tell us that things are not too good in Milan or Madrid, Hong Kong or Singapore, and to try to engender some sympathy in the minds of the Irish public because this is so. In other circumstances, we might be concerned with that, but in the present context we are concerned with the position in Ireland. He did attempt, in order to try to justify the position in CIE, to suggest that the fares in Dublin could be compared favourably with those in provincial cities in Great Britain. Of course that again is not a valid comparison because in Britain, even if the fares are comparable, there are many other advantages in the life of a person which we do not have here. Consequently when a person pays a lot of money for a fare for his child to go to school there, there are many other things on which they do not have to spend money, such as health services, education services and so on.

That is why I deprecate these comparisons with other countries. They are, in effect, useless. There was the comparison in regard to the sparseness of population here in Ireland and that was given as the reason why we are losing money on our transport services. As I said, the fault is our own, but again it shows the futility of comparisons. Great Britain is a highly industrialised country, over congested, and yet its transport services are losing money, so in no way could that be taken as a defence for the failure of CIE.

The Minister shared the confusion of a number of Deputies, particularly Deputy Noel Lemass, on the whole question of the purpose and function of public services, including public transport services. It is astonishing that the Minister, who is in a position of absolute control over a public service, should be so confused as he appears to be in relation to the position. The Minister says there are many socialists in Europe who believe that State companies should pay and that it is extremely bad for them not to pay. Deputy Lemass said something to the effect that they should show a profit. I wish to quote from a speech by Dr. Andrews which draws attention to his misconception—and I do not think I am misrepresenting him— in regard to the purpose of public transport. I quote from “The Role of State Sponsored Bodies by Mr. Lemass, with comments by Dr. Andrews.” With all the pseudo expertise of the politically illiterate man, he says in page 15 of this document in regard to the objectives and aims of the public company as compared with those of private enterprise:

I think a classical profit and loss account is one of the best yardsticks of the efficiency of a company.

I think that all adds up to the fact that there is considerable confusion in the Minister's mind and in the Chairman's mind as to the proper function of a public transport corporation. The Minister is wrong to suggest that CIE is in any way a socialist company or a State company. It is certainly a public controlled company. It possibly could be said to be publicly owned in so far as we pay for it in subsidies and otherwise but we do not control it in any way. It is merely an example of State capitalism that is frequently seen in Russia. For that reason it is undesirable because it is State capitalism rather than a truly socialist enterprise.

The Minister is quite wrong in his suggestion that any substantial body of socialist opinion believes that the criterion of efficiency in a public company is that it should pay its way. There are various authorities for that and I should like to quote some of them for the Minister's edification. There is a book by Mr. W.A. Robeson called Nationalised Industry and Public Ownership. He says in page 416:

Since profitability is not a primary aim of nationalised industry, it cannot be regarded as a valid test to measure the efficiency of public enterprise.

He goes on:

Where a monopoly exists annual surpluses would tell little of their efficiency in view of their monopoly position.

Lord Latham, a former Chairman of London Transport, insisted that:

Profitability is not a reliable test of efficiency in a nationalised industry. If circumstances are favourable, satisfactory profits mask inefficiency, while in unfavourable circumstances, a proper degree of efficiency may be achieved despite absence of profits.

That is contrary to what Dr. Andrews says:—"I think a classical profit and loss account is one of the best yardsticks of the efficiency of a company."

I wish to quote Professor Herbert A. Simon. These are all relatively right-wing authorities, I need hardly say. I do not think any others would greatly impress the Minister. Professor Simon in a book called Administrative Behaviour, 2nd Edition, says at page 173:

The concept of efficiency must be given a much broader meaning than that accorded to it in profit-making concerns if it is to be applied to undertakings in which factors are involved which cannot be measured in money terms.

Again, Lord Latham says:

Economy and efficiency are synonymous. In a public transport undertaking, for example, there must be unremunerative services to outlying areas or in off-peak periods and these can only be supported by heavy traffic in peak hours. The claims of economy must be balanced constructively against the demands of efficiency.

Again, in another book called Management and Accountability in the Nationalised Industries, at pages 44 and 45 D. N. Chester says:

The absence of loss in the trading operations of a public corporation is not truly comparable as an index of efficiency to the size of the dividend made by a joint stock company. Among the criticisms which can be levelled at the validity of the analogy are that the balanced accounts may reflect high prices made possible for monopolistic exploitations rather than efficiency... that social needs rather than economic consideration should determine the policies of public corporations.

William Robeson went on to say:

The National Coal Board could have made a profit of £300,000,000 in the first decade of its existence by exploiting its monopolostic position for services or commodities for which the demand is relatively in-elastic.

Of course it is quite absurd for Dr. Andrews to say that the profit and loss account is one of the best yardsticks of the efficiency of a company. He is a very lucky man that we are not using that yardstick too strictly on him in his own concern. In a State company which is either a public utility company or a company which is concerned only with the social needs of society, and it could be a productive type of company, it would be quite a different thing altogether and profit would be of importance. In the ordinary public utility company, one is primarily concerned with getting an efficient service. In a transport service, you want a fast, comfortable service with reasonable fares. If there is a surplus—and you may make a surplus —there is no difficulty whatsoever in disposing of it.

The difficulty we are in is that the service we are discussing is neither one thing nor the other. I should like to quote one other authority. It is conceivable that a number of Deputies may not like the fact that these are mostly British authorities, but they are people who have considerable experience of this problem, and because of that they are perfectly legitimate quotations for our purposes tonight. One of our own company directors, Mr. Paddy Lynch, in a book called Planning for Economic Development, a Tuairim pamphlet, at page 11 talks about the question of profit as an incomplete test. He says:

It is all too easy for public enterprise to secure undeservedly a bad reputation when it is compelled to undertake the salvaging of an industry in which private enterprise has failed or in which the possibilities of productive development are remote. If public enterprise is to be fairly tested the experiment must take place in circumstances that permit of economically rewarding expansion. The criteria by which its performance is to be tested cannot be borrowed from private enterprise, competitive or otherwise.

There is no doubt that whatever our opinions may be, the whole history of the attempted control, by piecemeal methods, of public transport in Ireland over the years bears out Mr. Lynch in his assertions and completely refutes and contradicts the statement made by Dr. Andrews in his contribution. It is very serious and dangerous that a man with his completely mistaken views should be allowed to do so much damage to our public services. If we are to look at the yardstick of profitability in relation to CIE, all anyone can say is that they are a disastrous failure. Looking at that simple, crude yardstick, which is completely unacceptable to me, they are a failure. No one expects them to pay their way by 1964. All we are concerned with really is the size the debt will be. Will it be £2,000,000 or will it be £1.7 million, or what size will it be?

The Minister talked about the position in relation to nationalisation and rejected it. Our difficulty is that the Minister and the Government will not take either pure private enterprise or pure nationalisation or draw a line through the middle and accept the consequence that we must subsidise. They will not take either of those alternatives and they are the main alternatives facing us. We can assume that private enterprise will not try again. GNR or GSR clearly will not try again. I believe the Minister must face the question of accepting full responsibility for public transport, or carry out, as he is carrying out at the moment, the truncated service which CIE operate, and make provision for a subsidy at the end of each year. That is absolutely inevitable and I do not think there can be any denying it.

The fact of the matter is that the economy must determine the present situation. CIE are operating in an impossible position. The 1964 deadline is an impossible provision. The Minister has conceded that himself, and I think he made possibly the best case that we have heard for this Bill, that the section has no validity and consequently should be amended. CIE are operating under a disability imposed by the Minister and the Government and they are competing against private transport.

There are a number of private transport concerns which, I suppose, for conditions of service, pension rights, security of employment, conditions of maintenance of vehicles, hours of work, and so on, compare favourably with CIE conditions of work, whatever one may say about the conditions of work in CIE. At any rate, they are a base line from which one can operate. There is a minority of private hauliers who can guarantee their employees largely the same conditions as CIE, people like Guinness and Roadstone, but I do not know them well enough to be sure. I presume there are reasonable conditions of employment in these concerns. In the vast majority of companies, the conditions of employment for the men on transport services are far inferior to those which obtain in CIE.

That is a costly overhead. CIE must maintain, because they are a form of State company, a certain standard in the treatment of their employees and because of that, they carry this overhead. Because of the fact that private enterprise lorries can compete with any kind of lorry that can get by the traffic inspections, a company does not need to spend much money on maintenance. There is no question of security of employment, very rarely a question of pension rights, protective clothing, a helper on the lorry and so on. That is a very considerable disability against which CIE have to operate. It is a disability of the Minister's creation and it is one which only the Minister can remove. It is there. It is one aspect of the economic considerations which CIE have to bear in mind when they are competing for business.

Again, CIE face the problem that the private haulier can pick and choose his business. Broadly speaking, he can charge anything he wants, if he does not want a particular job. If, in his opinion, it is uneconomic, he quotes an impossible figure. He does not have to take that job. CIE have to take it.

We are in the position that CIE are competing against a colossal preponderance of private haulage. We worked the ratio out at one to 80. There is nearly anything up to one hundred times as many private lorries on the road as there are CIE lorries. There is this colossal competition against which this relatively tiny transport undertaking have to try to operate. They cannot do it unless the Minister takes one or two decisions—unless he is going to take into public ownership the whole of the transport service; I do not mean the grocers' delivery vans but lorries over a certain tonnage and so on, and make more stringent the conditions for private haulage—in fact, take into public ownership the greater part of the haulage of the country. He says he believes in private enterprise. He allows private enterprise to operate and CIE to operate at a disadvantage. We must pay a subsidy in order to make it possible for CIE to keep going at all.

It is typical of the empiricism of Deputy Lemass as Minister and of the present Minister and of their approach to every problem—a sort of make-shift decision hoping it will be effective but a refusal to face the fact that their solutions have failed because they conflicted with the economic laws. It is impossible in a society such as ours to give a public service the rump of the transport service and expect it to survive. The whole history of transport has shown that it is impossible to operate in that way.

Again, we have had suggestions made by very conservative people in CIE over the years. Again and again, we had recommendations from the boards of CIE asking that some sort of restriction should be placed on private haulage. The CIE report of 1951 advocated restriction on private transport as the only practical alternative to the continued subsidisation of public transport. Here we are ten years later and the Minister will not accept that. In 1952, proposals were made by CIE for drastic reductions on the operations of private freight vehicles. Again, the annual report for 1952 asked for a limit on the operation of all vehicles over two tons unladen of 20 miles. In another annual report in March, 1954, they advocated: "Whatever steps may be necessary should be taken to transfer to the Board's rail services the heavy long distance loads at present carried by road." Again in 1956 the report advocated: "Economies by change over to diesels." These were the extremely conservative recommendations of directors and Board members of CIE. They would not have been there otherwise. They went on to say:

... and otherwise, will not, of themselves, be sufficient to eliminate losses in the undertaking.

If the undertaking is to pay its way, steps must be taken to divert to the Board's rail services all the traffic—particularly the heavy long-distance traffic—which these rail services can carry.

In another part of the same report, it was said:

CIE informed us that restriction on private transport could result in a reduction in rail charges.

That is a very important consideration from the Minister's point of view but from the point of view of the public, it is even more important. Of course, that was rejected. The Minister and his predecessors, as I say, were begged and pleaded with by these people who should have some knowledge of the problem of transport. They simply could not continue to operate unless they got a subsidy or got the whole transport undertaking in the country. Clearly, the Minister must face that decision. It is one or the other. It is either public ownership of the whole concern and acceptance of the repercussions or else the present situation of continued losses.

The Minister has been particularly inane in his references to the whole question of subsidy. He is very abstruse in his reasoning on the undesirability of the maintenance of subsidies where these subsidies need to be paid over a number of years. He says they should only be for certain reasons and in very special circumstances. Nobody in his senses, no politician in his senses, would advocate the payment of subsidies merely because he believes that subsidies are a good thing, merely because he has a doctrinaire belief in the idea of subsidies or because there is not a real need for them.

We all know quite well that there is a great need for money for education, health, old people, better schools, housing and so on. We all know that. We are not making suggestions in relation to subsidies just for the fun of the thing. We are saying it is part of an economic law which stares one in the face. You cannot get around it. They tried to do that in the past but always they have come back to us. In his report, Dr. Beddy refers to the dreary tale of loss. It is a reality. It is a fact that must be faced and it has to go on being faced by the Minister or by whoever is in charge as an inevitable part of the handling of a public transport service in this and most other countries. The subsidy idea is one of the oldest political ideas since Governments attempted to try to control society in a civilised way. It is conservative. It was a liberal idea in the beginning. There is nothing left-wing about subsidies. They are part and parcel of the whole fiscal set-up of our society and have been since the State was established.

I suppose one of the crudest forms of subsidy—it is certainly a subsidy— is the acceptance of a tariff system. The protection of industry costs us money in one way or another. The fact that we should protect our industries is in effect, a subsidy. That is a tariff policy which has been accepted for very many years. We accept the subsidisation of our air transport services. We have to do it and have accepted that for a long time. I am quite sure if Aer Lingus start making an operating loss, the Minister will not come in and suggest we should close it down. The position in regard to the farmers is that we subsidise certain fertilisers to stabilise prices and it can be said that we subsidise in part the wheat crop. There are certainly subsidies in relation to butter. Is it the suggestion that unless we withhold from CIE this idea of a subsidy, the CIE workers will not work quite so hard?

The Minister said it had no meaning at all, that we were to take no notice of it. Is the Minister suggesting that the CIE workers and Dr. Andrews— and nobody can say I am a great admirer of his—have worked better by virtue of the fact that this whip is held over them? It is in existence but is not binding on them at all. Is there any sense therefore in maintaining this illusory goad for these stupid people who would not work unless it were there? That is the implication in the Minister's statement. Why did the Minister not devise some such goad in relation to the other subsidies I have mentioned? Why have they been quite ready to give them subsidies to help them sell their produce on other markets and have exonerated them from this insulting position imposed on the CIE workers?

We believe a subsidy is the best way of helping industry and the social needs created by running an efficient public transport service. The Minister's approach to the matter is to tell the travelling public to pay the subsidy. He asked how would the public like it if the Minister came in here and asked for increased taxation to the extent of £2 million. It is the public who are paying anyway, except it is a tiny handful of the public who are paying in increased fares. That is demonstrated in the Minister's figures. All we want is that the burden of the subsidy should be spread over a much greater number of people so that there will be a more socially just division of the subsidy.

What would happen if the Minister for Agriculture came in here and said he intended to give a subsidy to the farmers for butter amounting to £2 million and proposed to get it from a special tax imposed on dairy farmers and on the farming community generally? That would be impossible to suggest. It would be politically mad to do so. That is part of the Minister's empirical approach to this matter. He knows the travelling public are not organised and he thinks he can do what he likes with them.

Mr. Childers

The Minister is longing to abolish the butter subsidy.

Dr. Browne

The Minister cannot have been listening to me. I am trying to insist that the Minister must face the inevitability of accepting the idea of subsidies. Is the Minister taking the attitude now in relation to the dairy farmers he takes in relation to transport, that if butter is not paying its way, we should kill our all dairy stock?

Mr. Childers

There is no comparison.

Dr. Browne

Are you going to take the attitude in relation to wheat growing that if you cannot make a go of this without a subsidy, there will have to be an end to tillage? That is the logical conclusion of the Minister's approach to these matters. If you carry it through to its logical conclusion, we suggest you would find yourself faced with these absurd dilemmas. Because you are refusing to face these dilemmas in relation to public transport, you are depriving the community of a most important and valuable asset, and you are contributing to the rapid and wholesale depopulation of rural Ireland. I am not saying that is a preponderating factor, but it is one of the factors which makes it difficult for anybody to go on living in rural Ireland—the fact of not having access to nearby surrounding areas.

The Minister tried to make some point about county councillors. He said that if they were brought up to a branch line before it was closed down and faced with the cost of putting it there, they would be horrified at the thought of providing it. That is an absurd suggestion by the Minister. We are concerned with the maintenance of these branch lines; there is no question of creating new ones. We are facing the reality that we have these things as a capital asset from other generations. The suggestion is completely absurd. It is as if the Minister were to say that buses were a silly form of transport and it was ridiculous to have a colossal place like Arus Mhic Dhiarmada in order to maintain them, so we should get rid of them and use helicopters. The branch lines are there as a capital asset. It is possible for them to be operated in an efficient way, to be brought up to date and brought into the general transport service.

The Minister makes the extraordinary suggestion that a subsidy is unreasonable and can be justified only in very special circumstances. We make the case that there are very special circumstances obtaining in a community such as ours, faced with continuing emigration and rural depopulation. We think the necessity of trying to restrict this is as good a justification as it is possible to have. He suggested the direct and indirect taxation necessary in order to find this money would be a burden of £2,800,000 on under three million people. What I said in relation to rural depopulation also applies here. We have only 2,800,000 people in the country because at least one million have been hunted out in the past 40 years by these same dogmatic ideas and conservative social and economic policies. Those one million people would have created a population of five or six million, who would have had no difficulty in providing the money with which to subsidise the public transport service. No matter what Minister is sitting there, whether it is Transport and Power, Industry and Commerce or Education, the chickens always come home to roost— your own failures over the past 40 years and your refusal to face facts as a result of those failures.

The Minister has suggested the question of subsidy is something obscene or something unclean.

Debate adjourned.

Mr. Kyne

I understand the Labour Party Whip has been in touch with the Government with a view to having Motion No. 46 on the Order Paper taken in conjunction with the Estimate, as well as Motion No. 39. I understand the Taoiseach has indicated that he has no objection.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has no knowledge of any arrangement.