I have only limited time and I do not propose to waste it talking about all the little things referring to alleged minor defects in CIE administration because if the whole lot of them were added together, they could not affect the general position of CIE. If I have some time left at the end, I shall deal with some of the accusations and allegations of mismanagement. Deputy Lindsay made a very quiet, constructive speech. He suggested everybody had been over-optimistic in the past about the position of the national transport company. The former Deputy Morrissey was optimistic in 1950 and the present Taoiseach was more guarded in 1958 when he made the very definite statement, which he never withdrew, that it was an open question whether the railways would pay.
I must refer to some of the past history of CIE. Since 1958, in the face of enormous growing competition from private transport, CIE has shown it could gain traffic. Its road freight traffic increased by 58 per cent and despite the closure of more than 600 miles of railway line, the railway passenger mileage has gone up by two per cent and there has been an increase of five per cent in the number of road passengers carried in face of most fantastic competition. I should like to refer to some of the matters raised by Deputy Casey who spoke in a very definite way about my job as Minister for Transport and Power in relation to CIE and to my position in relation to the advisability of having increased supervision over the affairs of CIE.
He made the charge that I am against the workers of CIE. I am not against the workers. I want to try to preserve their jobs for them. He made the charge that I implied the workers were incompetent. In two recent speeches, I said the vast majority of CIE workers were loyal and did their work excellently. All I asked was that there should be further co-operation in the matter of increasing productivity, that there should be co-operation to end restrictive practices and I praised the loyalty of the staff who had to face complete re-organisation of the company with widespread changes. I said that a great part of that re-organisation went through without any difficulties being experienced.
The Deputy suggested I had practically ordered CIE to disband the existing group union committee in respect of continued wage negotiations and general arrangements for such negotiations. I did nothing of the kind and Deputy Casey is perfectly aware that there is one union in CIE which is not recognised by Congress. He knows perfectly well that in connection with the recent strike the unions did not stand together, having made a majority decision, and that as a result there was a prolonged strike. I hope there will be a better top level union situation in the future in order to improve the procedures for negotiation. There are 33 unions within CIE, and if Deputy Casey calls me Victorian, I suggest that to have 33 unions within the one organisation is Victorian. My own feeling about CIE trade union organisation is that I should like to see less blind following of English practice and greater attention paid to the superbly run system in the democracies of Northern Europe where wages are good, where left-wing governments are in operation and where trade union organisations for essential services are organised in a way which, from the point of view of the number of strikes taking place in public utilities, seems to be an improvement on the present system here.
About £1 million has been lost to CIE since 1958, in strikes equivalent to an increase of 6.6 per cent in wages in one year. It would be interesting to know what would have happened if that money could have been spread over, say, five years. To illustrate again the difficulty of establishing the right kind of trade union relationship in CIE, during the bus strike, which affected busmen peculiarly, there was a decline in rail revenue of £240,000 odd and a loss in the road freight service of £79,000, occasioned by a strike that did not directly concern either group of workkers.
Deputy Casey compared the position of B & I and CIE. I have already made that clear in reply to a Parliamentary question today. I made it clear that I stated, when I made my long statement about the future of CIE, that all State companies would be under some degree of survey by the Government in relation to the prices they charge for their services or their products and in relation to their financial support by the Government. I also said that there were companies where there were international conditions, where wages and other costs were incurred abroad, and where they were not their responsibility and where it is quite inevitable charges would have to rise when those costs went up.
Deputy Casey seemed to imply in what he said that I caused insecurity in the minds of CIE workers by suggesting there can be no increase in charges. I never said anything of the kind. I published a statement saying CIE would need to increase their rates and fares by three per cent at least in order to pay for the post-ninth round of wages. I said any increase in rates and fares would have to be extremely moderate (1) for the national good and (2) in order to avoid CIE losing traffic on a catastrophic basis.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce is trying to hold down prices. The holding down of prices depends not only on management but also on workers. It depends on whether the workers want to have an increase in the cost of living, which will be inevitable even if distributed profits are kept at a reasonable level, or whether they wish to contain the position as far as possible. CIE is in exactly the same position as any other company in that regard. The National Industrial and Economic Council have already stated that, unless there is a corresponding growth of productivity, for every ten per cent increase in wages and salaries, there will be an increase in the cost of living of six per cent. Inflation can be stopped in this country only if as far as possible the very good recommendations of the NIEC, which were signed by nine trade union leaders, are observed to the utmost limit.
That applies to CIE just as it applies to any other company facing a difficult position in the future, either through the levy imposed on our exports or through price controls exercised to the limit he can do it by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or occasioned by the inevitable reductions in tariffs that are going to take place in the next five years. I made it clear when speaking of the difficulties of CIE that it was not isolated and that many other companies were going to face the same difficulties this year, which are partly due to inflation that has arisen in this and other countries and which we should all try to avoid in future by intelligent action and by accepting economic rules which are found to be the same in every country in the world whether the country is administered by a Labour Government, a Conservative Government or any other type of Government.
The second charge Deputy Casey levelled against me was that I was Victorian in my attitude towards State companies. I want to make the position absolutely clear. Everything I said recently about CIE was agreed by the Government and by the Taoiseach. The decision not to increase the subsidy, the decision to restrain any increase in rates and fares to the absolute minimum required, were decisions of the Government and the Taoiseach. I had their full consent before I gave this very full warning to CIE, in which I clarified as far as I could the whole position. Deputy Casey suggests I am opposed to State companies. We bought the B and I since I became Minister. The Shannon Free Airport Development Company is going ahead and Bord Fáilte is going ahead. But I want to make it clear that every State company has to be treated on its own merits and that they are all in a different position. I should make it clear that this Government did not promote State companies for a socialist reason: they inaugurated State companies to fill a social and economic need where private enterprise was lacking. In the case of a great many of the State companies, private enterprise is lacking. There is no other Irish air company; no one else wants to produce turf on the scale of Bord na Móna. The Shannon Airport Free Airport Development Company and Bord Fáilte are in a unique position; there is no rival to the Sugar Company.
But we have to examine these companies objectively. The position of CIE is clear. It has to fight growing competition where there is plenty of private capital available. According to recent estimates, in 1963 over £30,000,000 was invested in one year in private transport. That being the case and it being known that private transport is being purchased by people of very modest incomes, the social need for the subsidy to CIE is inevitably limited; and as we have not started State companies for socialist reasons, every company has to be treated on its own basis and has to face its own economic problems. I have made that very clear. In fact, during the passage of the 1964 Transport Bill I outlined exactly the conditions under which CIE could survive and prosper from the passing of the Bill until 1970 when the Dáil will again have to review this national transport company because fresh legislation will be required in connection with any further subsidy. For that reason CIE has to fight for traffic growth, fight to maintain its prices, fight to secure increased traffic in the same way as any other company that faces severe competition.
I see no evidence as to why the taxpayer should be burdened with an increased impost as far as CIE is concerned, which already amounts to 4/6d. subsidy for every £1 of rail revenue spent on the system. There is no reason why CIE traffic should not grow. There are a new group of people, who before were not accustomed to travel at all, who are now beginning to travel on the CIE road and rail services. The rail services are comfortable and reasonably speedy. The road freight services have succeeded in getting a great deal of package deal contracts for goods. There is no reason why CIE should not go ahead provided, as I have said, the realities of the situation are faced. May I repeat that these realities are exactly the same in the case of a great many private companies facing a particular situation in the coming year?
There are some things that simply cannot happen in CIE. In the European railway system as a whole, for example, there is no such thing as a 40-hour week, not even in a country with over twice the national income per head—Sweden. It is as well to be frank about these things. In Great Britain in 1964, the basic hours worked were 42 hours and the actual hours worked 47.8 hours weekly. It is no good talking about a 40-hour week. It does not mean anything in the context of reality. A 40-hour week in CIE would result immediately in an increase of ten per cent in rates and fares outside the three per cent inevitable anyway and outside any other increase that might be given as a result of the tenth round. That is one of the sort of realities we have to face and it has to be faced by CIE.
If you look round Europe, you will find conditions vary very widely from industry to trade, from one group to another, even in countries where the general standard of living is a great deal higher than it is here and where the income per head in these countries that have developed so rapidly is higher than it is here. All I ask is that these kinds of realities be faced. However, I am on fairly safe ground. I do not believe anybody in the Dáil would move a resolution to increase the price of petrol by 6d to 8d per gallon to support CIE. I do not believe anybody would move a resolution to increase the rates and fares of CIE by anything up to 20 per cent. When I speak of realities in CIE, I speak of the realities to be faced by Deputies if they had to face obligations that would arise if CIE costs were to rise excessively?
As I have said, CIE can progress if the rules laid down in the NIEC report are understood by all concerned. In this case, and in the case of the other State companies, there is no question of hidden profits or excessive profits. State companies do not make profits. Their accounts are published. The whole world knows their content. As the State companies belong to the people, it is perfectly easy to observe the economic conditions within those State companies. Therefore, the NIEC recommendation is one which is very well worth studying by everybody in CIE who wishes to preserve a company which is in intensive competition with private transport.
I am speaking in good company in saying these things. Everything I have said is being repeated all over Great Britain by every Minister in the Labour Party or by Left-wing Ministers in charge of economic affairs in a number of northern European countries. I am not speaking as a conservative or as a Victorian. I am talking the same kind of left-wing economics as are being preached at present by Labour Ministers in half a dozen countries with the object of trying to prevent inflation of the worst possible sort. Although I do not necessarily agree with everything Mr. George Browne says, and although he occupies a very much more important position than ever I shall, it is interesting to note, in relation to what Deputy Casey has been saying, that he has been preaching exactly the same doctrine and for exactly the same reasons.
I now come to speak about the question of whether there should be this committee. As I have said, a great deal that has been said in the course of this debate relates to little, detailed operations within CIE. I have already indicated that if they were costed, and even if the criticisms were found to be true, they could not possibly affect the general position of CIE as a transport organisation. The idea of the establishment of a Parliamentary committee which would investigate some of the wholly untrue charges by Deputy L'Estrange is just a waste of time which would not solve the problem at all.
We have had two reports on CIE— the Beddy Commission of Inquiry into Internal Transport and the Pacemaker Report. In these two reports there lie all the facts which point to the difficulties of CIE and to the necessity for a realistic attitude towards its operation. If a Dáil committee were appointed, panels of technicians and economists would have to be attached to it. Deputies would find that this is far too complex a subject for an inquiry by people who, themselves, are not skilled in the highly technical business of transportation and that there is nothing new they can discover.
I can assure Deputies that the main elements of information and statistics that are to be found in Pacemaker still generally hold good and are modified only by increases in costs within CIE occasioned by increases in the price of materials, increases in the price of services bought by CIE and increases in costs occasioned by increases of salaries and wages. The Pacemaker remains the authentic document. There is nothing that a committee established by this House could discover that is not already to be found in Pacemaker which is in the Library of the Dáil and can be read by Deputies.
If, at a future time, it is necessary to have any inquiry into CIE, I imagine that the Government will appoint a Commission if they feel that the whole of the railway requires examination. The commission's report would be laid on the Table of the House, as were the Beddy Commission Report and the Pacemaker Report, for examination and discussion during the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Transport and Power. That is what I have to say about this request for a committee which I think was a reasonable request but had not been fully thought out. Everything relating to parochial interests, special interests and individual pressures brought to bear by Deputies in the running of CIE would arise. Many of them would simply be pressures which would result in increased costs to CIE. The whole of them, if examined and discussed in the face of the chairman and the manager, would not result in any definite conclusion as to a change in the organisation of CIE or a change in the level of subsidy or in the level of rates and fares because there would be one case for increasing services and another case for maintaining them as they are and, as I have said, it really is not a matter which is subject to discussion by a committee of the Dáil. I am not trying to denigrate the capacity of members of the Dáil: I would apply it to myself if I ceased to be Minister and became an ordinary Deputy. I should find it very difficult to assess the position of any State company in the way that has been suggested. If any serious situation arises, it is far better to have an examination by competent experts.
