Before the debate was adjourned last week, I was making reference to the increasing number of letters which are going astray. How much of this is due to malice on the part of the Post Office and how much is due to general incompetence, I do not know, but it is quite clear that in recent times, since the introduction of the postal district numbers, an increasing amount of correspondence is not finding its way in proper time to its destination. One appreciates the purpose of introducing the postal district numbering system, which is to expedite sorting, but it should not be used as a justification for deliberately delaying, mislaying or setting aside correspondence which does not bear a district number, particularly as the Department has not yet furnished in the telephone directory, which is a handy book of reference, district numbers for all entries in that directory. We have been promised by the Minister that this will be done in the next issue of the directory. I hope it will not be like so many other indications from the Minister, just so much wishful thinking, with very little beneficial result in practice.
I emphasised earlier, as did Deputy Crotty and Deputy Governey, on the Fine Gael benches, that we were not at all satisfied that there was need to increase postal charges in order to meet the increased outlay which wage adjustments have called for. As an indication of the lack of capacity in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to use possible profit opportunities, I would draw the attention of the House to the growth of modern internal office equipment in the form of modern telephonic systems of communication. Vast profits are being made out of the installation of modern telephonic equipment, particularly in modern offices, by private concerns. Here is a clear example of where the Department of Posts and Telegraphs could have adapted itself to meet the demands of modern industry and business by providing these modern facilities. Instead, the only telephone exchange equipment which the Department can offer is a complicated piece of ancient furniture which requires the pulling out or sticking in of plugs or the switching of levers up and down in a contraption which is more likely to go out of order and to create general chaos than it is to facilitate the passage of calls from the outside world through various extensions in a modern business office or industrial concern.
I ask here now why it is that so many firms are getting rid of antiquated telephone exchanges and installing in their offices modern equipment provided by private concerns. I do not have to look far for the answer because the answer is simple. A modern system, although more costly, is more satisfactory and does not frequently go out of order and cause all kinds of disorder and chaos such as is the experience of people using the antiquated machinery which is the only form of equipment the Department of Posts and Telegraphs will offer.
I speak from intimate experience of this. For several years, hardly a week passed without there being something faulty with a number of different pieces of Department of Posts and Telegraphs equipment which were made available to my office. No sooner did we get rid of all the contraptions provided by the Department than we had a perfect service, which we have had ever since.
Here is an opportunity to earn income for the benefit of the community which the Department of Posts and Telegraphs has failed to make use of. That is only one small way in which the Department has shown how grossly inefficient it is and how lacking it is in capacity to adapt itself to the demands of modern science and modern business.
Deputy Dockrell and others in the course of the Budget debate have very rightly spoken of the colossal burden which will now be imposed upon business generally because of the savage and unnecessary increases in postal charges. Last night, scandalous personal comments were made about Deputy Dockrell and other members of this House suggesting that they had no wish to see the staff of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs paid properly and suggesting that the only way in which they could be paid properly was by increasing the cost of stamps and that, if we were opposed to the increased cost of stamps, we were opposed to decent wages.
That, of course, is so trite and so despicable when it is an accusation made against persons in this House, honourable persons in this House, that I do not think there is any need for me to chase that particular type of personal slander very far but what is particularly nasty is when that type of comment is made about some members of this House who are noted for the very good conditions that they provide for their workers and for the fact that in many cases they pay their workers well in excess of the trade union rates. Good wages, good working conditions are not synonymous with overcharging the public for service performed.
The Minister spoke about the expectation that the increased charges will yield about £2½ million and said that, in arriving at that figure, allowance had been made for loss of traffic which would result from the increased charges. My concern is that the Department of Posts and Telegraphs over the years has been losing traffic, and profitable traffic, because of the growing weight of excessive charges for relatively simple services. The Minister suggested that the justification for increased postal charges was that in some areas in the country the population was so sparse that the cost of delivering letters far outran the cost of the postage on the particular item.
One can certainly understand that if a postman has to travel four miles up a mountain side to deliver one letter, on which there is a 5d stamp, that is not a profitable activity, but, against that, we are aware that in cities and towns throughout the country, in a street of perhaps 50 houses, there may be 200 offices or business concerns or private residences which may yield to the Department anything from 400 to 500 letters per day and in many cases in one short street the number of letters delivered daily may run into several thousands. The effect of increasing the postal rate for a simple letter to 5d will be that many more firms will abandon the use of the postal services for the delivery of correspondence in the cities and towns.
Even before the 5d charge was announced, many Dublin business houses did not use the service of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs for the delivery of correspondence within a radius of one or two miles of their firms. The effect of raising the charge will be that many more firms will abandon the use of the Department's service for the delivery of correspondence within the city because they will find that if they have any reasonable amount of correspondence they will be more disposed to pay a man an extra couple of pounds a week for a few short hours each day during which he can deliver the correspondence within the city limits. Indeed, any firm with a big amount of correspondence could pay a man fulltime and have the job done more efficiently and at far less expense.
This most profitable of the whole Post Office services has been lost to a substantial degree in the past and will be lost to an even greater degree as soon as the 5d levy comes into operation. I do not think the Minister can have made a sufficient allowance for the loss of revenue almost certain to follow when a levy of 5d is imposed for the delivery of an envelope within the city limits. I am quite certain that what I say in relation to Dublin will apply also to the larger firms throughout the length and breadth of the country.
Wherever you have poor labour relations, be it in private or public business, you will invariably have a low rate of wages, a substantial amount of discontent which translates itself into inefficiency. This inefficiency will even show itself outside the labour field. Earlier this year I asked the Minister to state the number of outstanding unresolved employment differences in his Department. We found from his reply that some of the differences between the Department and the unions involved are of two, three and even four years' duration. That indicates a very poor degree of labour relations in the Department.
If the matter were ever in doubt, the fact that there is most inadequate labour machinery in the Department was proved beyond all doubt in the Minister's remarks in the course of the past year on the sub-postmasters' dispute. He used language in the course of that dispute which we thought had been silenced in the nineteenth century and certainly if not then at least in the strife that occurred in this city some 50 years ago.
The Minister denied all consideration of either arbitration or conciliation for sub-postmasters and indicated that it was his notion, and the view of the Government, that all civil servants, be they temporary postmen or others, had a duty to work for the State and appeared to have little or no rights at all. This indicates a most unhealthy approach in a Department which is the biggest employer of labour of all Departments. Unless there is a radical change of heart on the part of the Minister, and of the Government in general, in relation to their workers we will have growing discontent and growing inefficiency in a Department which ought to be relatively simple to run and which, if run on a modern commercial basis, would be capable of yielding not the loss which the Minister forecasts but a substantial profit. It is very small consolation to be told by the Minister in the course of his statement that he is now, in this year of grace, to start an efficiency campaign in the Department. We are now told there is the possibility of working out economies—the possibility of saving through the cutting out of wasteful and unnecessary expenditure.
