I move:
That a sum not exceeding £19,606,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and of certain other Services administered by that Office, and for payment of a Grant in Aid.
The net Estimate of £19,606,000 for my Department is shown in the Estimates volume as £859,000 greater than last year's. Of that increase, £125,000 is in the grant-in-aid to Radio Telefís Éireann for licence revenue, and accordingly the net increase for the service directly provided by my Department would appear to be £734,000. The actual increase is, in fact, rather less, as an additional £187,000 was provided towards to end of the year in the general Supplementary Estimate for Increases in Remuneration at a time when it was too late to carry out the corresponding charge in the Estimates volume.
The subheads with substantial variations from the amounts shown for last year are:—
The increase of £450,000 in Salaries, Wages and Allowances is mainly to meet the cost of pay revisions resulting from those claims which my predecessor mentioned in March of last year as not then settled. There is also provision for additional staff for telephone traffic and postal business in the cities. The subhead does not, of course, include anything for the 10th round increases, which have either recently been granted or are under negotiation.
The increase of £87,000 in Travelling and Incidental Expenses is mainly due to higher subsistence rates and to more travelling by engineering staff.
The reduction of £134,000 for the Conveyance of Mails is the result of revised financial arrangements recently concluded for the conveyance of mails without any disimprovement of services.
The increase of £63,000 in Postal and General Stores is mainly for the expansion of the postal motor fleet.
The decrease of £1,211,000 in engineering Stores and Equipment is due to a number of factors. About £650,000 less is being provided for the purchase of stores. For reasons mentioned later the amount of stores used last year fell considerably below expectations, and this year's programme will be met in part from stores carried over from last year's purchases. The allocation for contract works is also down by approximately £650,000. In part this is because last year, as my predecessor explained at the time, we had to cover extensive contract works at the automatic telex exchange and at the new Central Sorting Office. Last year we had also to make an exceptionally large provision for extensions to some of the existing automatic telephone exchanges.
The increase of £589,000 in Telephone Capital Repayments is the result of growth in the capital investment in the telephone service.
The decrease of £894,000 in Appropriations in Aid arises mainly from the reduction in the recoveries expected from Telephone Capital funds.
Letter traffic in 1965 was about one per cent higher than in the previous year. Christmas postings reached a new record about four per cent above 1964. The volume of air post continued to increase steeply, first class mail being up by nine per cent and second class mail by 23 per cent.
Inland parcel traffic fell six per cent below the 1964 level. Foreign parcel posting, on the other hand, rose by 13 per cent.
The mails services were directly affected by the CIE transport strike in June, 1965. The letter services were well maintained by the setting up of an emergency road network using Departmental vehicles. The operation of the parcel service was, however, seriously hampered by the lack of suitable transport. Eventually the service had to be suspended, except for local deliveries, shortly before the dispute was settled. The strike in the Dublin deep sea docks in January last affected deliveries of some incoming American and foreign mails. The British seamen's strike in May/June last delayed parcel mails to and from Britain and foreign surface mails normally routed through Britain. The services were kept in operation despite the difficulties.
The foreign post rates for letters and postcards to Europe and corresponding surface rates to overseas countries were reduced from 1st January last. This change and other less important ones were effected in implementation of the Universal Postal Union Convention of Vienna, 1964, which was signed by the representatives of 122 countries including Ireland.
Changes made in the financial arrangements for long haul conveyance of mail have resulted in considerable savings which are reflected in the lower provision under Subhead D to which I have already referred.
The great bulk of postal expenditure under other headings consists of staff costs. The service is, in fact, a typical labour intensive service: it employs a very large labour force and comparatively little capital. Even small increases in staff costs may result in substantial increases in total postal expenditure. A per cent wage increase, for instance, costs the postal service about £60,000 a year. The possibilities of absorbing even modest wage increases are therefore extremely limited.
The survey referred to in my predecessor's statement on the Estimate for 1965-66 has shown that there is considerable scope for motorising rural delivery services. During 1965, 122 extra postmen's routes were motorised. Although motorisation cannot offer spectacular savings—at least while delivery is made on a door-to-door basis—it does provide the only prospect, short of retrenchment of services, of reducing the heavy losses on rural delivery. In this regard the broad position on most rural posts is that the total postage on items delivered does not cover even the wages of the postman.
Amalgamation of posts on motorisation led to a reduction of 63 rural posts which was partially offset by the creation of 26 new full-time posts in cities and larger towns. These were required mainly to serve new housing estates.
A new sub-post office was opened in the Industrial Estate at Shannon. Thirteen sub-post offices with an insignificant volume of business were closed on the occurrence of vacancies.
The general closing time for counter business at sub-post offices was, on the recommendation of the Commission of Inquiry into the Sub-Office System, advanced from 6.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. Exceptionally, there is 6.0 p.m. closing on Fridays. The same closing hours have recently been introduced at all Departmentally staffed post offices outside Dublin city except Cork, Limerick, and a few of the other large offices where the closing time is 6.0 p.m. throughout the week. The position at the Departmentally staffed Dublin offices is still under consideration.
The new Dublin Central Sorting Office at Sheriff Street is due to be completed early next year. We can then start on the operation of centralising it in the new building work which is at present being carried out in five separate premises. This operation will have to be carried out in stages. The availability of suitable accommodation and facilities will enable certain mail distribution work now being performed under contract to be taken over by the Department.
Modern mail handling machinery, including semi-automatic parcel and packet sorting machines and conveying equipment of various kinds, is being installed. Automatic letter sorting machines will not be provided in the new premises initially but accommodation has been earmarked for them. The development of mechanisation in the field of letter sorting even in the most highly industralised countries has been rather slow, mainly because letter traffic consists of items which differ widely in size, shape, weight and consistency. It now appears that most of the technical difficulties are in sight of being resolved. In anticipation of the successful development and extensive use of such machines, the Universal Postal Union has adopted a resolution on the standardisation of sizes of envelopes needed to facilitate mechanisation.
Having regard to the time required to prepare the way for eventual mechanisation it is not too early to join with other countries in taking certain measures recommended in the UPU resolution to which I have referred and it is proposed to do so after consultation with manufacturers and other interests concerned.
Thanks to the co-operation of the public, the use of district numbers on letters addressed to places in the Dublin numbered districts continues to grow. Over 70 per cent of the letters delivered now bear the district numbers.
Special postage stamps were issued in 1965 to commemorate the centenary of the International Telecommunication Union, the centenary of the birth of William Butler Yeats and to mark 1965 as International Co-Operation year. We also joined with other member countries of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations in producing a further "Europa" issue in 1965.
So far as the programme for 1966 is concerned, the set of eight stamps in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising, 1916, was placed on sale as from 12th April last. Our most recent issues have been one in honour of Roger Casement and another in the Europa series. The 1966 programme will be completed on 8th November by the issue of a stamp commemorating the 750th Anniversary of the founding of Ballintubber Abbey.
Recommendations for the proposed new series of permanent postage stamps have been received from the Stamp Design Advisory Committee and are at present being considered.
An arrangement has been made with the United Nations for the sale of United Nations postage stamps. Supplies are stocked at the Philatelic Section, GPO, Dublin 1.
The total number of telegrams handled continued to decline, but the drop of 6 per cent to 1,384,000 in 1965 was somewhat less than in the previous year. The decrease in the number of internal telegrams and telegrams to and from Great Britain and Northern Ireland was again partly offset by an increase of about 23,000 in incoming and outgoing foreign telegrams. The trend has continued for many years, and foreign telegrams now account for 25 per cent of the total number of telegrams handled as compared with only 8 per cent ten years ago.
Despite the overall decrease in telegraph traffic, revenue from telegrams increased by about £20,000 in 1965-66 largely because this was the first full year of operation of the increased charges introduced in 1964.
During the year, Norway was included in the Gentex service which provides for direct transmission of telegrams to and from certain continental countries. Direct connection by automatic switching is now available between this country and six continental countries in all, that is Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway.
Two direct telegraph circuits by submarine cable are now also available to the United States; they are used both for telegrams and telex calls.
I mentioned last year that the continuing decline in telegraph traffic makes it possible to cease teleprinter working at certain offices which are connected to the teleprinter automatic switching, TAS, system. Of the 22 TAS offices which were working last year, one office was closed recently and another will be closed shortly. When a TAS office is closed, telegrams are diverted to a neighbouring office which can more economically handle the traffic.
The demand for telex has continued to grow. Since the conversion to automatic working in October, 1964, the number of subscribers has nearly doubled. The present figure is 376 and there is a waiting list of 135.
The telex exchange was completely full at the end of July, but a new extension which is almost completed has made it possible to recommence connection of new subscribers. This extension will increase the capacity of the exchange to about 900 and a further extension is under consideration.
Every effort is being made to reduce the number in the waiting list and to get back to the position where service can be provided within a month or two. To this end additional engineering staff are being trained on telex work and it is hoped to make a progressive speed up in the connection rate as the staff gain experience. Even so, because of the size of the waiting list, it is likely that those applying now will in general have to wait at least six months for service. In some engineering districts where the demand for telex is light, it may be possible to provide service in a shorter period but in certain areas circuits are not readily available and the delay in providing service may be substantially more than six months.
Telex service is now available to 105 countries. During 1965 traffic internally and to Great Britain increased by 33? per cent. Outgoing foreign calls increased by 64 per cent. The increase in the number of calls is due in part to the fact that in the automatic service subscribers can make short calls at very low rates to Great Britain and several European countries. Net telex receipts in 1965-66 were about £164,000, an increase of almost 38 per cent on the previous year.
Expansion of the telephone service was maintained at a generally satisfactory rate during the financial year 1965-66. The traffic handled totalled over 217 million calls which represented an increase of almost 19 million on the previous year. There were 194 million local calls, of which 86 per cent were automatic, and 23 million trunk calls of which 23 per cent were automatic. The proportion of automatic calls was 80 per cent overall; in other words, 4 calls out of every 5, local and trunk, were dialled direct.
The improvement and extension of the trunk network and exchange system were continued during the year. This work is essential to secure an efficient standard of service and to lay the basis for further expansion. It is necessary to devote a considerable proportion of our total resources to these features of development and for the present this will continue to set a limit to what can be done in the connection of new subscribers.
In the case of the trunk network nearly 1,400 additional circuits were brought into service on some 240 routes. A further 420 circuits have been provided in the first quarter of the current financial year. Most of these circuits are in underground or aerial cable or in radio links, so that the quality and reliability of the service was improved on many routes which had up to then been dependent on open wire systems. Major underground trunking schemes have been completed between Cork-Bandon, Limerick-Kilmallock, Limerick-Tipperary and Dublin-Drogheda, a Cork-Youghal coaxial cable has been brought close to completion and the coaxial cable laid between Carlow-Athy-Portlaoise was brought into full service. In addition about 45 aerial cable schemes were completed.
In the service to Britain 48 additional circuits were established and since March last a further 20 have been added. The addition of a further 100 is planned during the next 12 months. The number of trans-Atlantic channels to North America was increased from four to six, the additional circuits in this case being provided via the Satellite, Early Bird. The satellite route is giving an excellent service and is an example of the great progress being made in telecommunications today.
Good progress has been made also with the replacement of manual exchanges by automatic installations. During 1965-66 25 exchanges were converted to automatic working, including such important ones as Arklow, Athy, Carlow, Ennis, Tullamore and Wicklow. So far in the current financial year 34 additional exchanges have been converted, including those at Ballinasloe, Mallow, Mountmellick, Portarlington and Tipperary. The total installed capacity of these new exchanges amounts to 8,000 lines which will cater for growth for several years ahead, and there is in all cases adequate space available for future expansion as required.
New exchanges were opened in Dublin at Blanchardstown and Finglas to replace existing ones which owing to rapid development had become inadequate for traffic needs in these areas, and at Phibsboro to cater for growing requirements in this area of the city. In Cork a new exchange was opened at Wellington Road to serve the north side of the city.
Twenty existing automatic exchanges were extended by some 8,000 lines and additional capacity was provided at over 100 manual exchanges.
Six small manual and two small automatic exchanges were opened in new areas to cater for development.
Concerning the connection of new subscribers, the number of installations totalled 13,500. This figures would have been substantially higher but for the effects of storms and floods towards the end of the year. The extensive damage caused to plant in many parts of the country in November and December necessitated the diversion of a lot of our installation staff to repair work. The position was also aggravated by labour difficulties. Notwithstanding these various obstacles the waiting list was reduced from 14,260 at 31st March, 1965, to 13,300 at 31st March this year. It now stands at approximately 13,200, of which 2,700 are in course of installation.
Moreover, there has been a substantial change in the composition of the list. Progress was made in clearing older applications which had been deferred repeatedly because they required very extensive construction work. The bulk of these have been attended to, and the work involved was out of proportion to the number of connections made.
The telephone service felt the effects of labour unrest in industry generally. Strikes and threatened strikes produced quite abnormal pressure on the telephone system, causing at times sharp deterioration in the standard of service, as well as delaying the installation of the additional exchange equipment which had been ordered to enable peak traffic to be carried.
The impact of all these factors showed the service in an unfavourable light at times, and some justifiable complaint resulted. I have no wish to endeavour to minimise the seriousness of the inconvenience caused to telephone users in these circumstances but it is only fair to say that everything possible was done within the limits of our resources to cater for the exceptional surges of traffic.
I know that it may not be a great comfort to people experiencing inconvenience or having cause for dissatisfaction with the telephone service to be told that Ireland is not the only country with these difficulties. Nevertheless I feel bound to say that it would be wrong to think that such deficiencies as exist in our telephone service are, internationally speaking, unique or exceptional. Those with experience of telephone service in other European countries or who read the foreign press know that waiting lists for telephones and just complaints about the service are not a peculiarly Irish disease. The reasons for the difficulties existing in other administrations are much the same as here, the vast capital expenditure required to meet the explosive increase in the demand for telephone facilities, and the lengthy period required to effect significant improvements.
These are the greatest problems in providing a satisfactory telephone service. Concerning the capital requirement it should suffice to say that although we spent £23½ millions in the last five years as against £7¾ millions in the previous five, it was obviously not enough. In regard to the time aspect the position is that, despite every possible short cut, major extensions to equipment take several years to arrange. Very often new buildings have to be provided and the acquisition of sites, erection of buildings, securing delivery of equipment and having it installed all contain elements of uncertainty as regards date of completion which can be affected by innumerable factors.
The long-term planning constantly proceeding is not, of course, confined to equipment. It is also necessary to build up the force of skilled men engaged in engineering work. Our technicians undergo academic and field training over a period of four years. The intake of trainees for the skilled force has been raised progressively over a period of years so that we now have 400 youths being trained to provide for the future growth and maintenance of the service as compared with 87 six years ago. The benefits of this increase in intake will not be fully felt until the training is completed and the men are assigned to full duty. Their advent to the skilled ranks will be most welcome, especially on the maintenance side as the growing size and complexity of the system necessitates a continuing increase in skilled maintenance staff. When it is remembered that there are over 160,000 exchange lines, 1,100 exchanges, 10,000 trunk circuits and 1,300 kiosks a fair idea can be obtained of the scale of the maintenance job to be done.
Turning to the future, it is intended to continue in the current financial year with the work of developing the trunk and exchange network in order to equip it to cater for increased growth. A new co-axial cable which has been laid between Sligo and Letterkenny will be in full service by next summer. Contracts have been placed for major cable schemes between Athlone-Ballina, Cork-Bantry-Skibbereen, Dundalk-Castleblaney-Monaghan, Cavan-Mullingar, and Arklow-Gorey-Enniscorthy. These schemes should be completed in about three years, but some advance circuits will be available before then. In conjunction with these schemes, extensive development has been or will be undertaken on branch spurs off the main routes and when the work is done service from these areas will be greatly improved.
Tenders are under consideration for a new radio link route to supplement the southern co-axial cable serving Cork, Limerick, and Waterford. This is a very important scheme which will have the additional advantage of making available alternative routing for traffic in the event of failure in or damage to the underground co-axial cable.
Agreement in principle has been reached with the British Post Office for the provision of a new cross-Channel route by means of a radio link through Northern Ireland. The new route will have a capacity of 960 circuits. It will make possible the introduction of subscriber dialling to Britain and further afield as well as to the Six Counties.
In regard to the exchange automatisation programme, we have in hands orders for a large number of exchanges which will engage our resources of staff and capital for a period ahead, and these will be pressed forward with all possible speed. The foundations for a fully satisfactory service are being laid and it is my intention to build on them until the country has the first class telephone system that it needs.
Concerning the installation of new telephones, I am hopeful that we will be able to effect a further reduction in the waiting list during the current financial year and I intend to continue the policy of providing service for applicants who have been a long time waiting even though installation of their lines involves and abnormal volume of work.
Deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank amounted to £24.2 million during 1965 and withdrawals to £24.4 million. At 31st December, 1965, the total balance due to depositors, including interest, was approximately £109.9 million as compared with £107.5 million at the end of the previous year.
Deposits and withdrawals by the Trustee Savings Banks during the year amounted to £1 million and £1.2 million respectively, and the total amount, including interest, to the credit of the Trustee Banks at the end of the year, was £19.4 million, an increase of £0.5 million over the previous year.
Sales of Savings Certificates for 1965 amounted to £5,408,000 and repayments, including interest, amounted to £4,351,000. The net accretion for the year was £1,057,000. A new Seventh issue of Savings Certificates was placed on sale as from 19th March last. The compound interest rate over the eight years to maturity of the new certificates averages 5¼ per cent per annum. As the interest is exempt from income tax, this gives the equivalent of 8 per cent per annum gross to a holder who is liable for tax at a standard rate of 7s.
The volume of funds handled by the Department's remittance and agency services continues to increase. The total value of money orders and postal orders issued during 1965 was nearly £28 million, this being £300,000 more than in the previous year. Social Welfare and other agency service payments went up substantially from £39 million to nearly £42 million.
During the year a new post office and telephone exchange at Youghal and a new district sorting office at Harmonstown, Dublin, were completed. A telephone exchange building and engineering centre was provided at Kilkenny and telephone exchange buildings were erected at Tipperary and Wellington Road, Cork. Major extensions to existing exchange buildings were carried out at various centres elsewhere and 54 new rural automatic exchanges were built.
Construction of the new trunk exchange in Dame Court, Dublin, was finished recently and an improvement scheme at Greystones post office, County Wicklow, has also been completed.
Works in progress include a new post office and engineering centre at Carlow, new automatic telephone exchange buildings at Gorey and Swords, an automanual telephone exchange building at Tralee, extensions to the Mullingar and Walkinstown telephone exchanges and the erection of 45 rural automatic exchanges. As I have already mentioned, the new Central Sorting Office for Dublin is nearly completed.
The number of staff provided for in the current year's Estimate is 18,923, an increase of 254 on last year's figure. The increase is due mainly to the continued growth of the telephone service, necessitating a greater number of staff, particularly telephonists, to deal with the extra traffic.
Staff costs in the Post Office, as elsewhere, continue to increase each year but every effort is made to offset these increases by the adoption of more efficient and economical methods. As was mentioned on a number of occasions before, the Department has its own full-time Organisations and Methods Staff and substantial economies have been achieved as a result of their activities over the years.
During the year a firm of industrial consultants was commissioned to carry our an examination of the organisation, grading and methods of work at sub-professional level in the Department's Engineering Branch. This examination has been in progress for some months, but it is extensive in scope and will take some time to complete. It is not possible therefore at this stage to say what the outcome of it will be. During the past year also, firms of industrial consultants were invited to carry our preliminary surveys of clerical procedures in Headquarters offices to assess what scope there might be for extending the use of automatic data processing equipment. The results of the preliminary surveys undertaken have been encouraging and it is expected that one of the firms concerned will be commissioned shortly to carry out the full-scale examination necessary to enable maximum savings to be realised.
Within the past two years, five-day week working has been introduced for many grades in the Department. Claims for grades which have not yet a five-day week are at present under consideration by the Department's conciliation council.
As Deputies know, the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Aspects of the Sub-Post Office System was published last year and my decisions on the recommendations of the Commission announced. Various matters relating to these recommendations are under discussion at the Sub-Postmasters' Conciliation Council.
The Department did not, I regret, escape its share of labour troubles during the past year. I do not propose, however, to rake over old fires by commenting further on these now and I would like to take this opportunity of extending publicly to the staff in general my thanks for the work done throughout the year.
Deputies are aware that we are in membership of the international organisations covering the postal and telecommunications fields and that the Department participates actively in the work of these bodies. The contributions which we have been able to make towards solving problems of common interest have been generously recognised by international conferences in selecting Irish officials to fill important roles at these meetings. When the plenipotentiary conference of the International Telecommunications Union was held in the autumn of last year, Ireland was elected for the first time to the Administrative Council —the governing body of the Union— and an official of the Department was elected Vice-President of the Council.
The services of officials of the Department have been sought also in other international activities and, at present, six officers selected by the Universal Postal Union and the International Telecommunications Union are serving in Afghanistan, Ceylon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Liberia assisting with and advising on certain postal and telecommunications problems. In addition, six United Nations scholarships holders from middle Eastern countries and South Korea came here this year to study various aspects of Post Office services.
The Commercial Accounts for 1964-65, have been laid on the table of the House. A summary of the results for that year and for the four preceeding years is given in Appendix C to the Estimate.
As Deputies are aware, the Commercial Accounts present the position of the Department as a trading concern. They are compiled in accordance with commercial practice to show the expenditure incurred and the income earned during the year of account, such charges as interest and depreciation being included in the expenditure. A balance sheet and statement of assets gives details of the Department's very large capital investments, mainly in telephone plant. The accounts are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
It is to these accounts we look in determining financial policy, including the fixing of charges. The basic principle of that policy is that the Post Office should pay its way, taking one year with another. That means at the very least that the Department must earn a surplus in good years to meet the losses in bad years and to provide a reserve against contingencies. If the Post Office were not to pay its way, the loss would have to be made good by taxpayers generally.
There was an over-all loss on the Department's services in 1964-65 of £67,000 approximately, compared with a loss of £165,000 approximately in the previous year. In both years losses on the postal and telegraph services were partially offset by a surplus on the telephone service. Final figures for last year are not yet available but the indications are that there will be a small surplus, probably of the order of £300,000 on a total expenditure of nearly £19½ millions. I would expect the result this year to be approximately the same if costs do not rise substantially above their present level.
From the long-term aspect, the position is that about 60 per cent of the Department's expenditure is on wages, salaries and related payments and such costs generally are continuing to rise. Other developments are also making for higher costs. The expansion of the sub-structure of the telecommunications network—exchanges, trunk circuits, etc.—requires the investment of large quantities of capital on which interest has to be paid and provision made for depreciation. Until that sub-structure can be fully developed the investment may not bring in adequate additional revenue. On the postal side, the expansion of cities and towns necessitates more postmen and delivery offices for the outlying areas and it is difficult to make corresponding savings in the areas where population is declining. It will be realised that the Department's financial position is likely to be a cause of continuing concern.
The grant to Radio Telefís Éireann, calculated in the usual manner, is provided for in Subhead K. The increase of £125,000 over the 1965-66 provision is because of the expected growth in revenue from combined licences as more people get television sets. In this connection Deputies will remember that the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill, 1965, which was debated in this House in February, provided that the Authority should continue to receive the full net proceeds of broadcasting licence revenue for each of the five years ending 31st March, 1970. The Bill was passed by the Seanad without amendment and is now law.
This Estimate is being taken a good deal later than usual. Accordingly, unlike other years, Deputies have had the opportunity of reading Radio Telefís Éireann's annual report for the past financial year. As the recent annual report is a mine of information on the happenings of the year 1965-66, I assume that Deputies will not expect me to say as much as usual about radio and television questions, particularly as my Second Reading speech on the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill went into details on financial matters.
I would, however, like to refer briefly to two points mentioned in the annual report. The first concerns the postponement of an adjustment of the rates for television advertisements because of the Government's price stabilisation policy. In replying to the debate on the Second Reading of the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill on 1st February, 1966, I referred to the Government's intervention on this matter and said that it was something which would have to be re-examined. It has in fact, been re-considered and the Government recently agreed that the Authority could revise television advertising rates by reference to the increase in set-count since the last revision, on condition that Radio Telefís Éireann will not draw on the Exchequer for capital purposes in the financial year 1967-68.
I understand that in accordance with that decision revised advertisement rates will be introduced as from 1st December next. I might say that the Authority have not sought any Exchequer advances for capital purposes since February, 1964, and that no provision for such advances has been made in the current year.
The second point I should like to mention is the extension in sound broadcasting hours with effect from 1st October, 1966. From time to time the Authority pressed strongly for permission to introduce day-long radio broadcasting. Last year I informed the authority that their proposals, which would have involved an increase in the radio licence fee, could not be accepted during the current period of economic difficulties and that I did not favour any new commitment which would have the effect of increasing the deficit on sound broadcasting. Subsequently the Authority re-examined their proposals with maximum economy in view and decided to tackle the problem in two stages.
During the first stage, broadcasting hours would be extended to fill the broadcasting gap between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Thus the gap between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. would be left over for a later day. I submitting its proposals for filling the morning gap the Authority stressed the desirability of increasing the hours of broadcasting concurrently with the coming into operation of the VHF transmitters. The new proposals were estimated to cost £25,000 nett per annum. I was assured that this could be met out of the Authority's general revenue, and that the Authority would not seek any adjustment in the radio licence fee by reason of the extension. In the circumstances I was glad to be able to give my consent to the increase in hours which I feel sure will be very welcome to the public.
As Deputies are aware, eight members of the Authority were reappointed for a further five years until 31st May, 1971, but the former Chairman, Mr. Eamonn Andrews did not wish to be considered for re-appointment and was replaced by Dr. C. S. Andrews. More recently, the Government appointed Mr. Michael O'Callaghan to fill the vacancy caused by the death in tragic circumstances of Mr. E. B. MacManus who had been a member of the Authority since it was established on 1st June, 1960. The Government have already placed on record their appreciation of the valuable work done by Mr. Andrews and I should like now to express its appreciation of Mr. MacManus's services during the initial difficult stages of the development of the Irish TV service.
As I said in the Dáil recently in reply to a Parliamentary Question, it has been decided to request Radio Telefís Éireann to provide a multichannel television-aerial service in the Ballymun housing project in view of the special circumstances which apply there, and details of the scheme are at present being worked out. The special circumstances are that reception of Telefís Éireann programmes on indoor aerials in the two-storey houses at Ballymun will not be satisfactory, because of adjacent high buildings, and that it will not be possible for residents to have individual outdoor aerials, because of the unique features of the building project.
My predecessor mentioned last year that the Government had decided that the Council of Europe Agreement aimed against pirate broadcasting stations operating on board ships anchored outside national territories should be signed on behalf of Ireland, subject to ratification. Each party to the Council of Europe Agreement undertakes to take appropriate steps to make punishable as offences, the establishment or operation of such broadcasting stations and acts of collaboration knowingly performed. Fresh legislation will be necessary before the Agreement can be ratified. I cannot say yet when it is likely to be introduced, but my Department will follow with great interest the parliamentary debates in Britain on the same subject.
