With your permission, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 39 and 40 together.
Telephones rented at racecourses by the subscriber in question are specially tested, and repaired if necessary, on the morning of each meeting or on the preceding day. The telephone at Phoenix Park racecourse was tested on Friday, 18th March, the day before the meeting, and the line was left in working order. On the Saturday afternoon, it was reported that the telephone was out of order. The check made revealed that the line was held in an engaged condition. The most likely explanation of this is that a caller to the number had—deliberately or otherwise — neglected to replace his receiver. This would cause jamming of the line which would continue until either the calling telephone was hung up or the connection was manually released by a repair man at the automatic exchange. The exchange serving the Phoenix Park telephone is not staffed on Saturdays and special attendance there would be arranged only for clearance of a fault affecting a priority subscriber such as a medical doctor.
The allegation that these racecourse telephones are as a rule out of order on race days is unfounded. In the past 15 months only two faults occurred on race days and these were promptly attended to. There have, however, been many complaints from the public that they cannot get through to such numbers because of their being continuously in use during race meetings. This is to be expected because at the race meeting in question and many others only one telephone is rented by the subscriber and this is quite inadequate for the number of calls attempted to be made on it. The subscriber's attention was drawn to this position some years ago with a suggestion that additional lines be rented, but this suggestion was not accepted.
I wish to make it clear that this subscriber has in fact been getting a measure of priority which is quite exceptional in respect of the maintenance of these racecourse telephones.
41.