Before congratulating the Minister on this Estimate I might say that even before the Devlin Report was published many of us felt that the Department of Transport and Power was carrying far too many duties for it to be really effective in each phase of its endeavours. We cannot anticipate Government action on the Devlin Report. My suggestions may be helpful. We could, perhaps, suggest changes. The Department of Transport and Power must look at the measure of its interference in the commercial life of the country. In Dublin there is a large public utility. This being the age of industrial democracy, this concern decided to appoint two of its workers as directors. A Bill had to be put through the House to allow them to do so. They had the full co-operation of the Department but I feel that in this age we should not have such State interference in a concern that is trying to modernise its whole outlook by promoting workers to its board of directors.
The Devlin Report may bring changes. Next year the Department of Transport and Power may be shorn of its responsibilities. At the moment it is dealing with over 12 vital public utilities. Two or three of these should perhaps be the concern of one Department only. As a member of the Fianna Fáil Party I advocate State enterprise where private enterprise is inadequate or unwilling to undertake the task in hand. I am not critical of several nationalised industries but the time has come when we must take a much more serious view of the role of the State in industry and private enterprise. We can bring about the ideal economic situation wherein any worthwhile undertaking will not be sacrificed because it is not making a profit. The State will step in and put the resources of the country behind it to ensure more success like Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna, the Sugar Company and various other semi-State enterprises. We must look at the whole set-up between private enterprise and State enterprise in the public utility field. The Devlin Report may well help in this.
The Department of Transport and Power may contribute more, perhaps, to our adverse trade balance than any other Department. I am subject to correction on this. Imports of fuel are rising. We are moving away from our basic philosophy of Sinn Féin carried on by all parties up to the present day. As a source of primary energy, oil accounts for 50 per cent, turf 29 per cent, coal 22 per cent and hydro-electric schemes 7 per cent. Oil imports will continue to increase. Turf will have disappeared in 30 years time and coal in a shorter time. We are faced with a situation as regards electricity production of having oil-burning stations or reverting to the system in operation at the foundation of the ESB of using hydro schemes to build up the national grid. If we were to depend on fuel oil one could visualise the day when trouble would arise in the Middle East and there would be a shortage of oil. On the other hand, we could, like France, harness the tides. We have not attempted this yet. We have harnessed the rivers for our electric schemes. The ESB must examine the possibility of harnessing the tidal waters as a source of cheap fuel. Atomic energy may fill the gap in 40 years time but we would still have colossal imports of its components such as uranium. If we are to become more self-sufficient we should look at our sources of primary energy. We are an island country with a great potential around our coasts. The tides might be harnessed to give cheap electricity without the necessity for imports. Perhaps, it is unfair to the Department officials to ask them to look at this. I have no evidence of their determination to provide a scheme on the west coast, or the east coast, whichever is the more suitable.
Several other utilities are under the care of the Department but are trivial compared with this great task. Oil is used in many industries, even in the production of electricity and gas. If we depend on imports we will be at the mercy of those countries that have oil supplies. Under this country there are 25 million tons of coal. This is an official figure. Our imports of coal at the moment are about 1¼ million tons so if we are to use our native resources we would have supplies of coal for 25 years. I know it is not as simple as that. Much of our coal is uneconomic and unsuitable but at the same time we must look at this and use those resources while they are there. This would at least cut down imports. While the importation of coal cannot be stopped completely, because other countries have better quality coal than we have, we must look at the two basic factors with regard to our fuel supplies that is, the harnessing of the tides for electricity and the full utilisation of our native coal supplies.
I know it is not the "with it" thing today to talk about solid fuel. People do not go for it nowadays. Housewives may not like solid fuel anymore. The point I want to make is that our imports are adding to our balance of trade difficulties and it would help if we used more of our native fuel resources. We should have another look at the mines, particularly in the west, to see if they can be used more, even if we have to subsidise them.
When most people think of the Department of Transport and Power they think of CIE. A Dublin journalist, Mr. Michael Viney, put it very well when in Administration, volume 16, No. 4, he said: “It is the fate of all State utilities to be seen as monolithic yet to be challenged in daily detail, to be taken for granted yet not to be understood.” I suppose there is no more misunderstood body than CIE. In this city we may all swear in the morning or evening when we are waiting for a bus which does not come along. They say it is because of the traffic density, that there are too many cars on the road and that because people cannot get buses they buy cars. It is a vicious circle going on all the time — not enough buses, more cars and therefore buses not getting through. This is something we have got to face. As we become more affluent, more people will have cars, more people want to get to places quickly and CIE will be faced again and again with the problem of traffic density. One Deputy this morning said he was fed up with the traffic in Dublin and nothing was being done about it. Something is being done about it. If something had not been done Dublin would have been choked up with traffic long ago. The population of the city is growing. In the greater Dublin area there are now 800,000 people. Lots of them have not cars and they must depend on buses. I am not in here to defend CIE. I just want to be fair to them. If you take it that there are 800 buses and in CIE as a whole there are 4,000 people employed it may be too simple to say that that means five people per bus. It does not mean any such thing. It means somewhere in the organisation that five people are being employed to keep a bus on the road.
I mention that fact to let you see the difficulties we are up against. There is no possibility, and I would not favour it, of having the transport service go back to private enterprise. Mr. Frank Lemass, the manager, pointed out some time ago that should this happen private enterprise would simply go after the best routes and would not go on the uneconomic routes, so if you did not happen to live in a densely populated area you would not have a bus service. When people say "Back to private enterprise" they say this without thinking too much about it.
We should look at the problem of what to do with CIE as a semi-State company. There are many things we can do to help them. The first is to try and understand them, but CIE must also help themselves out in regard to Dublin traffic. They will have to have a fresh look at the possibility of re-opening the suburban stations which they closed some time ago. I have been pressing this with CIE in my own constituency of South-East Dublin where they closed stations at Sandymount, Sydney Parade and other such places. I have pointed out to them that the population in that area has grown tremendously and people would use the trains if given the chance. I would appeal to CIE to have a fresh look at this, as otherwise the roads will become more crowded and it will become impossible to travel in the city. CIE can help by opening up the railways which they closed down not alone in the south-east area but in other areas.
I remember when Dublin Corporation, with all their faults, at one time discussed very seriously the possibility of opening up a rail junction from Liffey junction in Cabra whereby people could get transport from there right down to the docks. There must be many dockers living in that suburban area. Apart from the dockers, if you take into account that in the Dublin Port area there are 12,000 people employed you will see there is a great potential for CIE to give those people easy access to their employment, and help to reduce the great traffic density on the roads.
The State have not been ungenerous to CIE. Sometime ago we gave them a supplementary grant to help them carry on. I am all for this because they have got tremendous problems. The Minister has been pressed by every Deputy who spoke on the CIE pensions scheme some time ago. I do not want to go over all that again because we have all said our piece before, but it is something which pricks our conscience when we see the paltry sums those men are getting. I understand there is some move to improve this and I think the sooner the better.
I would make another plea to CIE with regard to their vast staff in this city. I know one section which are voluntarily providing recreational facilities for their staff. I would ask the board of CIE to give this sports section a good grant to help to provide for the recreation of their men because bus drivers, conductors and train drivers have a very arduous job to do and as the working week is cut down they, like the rest of us, will have more time for leisure. CIE, which is being so heavily subsidised by the State, should show their gratitude by recognition of the fact that we do not subsidise them merely so that they can make a profit. We subsidise them also to provide an efficient service. There can be no efficient service if the well-being of the employees is not seen to. I would suggest to the board of CIE that they recognise the merits of those people and give them a grant towards recreational facilities. It may not be a great one. I would say £10,000 would go a long way.
There has been much talk in recent years about port development and particularly about the development of Dublin port. I believe the time has come when we must have a searching examination of the construction of the ports of the future. One basic factor must be recognised: ships are getting bigger. They are being built today of a size which would have been unthought of even ten years ago. You must have better facilities to cater for those larger vessels. I believe there is no port in the whole country more ideal for the purpose of taking the great bulk of trade than Dublin port.
You have to face the fact that we have few really modern ports in the country. Dublin at present takes 64 per cent of the total trade of the Republic. You may have seen figures which put Cork port and Dublin on almost the same level as regards tonnage. While the figures are correct as they stand, examination will show that if you take into account the Whitegate oil refinery figures for the transport of oil you get a different picture. Therefore, Dublin port must expand. I do not favour a colossal Dublin port but I believe a modern port here can be made to look as well as any Japanese port. Even the biggest of these have been made beautiful and provide fine examples of the genius, progress and capacity for hard work and planning of the Japanese people. They have come a long way from the old port concept of smoking chimneys, railway sidings and grassless wastes. Their ports are more like parklands. They have given us a new concept of port planning and so have the Dutch people to a lesser extent. When we are planning our ports we should study Japanese and Dutch methods so that we can ensure our modern ports will be things of beauty as well as utility. There need be no clash between the two. We must be careful not to allow development without regard to natural beauty. We must not be so unrealistic as to think that the Dublin port of 20 or 30 years ago can hold its own in modern commerce unless we do as has been done in England, on the continent and in Japan and change our whole thinking about large ports and say that we want to develop so as to serve the people's needs in regard to imports and exports and also combine beauty with utility.
Our airports are quite nice. They have the advantage of having been established when we were more planning-conscious and more aware of architecture than were the early inhabitants of Dublin when they first set up a port here. Very soon the Minister will be getting a report from the Dublin Port and Docks Board on port development and, while I am no longer a member of that board, I hope this report will envisage a port both beautiful and useful.
Everybody now is worried about pollution in the rivers and in the air and rightly so. A few months ago when watching the Americans landing on the moon it struck me that the moon will now be polluted since the Americans left some instruments there and probably the next flight will leave more. Having polluted the world, we now proceed to pollute the moon. I suppose by nature and in our carelessness we pollute our surroundings. Let it be said, however, that most Members of the House did not wait until now to consider the problem of pollution. When the present Minister was responsible for Fisheries I was a member of a board of fishery conservators and I was in constant touch with him about pollution of rivers.
Dublin is probably unique in being the only city with a fish-bearing river running through its centre. The problem of pollution and fish life must be carefully studied. I can remember the river Liffey being dirtier than it is now because at that time we had untreated sewage being discharged into it unchecked. At the same time the fish population was very large. This is one of the contradictions one encounters. Today, effluents more dangerous than untreated sewage are being discharged into the Liffey, such as oil and poisons. I once asked a Parliamentary Question as to whether the law was considered adequate to protect our rivers and I was told the answer was "yes" at the time. There was an occasion when a county Dublin firm accidentally discharged cyanide — I think — into the river, killing all fish life. The firm admitted its mistake but in law you had to prove that the effluent from the factory actually killed the fish you produced for inspection. That was almost impossible since the fish might have died from some other type of pollution. While some firms must be watched I think that, in general, firms do not want to pollute rivers and I think with co-operation from firms and the people generally we could end this danger.
In Dublin we also have the Dodder river which is a very pretty river but is being seriously polluted. The corporation are now halfway through the Dodder Valley drainage scheme which I think will save the Dodder from sewage pollution and incidentally allow us to build many more houses in the south-west suburbs. We shall not save the river unless the people themselves want to save it. It is depressing to view the Dodder today and see the amount of rubbish, including old iron, thrown into it, thus destroying the appearance of a lovely river. People talk about preserving Georgian buildings, which is only right if they can be preserved, and yet this beautiful river is being destroyed by people who have no respect for beauty or fish life, through plain carelessness. People protest against removing buildings of bricks and mortar — they are entitled to their views—but when at the same time you see the people ignoring the fact that a beautiful river is being destroyed one wonders if our values are right.
Pollution will become a tremendous problem for the Government and the people. As population increases so will pollution and our scientists must try to provide a solution. The people, primarily, should be jealous of the natural amenities of the country and not allow them to be destroyed. Deputy Tully spoke yesterday about caravan camps and of what can happen without proper control of such camps in seaside areas. I do not know if many tourists go there but our people go there and, while some local authorities have done a good job in setting up these holiday camps, it is depressing to see the shanty towns which have been allowed grow up around our coasts. This is one thing the Minister must tackle.
Another matter for the Minister is the removal of the billboard alleys which one sees at the approaches to our cities. Dublin is probably worse than anywhere else and we see all kinds of advertisements put up. Under the last Planning Act permission is required to do this but unfortunately many were there before the Act and retained their rights to erect these monstrosities. It has been said that we must not sell our heritage for financial gain, that we must preserve our natural amenities. If we are going to have these horrible signs, we will destroy the image of Ireland as a fresh country with green fields, nice scenery, proper roads and, above all, with a people who value things of beauty.
Perhaps in some future Planning Act the Minister might recommend much more stringent action against people who violate the planning laws or violate the appearance of an area by putting up crude advertisements. With industrialisation going on apace on the continent, in Britain and here, people will yearn more and more for a quiet place in which to relax. I feel that we are not serious enough in our approach to the preservation of rural and urban amenities. The Minister would do a good job if he appealed to the various organisations to preserve our rivers and our scenery. Under the Planning Act the appropriate Minister has power to do this. However, this is an area in which the State dictating is not the full answer; the State must also lead and they can lead the people to a sense of duty in this regard. If this is done there will be no trouble about maintaining and increasing our tourist trade. We will not attract tourists if they are going to find here what they may see any day in downtown New York, or in London—all these garish signs blazing all over the place. The continentals are much better in this regard than we are. Because of pressure on them through scarcity of land and huge populations they realise they have got to preserve and develop their land.
Many of our problems in the past were solved by emigration but today the younger people are turning their faces against this solution and are prepared to appreciate our natural treasures and will not allow them to be destroyed. The Minister might impress on the various agencies under his control that they will have to do much more, not just to increase the number of beds, which is desirable, but more to preserve our existing amenities so that we will not become a pale copy of the Anglo-American scene and so that we will maintain what is purely an Irish scene and attract tourists.
