Before Question Time, I was dealing with the increase in postal charges which have gone above the ordinary limits. I think the Minister did not give due consideration to these increases. They are savage increases and they do not bear any relationship to the actual increased costs of salaries and wages. Can you imagine the charge for letters, which are used by everybody, from the lowest to the highest, and which two or three years ago was 3d., being increased by 25 per cent? The Minister earlier increased these charges by 33? per cent, to 4d. Now he has increased them further, to 5d. A person would have to have silver now in order to post a letter. We must remember that the charge for the same service in England is still 3d. Is it a case that the smaller population in this country must be mulcted more heavily in order to pay for the cost of this service?
The Minister should reconsider this matter, which will affect the poorest people, even the old age pensioner who writes a letter occasionally. Apart from the effect this increased charge will have on private persons, it will have a very adverse effect on business concerns. A concern whose costs for postage were £400 will now have to pay £500. That is a very serious increase in the letter rate and I do not think any serious consideration was given to it. I think it was just a case of the Taoiseach, being nettled when he was challenged about the second small Budget, telling the Minister to get out these charges straight away and have them issued that evening.
The increase in the postcard rate is a 50 per cent increase—from 2d to 3d. Lettercards are used extensively, especially by commercial travellers. The increased cost in this case will be another heavy burden on the business community.
I do not think the Minister or the Government gave any deep thought to the effects on the economy. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance in the Budget debate referred to the importance of improved and expanding industry. Will these increased charges in postal rates help to expand industry or to promote industry? This is an example to the business people. The Government are in power and it may be thought that there is no one to challenge them. We, as an Opposition, are challenging them on behalf of the people.
The newspaper rate is increased by 50 per cent, from 2d to 3d, which will be a very heavy impost on the newspapers. We know there is one newspaper that will absorb the 12½ per cent and, I suppose, any other increase. They have not increased their prices. Other newspapers run as commercial concerns have had to increase their prices and this will be a further impost on these newspapers.
The 2 lb parcel rate is increased from 1/3d to 2/-, an increase of 60 per cent. When I saw that increase I asked myself what would happen if the service were run by a private concern. There was a proposal to increase the price of sugar, which had not been increased for quite a long time and which had to absorb various costs for raw materials and wages, by 14 per cent, which I am sure was already agreed to by the Department of Industry and Commerce. When the Government saw the reaction in the country, they called for an investigation by the Prices Advisory Body and the result was that there was a goodwill gesture. The proposed £9 a ton increase was reduced to £8, which satisfied the Government. The Prices Advisory Body did some good in satisfying them.
In connection with the proposal to increase the price of flour by about 5 per cent, the Prices Advisory Body were also called in to examine the matter. I wonder if this increase in the parcel rate was put to the Prices Advisory Body or some other such body to investigate the effects it will have on the business community. There are quite a number of businesses, especially wholesale businesses, who use the parcel post extensively. There is one firm in my town that sends a tremendous number of parcels each day by parcel post. What will this 60 per cent increase mean to them? I consider that these increases are outrageous, that they were imposed in a panic and that the Minister should do what we are asking him to do in the motion, not to enforce these charges until they have been reviewed. They are bound to have a very serious effect on business.
The Minister referred to the fact that in respect to small parcels, as the rate for the first ounce is being increased by 1d. only, every packet in this category exceeding 1½ ounces will be cheaper than before and suggested that this would be of some assistance in some areas of our export trade. I laughed when I heard that. He is making that small concession and on the other hand he is giving a body blow to industry by increasing the rate for parcels from 1/3d. to 2/-, which is outrageous.
As I have already said, I do not think due consideration was given to this matter. It will have the effect of pushing up prices again, especially in the rural areas. In the rural areas people who cannot come to town use the parcel post. The charge for one small parcel sent by post is increased by 60 per cent. I do not think the Minister can put up any argument to justify it.
We are all looking for foreign business. We all got an invitation to the fashion show the other day. We have been impressed as to the increase in the export of fashion goods, which now represents £3 million from practically nil over the past few years. The foreign letter rate is increased by 33? per cent. The rate for postcards and printed paper has been increased.
I do not know if the Post Office charges bear any relation to the 12 per cent increase in wages and salaries. We are fully justified in the motion that we have put down to have these charges referred back for further consideration and I have no doubt that the people behind the Minister would support us in that motion. It would appear to me that the increases were taken haphazardly. Airmail charges do not bear the same percentage increase as surface mail. The rate for registration—inland —is increased from 9d minimum to 1/- minimum and, at the maximum, from 2/5 to 2/8d. That represents at the minimum another increase of 33? per cent.
The rate for customs clearance— dutiable parcels—has been increased, where the duty is not over 10/-, from 1/- to 1/4 and where it is over 10/-from 2/- to 2/4. Not only is it intended to make it pay, but it is intended to make a very good thing out of these charges. Take postal orders. Could one imagine being charged 4d for a 1/-postal order?
The Minister mentioned that the telegraph traffic had gone down during the year, the number of telegrams handled having fallen by about 100,000. Is it a fact that the Minister wants to cut out this service? If he would say that, there would be something in it. Imagine an increase for a minimum of 12 words of from 3/- to 5/-, a 66? per cent increase. It is outrageous. What the Minister should try to do is improve the service, get telegrams delivered at reasonable times instead of late at night in the case of telegrams handed in early in the day.
Here the Minister should have taken the example of industry, where efficiency experts have been called in to help. If he did so I feel sure the service would improve enormously, because more people would be inclined to avail of it than of the present inefficient service. There is no doubt in my mind that the proposed penal charge will serve to stop people from availing of this service. It will certainly prove an enormous hardship on people in rural areas who, because they have no telephones, rely so much on the telegraph service.
Now the overnight telegrams are to be increased from 1/6d. to 2/6d. I suppose that in proportion to other increased charges, this does not seem so bad. Ordinary telegrams are to cost 5/- in the future and telegrams to Great Britain are to go up from 3/6d. to 6/-, an increase of 70 per cent. With the number of young Irishmen and women in Britain there is a great demand for that service. Therefore, the new charge seems ridiculous and outlandish—in fact, I cannot find a word strong enough to describe it.
The telephone service yielded a surplus of £360,000 during the last year for which we have figures, yet now we propose to increase the charges for this service completely beyond the capacity of the people. Charges for ordinary local calls from private telephones and kiosks are to be increased by a large percentage. I often wonder if we could not devise some system through which economies could be effected in the service provided by public kiosks. People sometimes stay on the telephone for ten or 15 minutes while other people wait outside and quite often have to leave without making their calls. Surely some system could be devised whereby the caller would be restricted to the stated time. If that were done there would be an increase in the number of calls made.
The rental on private lines is to be increased by 33 per cent, from £9 to £12. That will not be just a single increase: it will recur every year irrespective of the use being made of the telephone. Business lines will have their rentals increased by 20 per cent. In addition, the Minister has imposed a system which will stop applicants for telephones. A £10 fine is to be imposed on people applying for installation. Surely that will have a most detrimental effect since a person must also pay a rental of £12 instead of the present £9. Does the Minister think people install telephones for sport? It is no joke, I can tell him.
Let us suppose a private subscriber changes his address. Will the £10 fine be refunded to him? Will he get a rebate if and when he applies for a telephone at his new address? Will the person who goes into occupation of the vacated house, and who still retains the telephone, get a refund? These are things we should like to be told because of their importance. Such a situation could be fairly widespread because a person working for a firm could be transferred to another part of the country. At any rate, some consideration should be given to sub-scribers to a service already yielding a surplus.
The Taoiseach said there was room for economies. Does the Minister think it is good economic principle to impose increases of 66 per cent and 70 per cent in charges? He is budgeting for an extra £2 million. I submit that if he leaves the charges as they are but gets the services of efficiency experts to help him, he will realise that needed money through natural expansion. We have been told that the volume of the parcel post has increased by 16 per cent and that the cross-Channel parcel post has gone up by 12 per cent in one case and 25 per cent in another. Surely that must have produced a considerable increase in Post Office revenue.
Is it not increases like that we should strive for instead of the imposition of these penal duties which will only serve to reduce the demand for the services? In rural areas, the Minister said, the revenue from postal charges was not sufficient to meet the postmen's wages. Does he think he will improve that situation by increasing the charges? I do not think so because people will cut down their use of the post.
Of course, all these new charges will come back again in the never ending spiral. We have had enough increases in the past six months; in the past three months we have had three different increases in costs, involving food, clothing and the other necessaries of life. What does the Minister think the effects will be of these further increases in essential services? I suppose the Government foolishly believe that in three months this will all be forgotten in the normal way. I do not think it will.
A suggestion was made during the debate on last year's Estimate that the Minister should permit the use of scooters by rural postmen. The Minister now says he has decided to permit it in experimental cases. This will speed it up and result in a better service. I have not heard anything about it but the Minister said in his statement that they were introducing it. Rural postmen are permitted at present to use their own scooters and they get a miserable allowance of 4/6d. a week under some old regulation. The least the Department should do is to pay any postman who has the initiative to provide himself with a scooter a reasonable allowance and reasonable running costs.
Last year I raised the question of auxiliary postmen. These are in a category of their own. They are the lowest paid personnel in Government service, or in any service. The Minister will, of course, make the case that they are part-time and that they are reasonably remunerated for the number of hours they work. These men have to go in early in the morning, sort the mails and deliver them and, after that, they are not in much form for taking on another job. It must be remembered, too, that there is not all that part-time work available. There may be part-time work available in the summer in the country but, in general, it is not available.
Recently my attention was drawn to a case in which a man was signing on at the labour exchange and drawing £6 10s. 6d. unemployment benefit. A temporary postman was required in the local post office. This man was sent there. He took the job. Had he not done so he would lose his unemployment benefit, but the real point is that his pay for the week was £5 10s. He received considerably more on unemployment benefit than he received for doing a week's work. I do not think the Minister can defend that. That man had no hope of getting a second job in the afternoon. I suggest there should be a minimum wage paid to all auxiliary postmen, especially married men with families. I know a married man who has been working 18 to 20 years and, after the last increase, he is drawing about £5 per week. He has a wife and two or three children. Could a family like that exist on something less than £5 per week.
The Minister has an opportunity to improve the position. Where there are two or three auxiliary postmen, and one retires, the Minister should divide the rounds between the remaining two and bring them up to a reasonable wage standard. The opportunity is there, but the Minister has not used it very much. Perhaps he has been pressed by Party supporters to make a new appointment and, because of that, the other two get no improvement. They are left as they are. These are the only people that I know of who have no superannuation. They are not entitled to pensions. Practically everybody now in employment is entitled to a pension. In years to come I believe that industrial workers will all have pensions. That will be a good thing because then they will be able to retire round about 65. These auxiliary postmen drag on until 75, and even longer, because they know they will get no pension.
With regard to the Post Office savings bank, that is the small savers bank, the bank for those who save in small amounts; the interest rate is very low. The Minister for Finance in his Budget statement said he was considering trustee savings. I trust he will consider increasing the interest rate. Savings certificates earn three per cent, free of tax. Prize Bonds earn four per cent. To encourage the sale of the latter the Minister recently put up two special prizes of £10,000 each. That had an effect on the recent issue of prize bonds. The demand increased and the investment improved. If the rate of interest were improved where the small savers are concerned people would have a greater inducement to invest in the Post Office savings bank. Of course, when these people are looking for an old age pension, the interest on any money they have is not calculated at two and a half per cent. After the first £25 it is calculated at ten per cent. They lose both ways.
I believe savings went down this year. Last year the sum was £4½ million. This year the total amount left is £2½ million. I doubt if legislation would be necessary to implement this suggestion. If the Minister can increase Post Office charges generally he hardly needs legislation to increase the rate of interest on Post Office savings bank accounts from 2½ per cent to 3 or 4 per cent. The Minister mentioned that savings have passed the £100 million mark this year. The Minister suggested we should encourage savings. There is only one way to do that—raise the rate of interest and improve the service.
In accordance with Government policy, I suppose, there was an increase in television licences from £4 to £5 and in radio licences from £1 to 25/-. There is roughly a charge of 10/- a week for rental. The total cost of operating a television set is round about £30 a year. I do not set myself up as a critic but, in general, I think the programmes are reasonably good. The more native programmes the better. The so-called canned programmes are reasonably good, too, but I think people would like to have greater native production. The summer months now should provide the Authority with an opportunity for increasing native programmes. I know the Minister is not responsible for the programmes but he can let the Broadcasting Authority know the views of Deputies on them.
The only complaint I have to make is that there is too much advertising on television. There is a break in the programme every quarter of an hour. That is too much, especially on Sunday nights. This is a national television and broadcasting service, not a commercial service. I know revenue has to be got somewhere. I was looking at "The School Around the Corner" last Sunday week. The programme was extended but there were three breaks for advertising. If people want to advertise on Sunday night then the charges should be increased and the time should be reduced. There should not be a break for advertising every 15 minutes. At most, it should be every half hour.
The Minister was asked a question here about publishing the cattle market report on television. He promised to look into the matter, but, so far, these reports have not been published. I note he stated they are given on the radio. People may use television and may not use the radio at all. It is a matter the Minister should look into because it is important for some people to get that information.
I am glad a settlement was reached between the Post Office and the subpostmasters. The Minister got very hot under the collar last year when I suggested there should be arbitration. He would not agree to that. He said that neither he nor the Government could agree even to conciliation. I am glad the Government and the Minister changed their minds even if it took a little trouble throughout the country to bring that about. In a great number of cases, these people had very small remuneration and it is satisfactory that an amicable settlement has been arrived at.
I understand the educational programmes on Telefís Éireann are very much appreciated. We hope such programmes will not only be continued but extended during the coming year.
