Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1969 [Seanad]: Second Stage.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Lalor)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The purpose of the Bill is to make three desirable changes in Post Office legislation. Briefly, these are (1) to enable free postage facilities to be authorised, (2) to transfer to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs certain regulation-making powers now vested in the Minister for Finance and (3) to give greater freedom in the handling of mail other than letter mail.

Power to enable free postage facilities to be authorised is sought in section 2 (1) (c). This is required primarily to enable packets containing literature and articles specially adapted for the use of the blind to be accepted free of postage. Our present rates for such packets are, and for many years have been, nominal in both the inland and foreign post. They range from 1/2d to 2½d according to weight up to 15 lbs. In recent years, following acceptance of the principle of free postage for these packets in the Universal Postal Union Convention, most other countries have abolished their charges. We would have done so earlier but that our rates were already nominal and legislation would be required to drop them altogether. We understand that the requirement of affixing stamps and accounting for them is now more costly in time and inconvenience for the associations devoted to the welfare of the blind than the small cost of postage. In any event I am now proposing in this Bill to take power to abolish these rates by regulation to be issued immediately after the Bill is enacted.

The power sought will be available if ever required to grant free postage facilities for other classes of packets by statutory regulations laid before the Oireachtas. I should like to make it clear that this enabling provision will be used very sparingly, if at all. It is possible, however, that the members of the Universal Postal Union might agree to provide free postage facilities on a world wide basis in other cases and in this kind of situation it should not be necessary to have to introduce further legislation to enable my Department to follow suit.

The second change proposed in the Bill is the transfer of certain regulation-making powers from the Minister for Finance to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. Statutory regulations made under the Post Office Act, 1908, must at present be executed by the Minister for Finance, as the successor of the Treasury. The Minister for Finance and myself agree that such regulations, being of a technical character and primarily the concern of the Post Office, should be made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, subject to the consent of the Minister for Finance where charges, fees or financial matters are involved. Sub-sections (1) (a) and (2) of section 2, and section 3 of the Bill provide the necessary authority for this change.

The third change proposed is contained in section 4. It is to remove a statutory requirement relating to the treatment of what is generally known as second-class mail and so permit greater flexibility in mail-handling arrangements. At present the position is that if the despatch or delivery of letters is likely to be delayed by the treatment at the same time of printed papers, samples and postcards, the Post Office may hold over those items until the despatch or delivery next following that by which they would ordinarily be sent. The deferable mail consists mostly of circulars, bills, etc., posted at reduced rates. The Post Office in this country has over the years observed this statutory requirement as far as practicable. In Britain, it was dropped by amendment of the 1908 Act many years ago. A similar statutory requirement does not exist, so far as we are aware, in any other country.

The Post Office is now faced with problems that did not exist to anything like the same extent even a few years ago. These problems arise from the steady increase, year by year, in the volume of mail posted, the trend towards a shorter working week and more congenial hours for the staff, the more pronounced "peaking" of postal traffic and the difficult road traffic conditions in the cities that impede the speedy collection, transmission and delivery of mail. A stage has now been reached where, in order to ensure as far as practicable that letters are despatched and delivered in due course, greater freedom in the treatment of mail posted at reduced rates is necessary. Accordingly, section 4 proposes to remove the present restriction on the power to defer the treatment of such mail until the next despatch or delivery only and so enable the Post Office to deal with it at off-peak periods.

At present the great bulk of firstand second-class mail is delivered in the morning. Under more balanced delivery and staffing arrangements in Dublin and the largest centres the morning delivery or deliveries might consist mostly of letters and newspapers, the afternoon delivery of letters received in the meantime and of other mail. The amendment proposed is particularly necessary at the present time so as to enable delivery patterns to be rationalised in the light of the reduction in working hours being introduced at present for postmen and to enable a five-day working week to be granted to them, on whatever basis may finally be settled. The form the rationalisation will take is not yet clear. No decisions have been taken yet on future policy and if any major changes are to be made adequate advance notice will be given for full public discussion. I should like to repeat that the removal of the statutory restriction in question will simply place the Irish Post Office in the same position legally in this regard as other Post Office administrations. It is, therefore, in no sense an unreasonable proposal.

In brief, the intention of the Bill is to give the Department in a number of matters the greater flexibility demanded by modern conditions.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

In so far as the Opposition are concerned and in so far as this Bill provides free postage for the blind, we certainly welcome it but there is one aspect of the Bill in which the Minister is not being fair to the House and that is that free postage facilities can be granted to other individuals or classes and the Minister is taking power in the Bill to make these facilities available but he has not informed us as to the type of people or classes of people that he envisages should be entitled to free postage. Perhaps, if he would give us some inkling as to who or what they are it might facilitate us in considering the Bill.

I have noted that when the Bill was before the Seanad Senator Eamonn Rooney said in relation to it that it seemed obvious that the Minister was taking power to make facilities available at a later stage to other classes and not merely to blind persons and the Minister's comment was: "That is so". Who are these people? Who are these mysterious people who will benefit by free postage under this Bill? Would it be some political party which immediately before an election might by ministerial order procure the same facilities as are now being spelled out in the Bill for the blind? If the Minister has in mind individuals or parties, let us know who they are and let us discuss them. I am certain that the Minister did not write that into the Bill without some reason or other for it.

We always looked forward to the Finance Bill debate to discover when new additional taxation was being imposed but in recent years we have had very many mini budgets and this Bill provides for a further mini budget because in this Bill the Minister is taking from the Minister for Finance power to increase postage on parcels, or else I misconceive the Minister's intentions under the Bill. It is quite evident, from my reading of the Bill, that the Minister is now taking power to fix the rates for postal packets, as section 2 says. Is this another method of getting round a mini budget? Is this another method of imposing additional taxation on the citizens other than the annual or, as we now expect, biannual budgets — the spring and autumn budgets? Is this an in-between budget which we are going to have? If so, tell us about it and tell us what the proposal of the Minister is.

I notice that the greater part of the Bill and of the Minister's speech deals with the five-day week and the necessity for staggering deliveries of certain postal packets. While we all sympathise with the five-day week, it might be possible, say, at peak periods to employ staff, or even to employ staff by way of overtime, to deal expenditiously with postal packets and mail. Is it a false economy or is it an economy at all that is proposed to be practised under the Bill? Is it an economy which will make for expedition or is it an economy which should not be effected? I should be glad to have the Minister's views on it.

The Minister talks about hazards of traffic in the city of Dublin being one of the causes of delay in delivering mail. I appreciate his difficulty in that. I came across a case recently in the country where the driver of a mail van was prosecuted for exceeding the speed limit when he was endeavouring to make a connection with the principal mail to Dublin. I had to argue for the defence the old, old saying that His Majesty's mail must not be interfered with in any way. At one time it was high treason to impede in any way the free passage of His Majesty's mail throughout the realm. Now we have no longer got His Majesty but we have a very worthy substitute in the Minister and is there any provision in this Bill or any provision in the Road Traffic Act which would enable certain exemptions to be given to mail car drivers who are endeavouring to deliver the mail on schedule? This is something the Minister should look into. I do not wish to compare them in any way but there are exemptions in the case of ambulances and other such vehicles on mercy missions. The Minister should look into this matter and see if something could be done — I would not say in the city of Dublin — but certainly in rural Ireland, when it is essential that mail out of small post offices should catch the mail delivery from the headoffices to the various destinations.

It is a good thing to see some provision made for these unfortunate people, the blind. I do not know whether many of our blind citizens can afford to take advantage of the free postage. I do not know how many of them are capable of reading or writing, through Braille or otherwise. I am afraid that it is a very small percentage indeed and that the number who will seek to take advantage of this facility will be small whereas, on the other hand, if it is envisaged that some of the institutions and organisations catering for the blind should have free postage, I certainly would agree with that very much indeed. Otherwise, if we are catering for individuals, the number who will benefit under this Bill will be very limited.

I would not like to impute any ulterior motives to the Minister but I wonder if he would assure us that the blind are not a cover for some other classes who may procure free postage on some future occasion.

Mr. Desmond

Generally, the Labour Party welcome the intent of this Bill. We feel that it will give further strength to the rationalisation of the postal services generally and certainly will benefit the staffs employed and the people generally, in the handling of mail.

There are, however, a number of aspects that I should like to query and on which I would seek clarification from the Minister. Rather like the previous Deputy, I think the Minister has been less than explicit in indicating the exempted category or categories in his introductory statement. Certainly, he should be more specific in terms of exemptions intended. While, admittedly, he has said that this enabling provision to give free postage to other classes, and so on, would be used very sparingly, nevertheless, as this is of major public importance, he should give further information to the House on this matter. That is the initial reservation of our party while, nevertheless, we welcome very much the special provision for organisations devoted to the welfare of the blind.

Our second point on the Bill is to seek from the Minister some general assurance in relation to the transfer of certain regulating powers from the Minister for Finance to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. While admitting that this is of a somewhat technical character, nevertheless we would seek to ensure that if there are going to be major changes in the national charges, certainly this should be a particular prerogative of the Minister for Finance himself, budgetary-wise. The postal charges are now a major social, industrial and general charge in the community. We would not envisage substantial major amendments coming in without the general involvement of the House. In that regard, perhaps the Minister will enlighten us further.

I welcome, by and large, the statutory requirement relating to the treatment of second-class mail. I have no doubt that second-class mail will still get its normal priority but I think that, through rationalisation and the giving of greater freedom to the postal authorities in the handling of second-class mail, this will lead to a number of factors. The first rather important factor, and very important for the men directly concerned, is that it will undoubtedly get rid of the continual complaints, of which the Minister and his Department are only too well aware, that the sorters, supervisory staffs, inspection staffs, and so on, and the postmen themselves have had continuous late afternoon working. I should certainly welcome this provision and would seek from the Minister some placing on record that it is not sufficient to pass this particular Bill. We must ensure that, in fact, there will result from it a measurable improvement in the general conditions of employment, as implied in his statement, of the postal staffs themselves. Certainly, this is to be welcomed.

There is a further point that I should like to make in relation to the statement by the Minister in his speech that greater freedom in the treatment of mail posted at reduced rates is necessary, and so on. While, admittedly, we are not giving a major concession to the Department for the treatment of second-class mail, it might well be wise that some form of periodic checking would be introduced to ensure that, while second-class mail may have a delivery delay of a day or two days, it would not, at extreme peak periods, result in extreme delay. Again, this is a factor where complaints are liable to arise. While I am personally quite satisfied, and my party are satisfied, that the general efficiency of our postal services is of as high a calibre as any other Government service or Statesponsored service, nevertheless, with the tremendous growth in mail in this country — for example, I am quite sure that, in Dublin, it is going up by from three to five per cent per annum in terms of growth — the substantial changes in the conditions of employment of staff must be married into the continued efficiency of this service.

These are the principal points which our party would wish to make at this point. Perhaps the Minister might inform us more explicitly, before the afternoon is out, of the changes he intends on some of the sections he introduced. By and large, we welcome the Bill. We have no doubt that it will lead to more effective postal services; to better conditions of employment for the staffs themselves and to acceptance by the public that they will continue to receive a service that, notwithstanding all the difficulties of the postal service we have had over the years, will certainly be on a par with and, in many cases, vastly superior to those I have experienced in many other countries in Europe.

Sir Anthony Esmonde

I feel that the Minister is being rather naíve in relation to this Bill. We are told at the outset that it is for the purpose of introducing free postal services, whenever they are required. Then we are told that it is primarily introduced for the purpose of giving the blind the opportunity of having a free postal service. I would be in full agreement with what Deputy P. O'Donnell said about the Minister not giving us any real indication as to how this method will be applied. If we give a free postal service — I, personally, would not be against a free postal service to the blind: I think they are entitled to it— the Minister should give us some idea of how this scheme will operate.

The Minister referred to postal services and to the fact that what is designated as second-class mail should be segregated from the ordinary mail to enable what would be considered first-class mail to get through quickly. I am mindful of the fact that it is not so very long ago since the British Government introduced something on similar lines; they have a first-class and a second-class mail service. Prior to that, the British postal services seemed to be most eminently satisfactory. Ever since then, however, they have been anything but satisfactory as far as they are related to this country. Heretofore, letters which ordinarily came here in two or three days from London now take up to four or five days to come here. It seems to me that if we are to have a first-class and a second-class mail we shall have a good deal of sorting to do and that we shall throw extra work on the postal authorities. Will we get any better end result from it? The Minister also said that it would be a question of the delivery of first-class mail by the first post and second-class mail by the second or later post. As far as we are concerned in County Wexford — I do not know if it obtains elsewhere — we have only one post in the day. Not so long ago, the second post was abolished altogether. Since then, we have had the one post in the day so that anything posted in Dublin prior to 4 p.m. or anything posted prior to 4 p.m. in our own rural areas in Wexford would reach its destination the following morning by the first post. Of course, good intentions are wonderful things, particularly when we are dealing with State services.

I cannot help feeling that, as far as the ordinary post operates here in Ireland in all parts of the country, if present arrangements are replaced by some new system, we shall have the same unbalanced situation as we have in regard to cross-Channel postage to this country. While the intentions may be good — the intentions of State Departments always are good — they do not always work out according to plan. Left as it is, there does not seem to be any undue delay in postal deliveries here. The present system is operating well. Possibly only confusion will be added to it. As I said, the Minister is being rather naive in relation to the situation generally. When he is replying, perhaps he will be able to clarify these doubts that exist in my mind. He is also being rather naïve about the five-day week. I have known for some time that the postal employees have been looking for a five-day week. We are all well aware of that fact. No one can gainsay the fact that once you introduce the five-day working week— particularly when you introduce it, shall we say, at higher civil service level so that the civil service offices are closed on Saturday — it is only natural that the lower grades will look for the same benefits.

Here again, the Minister has not given us any indication of what the end result will be. Do I take it that the post which had been dealt with on Friday will be received on Saturday morning and that there will be no other delivery until the following Tuesday? Perhaps quite a number of Deputies would welcome this but we must consider the effect it would have on industry. The wheels of industry must be kept going and we must not have a hiatus on Monday which is an important day in industrial life. These are matters the Minister should clear up.

I have found that Ministers come into this House with a brief and introduce a Bill and that there are many things to be cleared up. We get up and express our opinions. Sometimes they are listened to and sometimes they are not. In this case, perhaps, the Minister in his reply would deal with the points I have raised and also the points raised by other Deputies because we are all considerably in the dark as to the meaning of this Bill.

At present it is possible for a Minister to raise the postal rate without coming in here with legislation. I distinctly remember the ordinary postal rate being increased purely by ministerial order. It seems to me that the Minister under this Bill will have the opportunity of doing the same with packet postal rates. This is dished up to us in an attractive style. It says that the Minister also has the right to reduce packet rates. We are not all quite as gullible as that. We know perfectly well there will be no reduction in packet rates but what the Minister is looking for is permission to increase packet rates. Will the Minister have the same power in relation to packet postage as he has at present for other postage of increasing it by ministerial order without any legislation? If that is so, we would have to oppose this Bill as it would mean that the Minister, by Ministerial order, could put extra taxation on the already overtaxed Irish nation.

Dr. O'Connell

I see this as an attempt to take further taxation without bringing the matter to the Dáil. Of course, I would be very much opposed to this. The Minister should not have this power. It should be a budgetary consideration and should be brought before the House and we should vote on it: I do not see why we should have included in this the question of the free postage facilities for the blind. We are all very much in favour of this and I feel this was only lumped in with this Bill to fool us. We are again following Britain on this question of second-class mail but we have not got the same problems as they have in Britain and it is wrong for the Minister to suggest that we have. In fact, second-class mail already exists in this country; it is delivered in the second post. This is an attempt to compel us to use first-class mail. If we want to ensure early delivery we will have to use this first-class postage. There is no demand for this. The second-class post has not reached such proportions that the Post Office cannot cope with it. The Minister has not given us proof that the demand is there. He is simply following Britain where they have a completely different problem. I see this as an attempt to get extra money from the people. It will create tremendous problems.

We will have to pay an extra charge for first-class post for every letter and we will have to ensure that "first-class mail" is written on every letter, otherwise, we have no assurance that it will be delivered on time. This will create problems. The Minister has not told us how long it will take to deliver second-class mail. It may take a week or longer. I should like to know what he proposes or what his intentions are in this Bill. I oppose it for these reasons. He has not stated that he will grant a five-day week to Post Office workers. If he said that I would certainly agree with this section. I do not think there is a need for a Saturday morning delivery at all because most business houses are closed on Saturday. The Minister could readily dispense with the Saturday morning delivery but he has not promised a five-day week to Post Office workers. I do not think the introduction of second-class mail will solve any problem.

Dr. Browne

I have very little to say except to suggest to the Minister that there is a possibility here that he might be taking on powers which, perhaps, he might not misuse—I understand he is a very reasonable person—but which a subsequent Minister might find it possible to misuse. It should be possible for him to be more specific about the free postage facilities. Everybody would agree they should be provided for the category he mentioned, the blind, but is this free postage facility to be provided for a certain group, say, the socially dependent group? If that is so I am sure the Minister would get every support from all parties.

In the Minister's speech he used the word "primarily". He said this was required "primarily"et cetera for packets to be adapted for the use of the blind. The word “primarily” is a slightly frightening one in a speech by a Minister because it could be that he is attempting to conceal something, his secondary purpose, and his secondary purpose could possibly be, as Deputy Dr. O'Connell said, that we are heading towards this idea of having a first- and second-class mail and that he is taking powers in sections 2 and 4 which would allow him to change the rates and to designate second-class mail. It seems to me that it would be possible to introduce a scheme of first- and second-class mail with higher and lower rates for these respectively. I do not think that is something which should be tolerated without frank debate on its merits. The general process of increasing postal rates should, as other Deputies have said, be restricted to a decision by the Minister, or preferably by the Minister for Finance at Budget time or any other time at which he decides to change these rates in order to increase Exchequer income. It should be something which we would be in a position to debate as such an issue, that is, an increase in indirect taxation. There has been so much of this general trend away from direct and towards indirect taxation, that is placing the burden of raising funds for various social services on the white collar worker and the manual worker rather than on the very wealthy person, that any possibility of this kind of thing developing must be watched very carefully by us here. We would like an assurance from the Minister in this regard that this legislation cannot possibly be used by him to increase postal charges without reference to the Dáil and having a discussion on it here.

As regards the question of the approach to the five-day week and the improvement of working conditions of postal workers, everybody welcomes the improvement because in many cases conditions were extremely bad. I understand they are improving. But I think the attitude is wrong. If we are giving a five-day week, shorter hours and better working conditions, the proper approach is to increase staff and continue to provide the same service. As Deputy O'Connell said, many of these so-called items of second-class mail contain business letters of one kind or another which are important to the people who send them and it seems to be wrong to slow down or reduce the efficiency of the service simply because you happen to be improving conditions of employment. I do not see why it should be taken out on the service.

By all means improve conditions of service but maintain the quality of the service provided by the Post Office generally. Why does the Minister not take that approach rather than this spinning jenny sort of refusal to recognise that because of trade union pressure and one thing or another these improvements in staff conditions had to be made? They should not be made at the expense of reducing the quality of the service by the Post Office particularly as many people are not happy about the quality of service provided at present. Any suggestion that there should be reduction in efficiency is one that I would personally deprecate.

Mr. Lalor

I am naturally very pleased that the Bill on the whole should have met with so much approval in the House. This was something I expected on the basis of the fact that it was bringing free postal services in respect of correspondence for the blind. This was something that would naturally be welcomed on all sides. I am a little worried about the various conclusions that have been drawn by some speakers as to what is behind the Bill because I think some Members have reached conclusions which are not in any way justified.

Deputy O'Donnell mentioned—I give him credit that he did so with a sort of glint in his eye—that he felt that the power the Minister was taking might result in enabling him to give particular postal facilities to certain sections that could, I suppose, be adequately described as the non-handicapped except that they might be members of a particular political Party. There is no such intention in this Bill. If Deputies have studied carefully the wording of my statement or read the text of it—I note that Deputy Dr. Browne did have the opportunity before speaking of going through my speech; this was pretty evident—they would know that I spelled out that the powers sought did enable me to provide this service to other classes; that initially it was being provided for the blind and that it was to other classes of that kind it could be extended. The real reason in leaving it open is to enable me, if it is eventually decided by agreement with the Universal Postal Union to extend it to other classes, to do so without having to come back to the Dáil to introduce further legislation to provide such a facility.

As regards the allegation made by most of the speakers, and taken, possibly, from Deputy O'Donnell's initial remarks, that it is a type of enabling legislation to facilitate the introduction of a further mini-Budget, the position is, in this regard, that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has always had power to increase postal and telephone rates without coming to the Dáil. He still has this power and there is nothing in the Bill to give him further power in this regard. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs are expected to meet their commitments and be able to pay for themselves. This is why towards the end of last year we had to increase postal charges—to enable the Department to pay their way.

This brings me to Deputy Dr. Browne's reference to improved conditions for employees. He said we should not take it out on the users of the service—or possibly the reverse: if we have to improve conditions for the staff we should not try to blame the staff for a curtailment of service. I think that was the way he put it. The whole idea behind this enabling legislation, the change I am seeking in this Bill to enable me to delay service to the type of packets that I want to delay, circulars and bills and packets of this kind, is to further rationalisation in the sorting and delivery of letters. The present position is that roughly 85 per cent of mail is dealt with in the first post and the remainder in the second post. We would get a far better balance if we could hold the open letters and printed matter for an afternoon post and be able to deal with what I term first-class mail on the early post.

In that regard I should like to refer to the comparison with what has already been done in the United Kingdom. This legislation has no connection with what has been done over there. This is not the creation of a new standard or a distinction between one type of first-class mail and another. The position in the United Kingdom is that you had two different types of first-class mail introduced. Here, we have two different charges: we have the straightforward sixpenny post and the open post or fourpenny post, what we conveniently describe as second-class mail. At the moment we have peak periods. Over 50 per cent of the mail posted in Dublin in any one day over a given period is posted between 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock in the afternoon. That brings 50 per cent of our mail into the sorting offices in that period. Between 4 o'clock and 7.30 p.m., 50 per cent of the sorting of the mail in the city of Dublin must be dealt with. It is in order to rationalise this and to plan it out in such a way that we can give better attention to our first-class mail that I am seeking the power I am seeking in this legislation.

There is really no foundation for the implications that have been drawn in connection with these two classes of mail to which a lot of reference has been made. In regard to Deputy O'Donnell's court case, let me say that we are trying to plan and regulate the collections in such a way that none of our drivers will of necessity have to exceed the speed limit in order to meet a deadline. I would hope that the mail van drivers would start a bit earlier so that they would not have to break the speed limit. I know it is urgent that we should get our mail delivered. We have a time schedule which enables our drivers to get from one place to another in a given time without having of necessity to break the speed limit.