Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 12 Nov 1969

Vol. 242 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate: Ballyfermot (Dublin) Post Office Facilities.

Dr. O'Connell

I am glad of this opportunity to raise on the Adjournment Question No. 104 of the 6th November regarding the lack of proper and full post office facilities for Ballyfermot, Dublin. I asked the Minister to have these provided. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in his reply said:

The establishment of a branch post office in Ballyfermot would not be justified. The full range of postal counter services is available at the two sub-offices in the area, which are adequate to deal with the amount of business normally transacted.

The question of proper post office facilities at Ballyfermot dates back to 1957. Mr. Blaney was then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He initiated an investigation into it and found that facilities there were not adequate. In reply to a question on 30th October, 1957, he said:

An inquiry has been held. The congestion was caused by a temporary shortage of staff. Steps are being taken to avoid a recurrence.

Over the years this question has been raised time and again. Ballyfermot has a population roughly equivalent to Waterford city. It has no telegraph office and the present post office facilities are most inadequate. There are queues of people constantly outside the post office. It is not adequate to accommodate them and they must queue in the rain. This is what the Minister says is adequate to meet the needs of the people of Ballyfermot, an area equivalent to Waterford city, and Waterford city has five telegraph offices. The Minister stated in his reply that the provision of a telegraph office was not related to the population of an area but to the demand and he said that investigations showed that in Chapelizod and in Inchicore there did not seem to be the demand. The Minister is obviously not aware of where Ballyfermot is situated. He must not be aware of the fact that it is over a three-mile walk to Inchicore post office. I live at the corner of Ballyfermot and I know how far it is to this post office. The people of Ballyfermot are demanding proper facilities. They are not satisfied with the facilities they have at present where one must put money in a coin box to send a telegram. When a person wants to send a telegram he goes into a post office and gets change. He comes out and probably finds he has not got enough change and must go back for more. This is the kind of inconvenience these people are suffering. We all know the difficulties involved in using a coin box for anything. Time and again these people lose their money. It is easy for the Minister who has full facilities here and in his office to send a telegram and I do not think these people should be deprived of the right of sending a telegram from their local post office. If Galway or Waterford can have five telegraph offices Ballyfermot should have at least one. I do not know what vested interests are involved; I am not concerned. I am concerned that facilities should be provided for this community. As far as I could ascertain from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach there are nearly 34,000 people in the area. If we take into account just the people north of the Grand Canal there are 25,000 people there. This is equivalent to Galway municipal borough which has five telegraph offices.

Mr. Molloy

There are more people than that in Galway.

Dr. O'Connell

That is according to the 1966 census.

Mr. Molloy

It is growing.

Dr. O'Connell

So is Ballyfermot.

Mr. Molloy

Thanks to the Government.

Dr. O'Connell

There has been an increase in population in that general area. I would like the Minister to tell us exactly what the increase has been since this question was raised in 1957. Facilities have not improved but the population has increased. He said that it is a built-up area and that expansion is outside rather than within it. That does not alter the fact that it is a community of almost 30,000 people needing services which are not being provided. There are telegraph offices at Drumcondra, Donnybrook, Drimnagh, Dundrum, Harold's Cross, Raheny, Phibsborough, Terenure, Milltown and Glasnevin but we cannot provide them in Ballyfermot. I should like to know what it would cost to provide these services. The Minister says that there is no need for them or no demand. How could he know this? Has he a means of ascertaining this? Would he know exactly the figures from coin boxes? He could not tell from the number of telegrams sent from Inchicore because he must realise that Inchicore is not on that bus route. Chapelizod is away from Ballyfermot. The tendency is to go towards town and not away from it.

I would ask the Minister to look again into this matter and to see why he cannot provide proper services. We have two problems here. The sub-post offices are not adequate to meet the demands of the people. We see queues outside, not just on children's allowance day but on days when people are using the post office for so many facilities that should be available to them. The Minister has been adamant on this since 1957. There was a question by my late colleague, Deputy Seán Dunne, on this matter and the Minister said that there should not be much difficulty in getting change for use in the telephone kiosk. I am sure the Minister has sent telegrams and has altered the wording time and again. He would not know exactly what the telegram was going to cost. This is very awkward when one is using a telephone kiosk.

The tenants' association has brought this to the Minister's attention time and again. I would suggest that he should attend a meeting and they will very quickly tell him all about it. The time is over for bluffing and saying these facilities are not needed. The people will demand them more and more. I do not think it is fair to say that the type of offices provided for an area is determined by the need for the various facilities and is not specifically related to population. I cannot accept that the number of telegrams sent from Chapelizod or Inchicore would show the Minister that there is no need for telegraph facilities for Ballyfermot.

I appeal to the Minister and ask him sincerely to investigate this and to meet the wishes of these people so that we will not have to raise the matter again.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Lalor)

I am rather surprised the Deputy feels that this is a matter he should raise on the Adjournment. I have no objection at all to being brought in on the Adjournment to discuss this matter, but I think it is abusing the privileges of the House to find a Deputy who is so worried about this situation that he put down this Question No. 104 on the 6th November but could not be bothered to attend to hear the answer and only got the answer when it was supplied to him subsequently by the Dáil Office or when he read about it in the Dáil Report.

I took Question No. 104 along with a question on the same lines from Deputy Burke from the Fine Gael side of the House. Deputy Burke followed up this question by supplementaries on that day. I was more than surprised to find at a later stage, when the matter was raised by him through a written reply, to find Deputy O'Connell developing some sort of a late interest in it in view of the fact that he could not be present to follow up the original question. However, that is only by the way.

Dr. O'Connell

It is typical of the Minister.

Mr. Lalor

The Deputy has said that something is typical of me. Let me develop that by saying that the Deputy's remarks here this evening are typical of him in that he said, in the course of the argument he made, that the tenants' association have been on to me and my Department time and time again asking for the provision of those facilities; but having discovered, or probably having decided, that this statement was not correct, he immediately followed that up by saying, "The Minister will probably deny this". The Deputy also acted in this way about 12 months ago when he made very false allegations on another Post Office question. I have checked in my Department and I have not found any approaches from a tenants' association for those facilities.

I did concede, in reply to the questions of both Deputy O'Connell and Deputy Burke on the 6th November, that the facilities in that post office were overtaxed on days on which children's allowances are payable. I think the same situation prevails in any post office in a populated area. I have no doubt—I do not know because I have not checked on it—but that in the post offices in Waterford and Galway on children's allowances day there is normally a build-up of people waiting to have their allowances cashed. I did accept when replying to the question previously, that it is not too easy for the sub-postmasters in both the sub-post offices in Ballyfermot to be in a position to provide the facilities on call on the first Tuesday of each month. There are upwards of, I think, 5,000 children's allowances payable each month between the two offices, and this imposes an inordinate demand on the sub-post offices there. This would not be overcome or lessened in any way by the provision of a departmental office in that area.

The Deputy mentioned the fact that a number of people had to queue up there and painted a picture of people having to stand in the rain. I resent the Deputy's statement that I do not know the area. As a matter of fact, I travel daily into the city very close to that area and I have been in the area; but naturally I would not claim to know the area as well as a Deputy who represents the area and is expected to know it.

Dr. O'Connell

And who lives in it.

Mr. Lalor

I am not saying the Deputy is not living in it. I am saying he represents that area and I agree that I would not know the workings of the office to the same extent as the man with the local knowledge. I agree it is far easier to send a telegram by calling into an office, handing in the written form, having the words counted and paying the amount due, rather than having to have the proper change for use in a telephone kiosk. On the other hand, if there were no telephone kiosks there, that lack of facility would be very much criticised. On the basis of the use made of those kiosks for the sending of telegrams, I do not think there is the necessity for the provision of the service sought in either or both of the offices at Ballyfermot. The Deputy asked if I have any way of checking. Of course, I have. In coin box telephones in kiosks every telegram sent is recorded on a slip and it is no problem for my officials to supply me with this information.

Dr. O'Connell

Has the Minister the result of that investigation?

Mr. Lalor

Those facilities are available to me.

Dr. O'Connell

Has the Minister investigated it?

Mr. Lalor

I have. The Deputy had the opportunity of asking supplementary questions. However, he brought this matter up on the Adjournment and I propose to deal with it in the manner appropriate to an Adjournment debate. I am aware of the use that is made of the various coin boxes in that area and I am satisfied from a study of this that there is no degree of demand, except as expressed by the Deputy, for the provision of those facilities. The only way this can be determined is by the normal usage of the coin box in this regard.

While I accept that it is not as convenient to send a telegram from a kiosk as it is to send it from a post office, one would expect that anyone needing to send a telegram would normally be able to have the convenient change.

Dr. O'Connell

Why not withdraw it from other areas so?

Mr. Lalor

I was asked how much it would cost to provide this service. The telegraph service of my Department is run at a pretty sizeable loss, and that within a postal service which itself carries an annual loss. I have not the figures here but there is a loss of something like £250,000 per annum on this over-all service. Where the services are at present being provided in areas in the city to which the Deputy has referred, those are services which have been there for a very long time. New sub-offices do not have this facility. They are money order offices, but they are money order offices without telegraph facilities. Any new suboffice we have opened in the fringe growth areas around Dublin is without the telegraph facility. Our experience has been that in offices where this facility is available very little use is made of it. We are satisfied that it is a facility that is not required in the new offices.

In view of the fact that it is a matter on which the Deputy found it necessary to raise a question on the Adjournment, I, for my part, will take the opportunity of looking further into it. However, it would be wrong if I were to give the impression that by looking further into it there is any great likelihood of providing this facility because it is a facility that has not been found to be necessary in this developing part of Dublin.

If a further investigation of the use being made of coin boxes for the purpose of sending telegrams shows a need for this facility there is no problem as far as I am concerned in providing the service. The difficulty is that it is a costly service and it would mean the payment of a greater amount of money for the provision of a service which I do not consider to be necessary.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, November 13th, 1969.