——can hope to get reasonable reception from Radio Éireann. Very big technical problems are involved and we have got repeated assurances that some amelioration of the situation is under way but the time has come for the Minister to give us an indication of the foreseeable prospects.
I was interested to find that Deputy Corish, like myself, has a very high appreciation of the standard of music of Radio Éireann. It would be very difficult to deny to the Radio Éireann orchestras the quality and the standard they have achieved. In the south of Ireland, we have been particularly appreciative of their concerts, in Cork in particular. The Minister must be well aware that nowhere will the orchestra do better or get a greater reception than in the south.
Taking the combination of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra and the String Quartet, I have often wondered why we have not been able to persuade Telefís Éireann to give us occasional worthwhile interludes by any one of this particular trio of very successful and very high standard orchestras. I know perfectly well that the "pop" idea is endemic at the moment. We do not suffer from quite the same frenzied variety as Deputy Corish does because, in the south, we receive only Telefís Éireann—and the Minister indicated to me, in answer to questions, that he has no intention of making any arrangements to make other television channels available to us.
At the moment, particularly on Telefís Éireann, we are left with too much emphasis on two contrasting styles of music, without being given a fairly reasonable amount of what I would consider good occasional entertainment music. We now have a kind of tug-o'-war going on between ola-goning ballad singing and those "Picking the Pops". I suppose it is necessary that the programme must cater for all sections but some of the improvement in Telefís Éireann programmes could become more rapid if more stress were laid on these types of informative and worthwhile general knowledge programmes.
I am glad to see that Telefís Éireann —with. I am sure, the enthusiastic help of the Minister—has proved, as I felt it would when I raised the question some time ago, very effective in the educational field. Its programmes are certainly of immense value and are a tremendous credit to the producers. They aroused quite an amount of favourable comment not only at home but outside home on the approach of Telefís Éireann to the educational programme.
It may well be that this idea of programme casting and the nature of the programme may primarily be within the jurisdiction of the Minister for Education but it is a very helpful thing to see that the medium of television has been used and has proved so effective. I hope that there will be an expansion of this type of programme which is so informative and helpful to the young. A series of programmes should be made available for the information and education of adults. In this modern time of stress and strain, there are many programmes on home techniques whether it be in carpentry or knitting, cooking, or that kind of thing, which can be of immense interest and value. It may be odious to mention people but one must realise how appreciative the womenfolk are of Monica Sheridan's Kitchen and the types of home hints given on that programme.
I shall not be supercritical of Telefís Éireann. I know there is a great deal of bias in it but they are suffering from growing pains and they will get over them. The Government may unconsciously feel that Telefís Éireann is a plaything in which they can project their views or, in some insidious way, project a political bias, but, again, people will see through that and eventually the service will grow up into a service for all sections of the community.
There has been, and it would be remiss not to say so, a substantial improvement since the beginning of last year in the general programmes of Telefís Éireann. In particular, there has been a tremendous improvement in their outside broadcasting and in its presentation. To that extent, it would be unfair not to pay a tribute to them for the standard they have set.
Looking at the programmes of other stations when I am here in Dublin and around the area, I sometimes feel satisfied that, within the limited resources available, Telefís Éireann have built, in general, a worthwhile type of programme and style of programme. However, having dealt with the credits they deserve, let me say that it is time they recast in some way their method of commercial interjection. It is not easy to stomach it at any time but we seem to have succeeded in achieving the most insidious and invidious way of interrupting the most interesting programmes with the most puerile rubbish to which we have to listen in commercials.
I do not know what new method can be devised but certainly there were programmes of quality and purpose in recent months on Telefís Éireann which were completely destroyed by this quarter-hour or 20-minute intermission with cats dancing around the place or some such stupid nonsense. I do not know what technical difficulties in regard to the dissemination of advertising may arise for Telefís Éireann but I earnestly appeal to them to try to let us have broadcasts of worthwhile Eurovision programmes and programmes tying up with big events with the minimum of commercials, except before and after, so that we shall not have appalling interjections in the middle of programmes of very strong interest.
We must come back to the mundane problems of the Department proper. The Minister, of course, will get no orchids from anybody on his position at the moment. He has been put in the invidious position of being a subsidiary Minister for Finance and he has to come here and levy in a rather brutal way a very large sum of money to maintain his Department. I think it is true of our people that it is not the levies and the increased prices that incense them as much as what they are not getting. It is the backlog and the inefficiency of the Department that create the greater distress. I have heard the Minister, in public and private, describe the problem of modernising and properly equipping the Post Office as an immense task. To get the equipment required, the automatic exchange system, and instal a modern, fully-diffused telephone system would cost a sum running into millions of pounds but I cannot understand why we should not face that fact, why we have this kind of expediency approach to a problem that should obviously be dealt with on a capital basis with a funding and a spreadover that would enable the equipment to be supplied and its cost included in capital outlay to be recovered over the period of its useful life.
I feel, not that the Department should be converted into a commercial concern, but that it should be made run itself as a commercial concern. The best counterpart would probably be the ESB. In their case, when large capital investment and expenditure were necessary, they were able to raise their own loans guaranteed by the Government and fund them for repayment. You will not make progress with a haphazard policy in the capitalisation programme that is necessary for the new installations that are imperative if we are to have an efficient postal and telephone service. Whether the Department likes to believe it or not, there is chaos in our telephone system. I do not know what technical difficulties have arisen but the amount of wire-crossing and the interference one encounters on picking up a telephone that is meant to be free, is staggering.
We suffer occasionally in Cork from a breakdown in the cable between Cork and Dublin. I do not know why, but recently this kind of technical breakdown has become more frequent and the lines are temporarily out of order. You get a recorded voice saying that if you want to dial somebody urgently, you should ring the operator, and pay double for it. That is what I cannot understand—why we must become the victims of double charges for something over which we have no control. If a line becomes overloaded and if you want to get an urgent call to Dublin, you must pay double. I do not understand the principle behind that particularly as, inevitably, it is the person who is using the trunk line most frequently who may have the necessity to make the urgent call.
In general, I think subscribers are very fair in their approach to the Department and there is no doubt, whoever is the inspiration of it, that there is tremendous courtesy shown by the officials when you harangue them about your difficulties. Courtesy wears very thin, however, when the time involved and the delays become greater and greater. That is one thing that aggravates subscribers, particularly in Cork city and county in regard to modern telephone services. If for some reason completely outside the subscriber's control there is a temporary breakdown on the line, and you want to get an urgent call to Dublin, you must pay through the nose for it. The Department will have to reassess that situation.
While I do not agree with Deputy Rooney that it would be practical to work out a scheme in relation to the number of letters and the cost of postage, scaling down as the number of letters goes up, I think there is a very practical procedure open to the Post Office if they learn from the ESB and find a way by which after a certain number of units have been used on the automatic line, your calls cost less. This would be like the system the ESB have worked out, whereby after a certain number of units the price goes down and a further increase in units brings the price down further. In other words, as your consumption increases, there is recognition of that in the diminishing unit charge. That could be very reasonably applied to telephone subscribers and subscribers who are using their phones very extensively should be entitled to a reduction in the rate at the upper end of their usage. Strictly speaking, it is not the limited social user of the telephone who carries the burden of the service but the person using it extensively in business.
I shall not be highly critical of the Minister in regard to delays in telephone installations if he can give me any practical reason why he cannot get the instruments. I believe that with the development of the new bakelite type of instrument, it should be possible, and is possible, to get delivery of these instruments, ordered in large quantities. Is it the actual instruments themselves ? Or is there some installation difficulty or some lack of cable or line ? Is that the real explanation ?
It seems extraordinary that no matter what the Minister tries to tell us in bland answers, and assurances of all consideration and reasonable despatch, in my constituency people have been waiting for years for connections they have not yet got. It is all right to tell me that some places are isolated and difficult to get at, but surely if we are genuine in our efforts to try to ameliorate the lot of the people in rural Ireland, to try to keep employers active in the rural areas, and to try to keep the people in the rural areas, we should provide what are now normal modern amenities for these people. I never back away from cost when cost is necessary, but, as I said at the outset, I feel that if we are to face the problem of re-equipping and modernising, the method adopted by the Minister on this occasion is no solution to our problem, because obviously it is trying to make current earnings pay for substantial capital outlay, which is nonsense.
What justification can the Department give for the fantastic rises in charges? I do not know how the figure of an increase of £3 for basic rentals was arrived at, but it seems to me to be no better than a kind of haphazard guess. I should like to hear the Minister justify the amount of the increase, and also justify the differential between the increase for one type of subscriber and another. It may be only a paltry 10/- in the year.
I have considered very carefully whether the Minister is doing an immense disservice to the Department by the steep rise in letter posting costs. That will definitely force business people to adjust their approach to letter posting and to the use of stamps at all. I have heard discussions among some of my friends in business who extensively used postage for the purpose of what might be described as the short haul" delivery of letters around the city. When they figured out the increased cost, they found it would be infinitely more practical to get a small scooter and pay a man to deliver them rather than pay the Post Office. With a 100 dozen or 200 dozen letters pouring out in a week, it would be cheaper for them to have the letters delivered than to pay the Post Office. Any such development will take the sweetest part of the cake from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs.
There certainly should be some method of differentiating between cost of delivery within the city and the general over-all cost of delivery throughout the country. Someone is not thinking. The Department are taking the easy way out. Someone does not want to get down to realising that there are two completely different problems which are aggravated, as suggested by Deputy Rooney, by the increased impost on newspaper delivery through the post. Someone has not sat back and taken a look at the situation, and realised that, in so far as the main bulk of postal delivery in the populous areas of Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick is concerned, there is a necessity for an adjustment between the charges for posting within the greater metropolitan areas and the country generally. I am advocating all this because I can see dangers and difficulties in the future for this system. If it is now to become part of a pattern of Government expenditure, we will have the Department of Posts and Telegraphs continuing in the role of tax designers and tax collectors.
I should also like to see a more modern approach to, and a better variety in our stamps. I should like to see some of the characteristic features of certain developments in the country portrayed on our stamps. I should like to see a good deal more public competition in the design of our stamps. That is a feature the Department have not developed properly. We should move with the modern trend of using our stamps to show significant features of our national development.
I want to deal now with some of the problems that are apparently endemic in my constituency and I want to ask the Minister to review the letter delivery times, particularly in the Adrigole and Castletownbere areas. Adrigole in particular has its problems and there is one glaring problem that is causing immense disquiet in the Keimaneigh area in regard to deliveries. I do not think it is the fault completely of the Department. The fact is an additional auxiliary postman is required in that area if there are to be reasonable deliveries. Anybody in the postal department who has any southern slant knows that down in the Keimaneigh area, you are getting into the fastnesses of Gougane Barra and that semi-paradise that I usually speak of on the Estimate dealing with the Tourist Board. People in the area are grumbling about the fact that letters are delivered at uncertain times and in a sporadic manner. There is no involvement in this of the local postmistress, and I would ask the Minister to have a general review of these isolated areas where special consideration has to be given.
I should like to ask the Minister what are the prospects in relation to the backlog in applications for telephones in South-West Cork. I know that where gangs have gone back into certain town areas and places contiguous to Skibbereen, Clonakilty and Bantry, it has been possible to get a number of connections made but it is the places a little outside the perimeter of these sub-main offices that I want to know about and when they can hope to have connections there. The people seeking telephones are farmers doing agricultural contracting, or young farmers doing a great deal of stock buying. Every time you meet these people, they ask why they cannot get special consideration. I am not suggesting that the Department is not doing its best but I am anxious to know when most of this backlog will be cleared up. I know that the same situation exists in every constituency but I suppose our instinct as Deputies is to father our own child and it is in that spirit that I am asking the Minister to have a look at these problems. Your excuses wear a bit thin, even to your most enthusiastic supporter, when the excuses are repeated for years.
I feel that the Minister should have fought for a completely new approach to his problem rather than have this dull kind of expediency approach that we have. We should be adult enough to realise that the telephone service has been creaking for years and we should be making worthwhile efforts to try to get an alternative system while the old system can still continue to bear some of the brunt. The longer we delay in facing up to the problem of re-equipment, the more outmoded, outworn and unsuitable the existing service will become. The Minister and his advisers should start considering a positive and effective plan and indicate the cost and the return they will get for the investment.
Leaving aside the question of making the Post Office a commercial undertaking, I feel perfectly sure that if an effort is made to fund it in a different way, the response of the public will be very good, particularly the response of telephone subscribers. When one realises that we are in a spiral of rising costs for all types of technical equipment, one then realises we will have to start thinking on this line quickly if we are to think at all. The Department has to face up to the fact that there is a limit beyond which it will be very unwise to go in the spiral of increased postage costs, telephone costs, telegram costs, or any other type of charge and the only way in which you can restore public confidence in the Department is by giving efficiency by way of return for your increased punitive charges.
Even in the present situation, it should be possible to eliminate a lot of the overloading and the difficulty that has been created in regard to telephone calls. It would be well worth the Department's time considering Deputy Sweetman's suggestion that there should be a distinction between peak and off-peak periods and that information should be available for subscribers as to when they are likely to get improved or more rapid connections, particularly in regard to trunk and foreign calls.
There is not sufficient reciprocity between the British Post Office and our own in regard to postal deliveries, not so much outside London which was the problem referred to by Deputy Sweetman, but in the Midlands and the North of England where you have this delay of upwards of two days before letters are delivered to people there. The Minister may tell me there has been an immense increase in the volume of traffic, but surely the number of employees and the system of sorting and of delivery have expanded to such an extxent that there should not be any real difficulty in providing a 24-hour service in respect of mails posted before 6 p.m.
These problems are worth examining. Every increase in efficiency in the delivery of the mails, every improvement in the telephone service, will go some way towards restoring goodwill between the public and the Department which is becoming the butt of jokes about inefficiency. The Department alone can remedy that. The remedy will have to be something more than a courteous admission of inability to do anything.
I do not believe the Minister's excuse about lack of equipment and lack of personnel will carry much weight any longer. Would the Minister let us know why there is everincreasing difficulty in getting telephone connections; would he let us know the justification for the tremendously steep increase in costs, particularly in the low weight parcel range, apart altogether from letters? Would he let us know on what basis or estimate the Department arrived at the conclusion that the steep increases have become necessary? Unless such disclosures are made, it will be impossible to get the public to believe there is any justification for this type of savage, punitive estimate, this thirsty, hungry chase after taxation which the Minister for Finance has delegated to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs because he did not want to face it himself in his Budget.
