Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 10 Feb 1970

Vol. 244 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 41—Transport and Power (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.

—(Deputy T. O'Donnell.)

Mr. Foley

When I reported progress last week I was speaking about the Electricity Supply Board—low voltage, labour relations, installation and various other matters. I should like to deal now with the installation of electricity in rural areas. The Electricity Supply Board has, in my opinion, treated farmers with grave discourtesy from the point of view of the very high surcharge imposed on farmers. The ESB quoted a surcharge of £125 to a man in my constituency who asked for three-phase electricity to enable him to operate a glasshouse scheme. When he applied to the board he was told that the board did not want him to look for three-phase electricity. He was told: "You are looking now for something we do not want to give you." That sort of situation should not prevail, particularly in rural areas in which the people are mainly involved in agriculture. Agriculture is their means of livelihood. We are trying to promote the glasshouse industry. The reaction of the ESB will certainly not help the promotion of that industry. Rural electrification has been progressing very slowly indeed. If the Minister has any responsibility in this matter, then I criticise him for not insisting on the ESB adopting the proper procedure. We, in this House, said it was our intention to make electricity available to everyone who wanted it. This has not been done. I would ask the Minister to look into this matter.

On the last occasion I gave the Minister the name of a constituent in Naul I made inquiries since and I have discovered that the man who is dealing with this case has gone on a three weeks' course and nothing will be done until he returns. No one is indispensible and surely there should be some official in the ESB who could deal with the matter during his absence. I would ask the Minister to ginger up the rural offices of the ESB and ensure that supplies are made available when they are required so that constituents will not be nagging TD's and we, in turn will not have to nag the Minister and the ESB. I know the telephone number of the ESB so well that it comes be tween me and my sleep.

With regard to public lighting, the ESB are basically responsible through Dublin County Council for public lighting in the county. The county council have given the ESB the different allocations. On only one occasion in the last two years has the ESB erected lights. There is a two year backlog. Apparently the ESB do not consider adequate lighting essential If the Minister does not do something about this there is only one alternative we will go to the Minister for Local Government and get Dublin County Council to set up their own lighting department, completely disregarding the ESB.

I wish to compliment the public transport section of CIE. Whatever criticisms may be hurled at them from either side of this House or even in the public press, there is no other body or individual who could provide the service CIE are providing along by roads into villages and towns. How ever, there are some laxities within the system. One of them is the length of time it takes to deal with an application for an extension of a bus service or the moving of a bus stop. I have been in contact with CIE in regard to the provision of buses to the rural part of my consituency. I wanted a bus extended from Lee's Cross to Ballyboughal. Only two buses travel through Ballyboughal in the week. One is a bus going to Carrickmacross which comes through on a Wednesday moring and that is the last the people see of that bus until Friday. That is the only service to take workers from the village of Ballyboughal into Dublin city. Therefore, we have to arrange to transport people in private cars to Lee's Cross. I would ask the Minister to request CIE to give the service a trial. If it does not pay at least we can say to the people: "It is an uneconomic service. You did not use it."

In regard to the haulage section of CIE, it is disgraceful to see seven or eight-ton lorries carrying small packages and parcels. These heavy lorries should be utilised more effectively. Ever since they got rid of the horses——

Mr. B. Lenihan

They have not got rid of the horses.

Mr. Foley

Not completely but they have cut down the number considerably and they have replaced them by tractors, particularly down the country. There should be a more economical way of delivering these goods than using these heavy lorries. Surely it could be done by local hauliers just as effectively and at much less cost. We realise the burden of CIE will be on the State for many years. I personally accept that because of the service they are providing for the people. However, there is no reason why the haulage section of CIE should be subsidised. If a private individual was running that section he would make it pay. There are too many overseers looking after clerks, everybody wanting to watch what everybody else is doing instead of doing what needs to be done. It is time there was a reshuffle and that somebody with initiative should set about improving the situation and making the haulage section of CIE pay.

Bord na Móna has done a tremendous amount of work from the point of view of reclamation, employment and the utilisation of their product. Deputy Bruton criticised the usage of turf by the ESB, that it was not the cheapest commodity they could use in the boilers. I would overlook that because we are using a product which provides a great deal of employment. Why should the ESB not use turf? Undoubtedly the ESB profits would be up if they used oil instead of turf. They are building more stations and these would be oil stations but in view of the increasing demands for electricity there should be an increasing demand for turf. Bord na Móna have made a great contribution to the economy and it would be terrible to see them hindered by the introduction of a new system of electricity generation in the ESB. Even though turf might be messier or dirtier to work, it is necessary that the ESB should utilise it to the fullest extent possible.

As this is Conservation Year I am reminded that our waterways and harbours are indirectly the responsibility of the Minister. I would ask him to consider the preservation and widening of our harbours which are being greatly affected by the spillage of oil from tankers and so on. Experiments have been going on in Canada and in various European countries without any great success. These are the hazards of modern living but the destruction of our wild life must be abhorred and reduced to the minimum.

Dr. O'Donovan

This Estimate apparently is one of some interest to Deputies judging by the number of Members of the Fianna Fáil Party who have spoken on it. For a Department of such recent birth the expenditure is now very considerable, and I do not agree with a number of Deputies, among whom Deputy O'Donnell was pre-eminent, who say there should be a great deal more expenditure on tourism. The expenditure in the Estimate is £13 million for the year. This is a sizeable amount of money and I am sure the Minister agrees. The Department is a peculiar one. When it was first established only ten years ago the then Minister said he was demoted in being appointed to it, but he made a fair go of it and showed considerable activity, and in a territory in which some activity by politicians is required, that is, in relation to the semi-State bodies—although, indeed, he did not have all that many of them but he did have some of the largest and did pay great attention to the work of those bodies for which he was responsible.

It is a great pity that this Ministry has not complete charge of transport. This is a very serious problem from the point of view of this country: what exactly is to be done about internal transport? This is split among a number of Ministers and Local Government has a good deal to do with it. Then there is a suggestion that there should be a new Act providing for the main roads to be looked after entirely by the State. It would be very much better if, in fact, the Minister's Department had complete control of transport, not to have it split over a number of Departments as it is at present. This particularly applies to the Dublin area.

Some years ago the late Deputy Teddy Lynch asked me: "John, do you pay any motor taxation in Dublin?"—the roads at the time were in such a desperate condition. Now they are not in such a desperate condition but the roads around Dublin city are full of potholes. It will save me having to raise it on the Estimate for Local Government if I say it on this Estimate: it is deplorable—and I appeal to every Deputy—that you hit a pothole every so often on every one of the roads out of Dublin. All that would be required would be one lorry going around with the necessary material, and a number of men on it, constantly looking after these potholes. That is the kind of thing that could be looked after without difficulty if transport were dealt with by one Department rather than by a number of Departments and partly by local authorities. It is a serious matter. There must be many a broken axle, judging by the size of some of these potholes around the city.

Like some of the other speakers, I should like to express my appreciation of the material the Minister provided for us. I propose to go through some of the departments covered in the Estimate. First of all, like the last Deputy who spoke, I appreciate very much the work that has been done by Bord na Móna. I saw this work years ago, in 1946 and I was down again in 1959 and have been down there since then and noticed an extraordinary improvement in the applied scientific work of the board in that period of 12 years. For example, they have a machine called a bagger. In the late '40s, six men on these machines were laying out the sod turf very badly. When I went back afterwards one man had charge of the machine and if he ran into serious difficulties he could 'phone for help from the central office. This was a remarkable effort by the engineers and the scientific personnel attached to Bord na Móna.

I notice in their last report that in 1968-69 there were exports of £1 million worth of stuff. Of course, this would be in the main the peat moss. This is an admirable export. This is the kind of export that has some style about it. Ladies across the Irish Sea like to handle it in growing their roses. It is useful in horticulture of various sorts. I was delighted to see that this excellent organisation had doubled their exports in the past five years.

The financial position of Bord na Móna has been extremely difficult but the Government in the year before last made an effort to fix it up. In 1958, Bord na Móna lost £900,000 but, 1959 being an exceptional year like 1969 was, they got back £800,000 of it and then for a year or two were on an even keel. Then came the six very bad years and, really, Bord na Móna got right up to its tonsils in financial trouble and the deficit at the end of the financial year ended 31st March, 1968, was nearly £5 million. Then the Bill was passed that wrote off £1.8 million and there was a revenue excess in the 1968 production year of £1¼ million. There was an increase in the output of milled peat of £1 million. This was a great achievement, largely due to the weather. The year 1969 must have been even better. So that, I presume Bord na Móna is now once more out of the red. What will happen in future depends again on the weather. Total production last year was £9 million and that, having regard to the total staff that they employ, is a very fine result.

If, in fact, Bord na Móna does not get good weather, no matter how excellent it is, it will not succeed in balancing its accounts. I would say that as of now, as a result of last year's exceptionally fine weather following the previous year, Bord na Móna, which was in the red, £1.7 million down, at 31st March, 1969, has cleared off the bulk of that by now.

The total capital of the organisation is about £25 million. Unlike some of the extremely boastful semi-State bodies that we have, Bord na Móna has paid considerable amounts from time to time in interest and has, in fact, reduced its original advances from the State by £4 million. I should like to see some of the bodies that like to talk about what they do, emulating Bord na Móna in that regard.

Deputy Foley raised a point which, of course, everybody who ever had anything to do with the ESB would be well aware of, this is, that some of the ESB engineers have been extremely critical of the price at which fuel consisting of turf is supplied to the ESB. I agree with Deputy Foley that this is a natural asset, one of the few we have and that if it does cost a little extra, we who from time to time have so much difficulty in balancing our external payments, should not regard it as a serious matter to have to pay that little bit extra cost for raw material, like fuel, in the production of electricity and that it will not affect us. Therefore, I am all in favour of the successful efforts that have been made by Bord na Móna down the years to increase their production and to insist on selling part of it to the ESB.

I now come to the ESB. The first thing that any person who has any concern about this community immediately notices about the ESB is its enormous size financially. The Central Bank of Ireland, a completely different kind of organisation which really just takes in assets and deals in money, is the only semi-State body that compares in size with the ESB which has a total capital involvement of £250 million. As is the case with other bodies, this is all real capital, that is to say, there are physical assets throughout the country in various forms for this £250 million and, apart from that side of it, there is the other side, that the ESB has always paid its way. Therefore, we may take it that these assets as of today are probably worth a great deal more than £250 million. On an occasion when I had work to do with the ESB I was astonished to learn that it was financing the Government as well as financing its own development.

The increases which the ESB workers have received are only a fair reflection of their interests in the firm; very often they are life-long interests. I cannot see why, when the roast joint is carved up, the workers should not get their fair share, if the business has been extremely successful. It is sometimes said that when a business is unsuccessful the workers can only be paid less, but if the business is, in fact, unsuccessful the workers are paid less anyway because the money is not there to pay them.

The idea has emerged, unfortunately, from our Civil Service, that everybody doing the same kind of work should be paid the same amount of money, but this system cannot work. When Guinness were the only company in the city paying high wages, workers in other industries did not complain. All they said was: "Lucky fellows, those men working in Guinness." The men who drive the big lorries for the ESB are paid more than the bus drivers in CIE and there is no way of interfering with that kind of situation. The Quinn Report recommended the bringing down of wages for clerks in the ESB to the same level as clerks in other State bodies. A situation was then created where the ESB, having looked after itself from 1927 to 1958 — nearly 30 years — was no longer allowed to look after its own affairs. I do not see why the workers in an organisation such as Cement Limited, which makes an enormous profit, should not get a 10 per cent rise.

It has been found in Great Britain that the 500 megawatt generators are much less expensive than the smaller generators which we have in this country. It has also been found out that these huge generators can run into serious trouble. I am glad to say that the largest generators we have at the present time are 60 megawatts. One is to be installed at the Pigeon House and another at Great Island. I have no reason to think that these will cause any trouble but it has been found in other countries that the technological approach can be over-done and one can easily run into serious difficulties. When a 500 megawatt generator breaks down it is very difficult to get the kind of power which it has been producing from another part of the system.

Provision is made in this vote for rural electrification. There are certain aspects of rural electrification with which I have never agreed. One is the proposition that everybody in the community must have everything. This means, very often, that five miles of wire has to be run up a hillside to provide three farms with electricity when, in fact, the job could be done very much cheaper by using Calor gas or Kosangas and batteries for the television. I have lived in a house with Kosangas and the truth of the matter is that it provides nicer light to read by than electricity.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

What about the television?

Dr. O'Donovan

The television can be run by battery. The total cost of giving people such facilities would be nowhere near as great as it is by running these miles of wires in order to supply three or four people in a remote area. I think attention should be given to this idea.

I have read what the Fianna Fáil Deputies said about the bills which have accumulated because of the ESB strike. It is true there will be difficulties about the bills, but the board has told us in advertisements and I hope I quote them correctly, that something like 80 per cent of the people were paying some part of their bill. I must admit I took this with a very large grain of salt. Undoubtedly, there are people who look after their budgeting with great care but they are not typical of the community. The strike has gone on for nearly six months and when it comes to an end there are going to be a great many difficulties. I am sure the ESB will be able to fix it up all right by getting the money gradually but it leaves one with a strange feeling that relations between staff, management and the chairman himself have got on to the wrong track. It is hard to understand why there is a strike, except, of course, for the recommendations made in the Quinn Report. As Deputy Tully said, a strike has to be finished sometime and I see no reason at all for allowing it to go on as long as this. I am glad to see that the RTE strike seems to be coming to an end.

There must be a considerable loss to the ESB arising from the strike, especially when money rates are 9 or 10 per cent as they are at present. There must be a very sizeable loss indeed, when moneys do not come in for a period like six months. It was obvious from the beginning that it would have to be settled but, apparently, no one was prepared to grasp the nettle.

I have noticed that the Government have been extremely careful in all these strikes to keep well away from them. That was particularly noticeable during the maintenance men's strike last year. There was untold trouble in the community and the Government, with the greatest care, kept out of it. I am not quite sure that I approve of that attitude on the part of the Government when the economy is in difficulties.

There was also a report on Bord na Móna and a report on the teachers. All these reports by these investigating committees of academics do not seem to solve anything. I have never seen any worthwhile solution coming from them. They seem to me to create quite a lot of trouble and I am glad to see the Minister nodding his head. I think there is some truth in it.

I want to say a few words now about CIE. This is the largest semi-State body from the point of view of employment. I am glad to see that the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party to CIE has changed very considerably in the past decade. The Tánaiste was in the House instead of the Minister when this Estimate and the Supplementary Estimate for CIE were introduced. He could easily have been twitted at great length but I did not think it was reasonable to do so since this is not his Ministry any longer. He came into the House in sackcloth and ashes. He admitted that he had not understood the problem ten years ago. When a man does that, I do not feel inclined to throw anything at him. He now says he understands the problem better.

CIE are doing as well as any reasonable person could expect, but I think the conditions in some of the transport services—Deputy Foley spoke about Ballyboughal, for example—are not quite adequate. I see long queues of people waiting for buses on bad mornings here in Dublin. For some reason or other they seem to be longer on bad mornings than on other mornings. Perhaps a number of people walk to work when the weather is fine. Certainly one sees extraordinarily long queues of people in this city.

What was achieved by the Fianna Fáil Party in connection with CIE at the beginning of the sixties was of course a kind of financial fraud. They wrote all the assets of the railways out of the system and proceeded to realise them or let CIE realise them and, since they were written off the books, they were able to use the value of all the assets, the rails and all the rest of it, and everything they sold up, as current revenue. It was really a farcical situation.

One particular decision was taken at that time which was, I suppose, the worst administrative decision taken by the Government since the last war ended. It was a decision first of all to close the railway line from Harcourt Street to Bray. I did not mind that particularly. It was losing only £70,000 a year. I think it was partly a bow by the Minister and the company to rural Ireland: "Look, we will show these people that we will also close down a line in Dublin. We will show them we are not pandering to the city." It was not that I minded but, having closed down that line, they proceeded to sell off pieces of the line, and to destroy the bridges, instead of setting it up as a road from Dublin to Bray.

There are arguments, for example, that the large viaduct at Milltown could take only one car because of its width. They have done this kind of thing in Germany in particular. If you have this kind of situation you run the toll road into the city until 2 o'clock in the afternoon and from then on you run it out. This would have been an admirable way for CIE to get some revenue and they would have had no difficulty in getting plenty of revenue. You have only to look at the Bray road any morning and see the length of time it takes people to come into the city to realise that. This was one of the worst administrative decisions — possibly the worst — taken in this country since the war. The line is gone now and nothing can be done about it.

Mr. B. Lenihan

What about the transatlantic?

Dr. O'Donovan

Is the Minister talking about the selling of the Constellations? Was there not a profit of £1 million made on the sale?

Mr. B. Lenihan

We will not go into it.

Dr. O'Donovan

Since the Minister has asked about it, let me just say something about it.

Mr. B. Lenihan

We all make mistakes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair hopes that there will not be a discussion on it.

Dr. O'Donovan

One sentence only. The Minister chooses to forget the conditions in which ordinary people were living and also what Mr. Lemass said at the time. There were four tough years ahead of us when the first inter-Party Government came into office.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I do not want to make a big point of it. I just want to redress the balance.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister chooses to forget this, but I do not forget it. The first two shiploads of timber that came into this country for a long time were used at Shannon to build hotels for the transatlantic air service at a time when the ordinary people of the country——

Mr. B. Lenihan

In 1970 we will be kind about that gross error.

Dr. O'Donovan

——were in rags. I will leave it at that. I would like to make a plea now for one group of men in CIE, the bus drivers in the city of Dublin. I do not know what can be done about it but of all the men, the ordinary workmen in this country, the worst paid men, having regard to the kind of work they do, are the bus drivers in this city. Huge numbers of them get heart trouble or duodenal ulcers in their middle or late years.

Circumstances have changed entirely since the time when we had tram drivers. The tram driver could stand up and move around on the large platform or he could sit down. He was able to move around. A bus driver has to sit in that little enclosed cab and when they have been doing that for 20 years or so they run into serious trouble. If you compare what our bus drivers are paid with what they are paid in other countries, there is no doubt that they are the worst paid people in this community.

Deputy Dowling and Deputy Tully spoke about the appallingly low pensions of retired CIE workers. The Minister was good enough to say to me that he was having this question examined. Let me make a suggestion to the Minister—or it may have occurred to him already. I always get upset when a new pension scheme is suddenly brought in and all the people who retired on small pensions are told: "You are out. You cannot come in under it." I believe that all people, no matter what their age, should come in under these schemes.

The Government took a good decision when they said that Civil Service widows were to be given pensions whether or not the civil servant had been retired for years. This is the kind of thing I mean. These are miserable pensions. They are so small that they are unchristian. They are appalling and I would hope that, even if it did cost a few hundred thousand pounds a year, the Minister would extend whatever decision is taken about CIE pensions to all CIE pensioners, all the old railway men and so on.

If it is left to the Department of Finance, if the Minister allows a particular part of the Department of Finance to have too much say in the matter, they will not get much. That much is certain.

The rate of subsidy per person employed in CIE is relatively small. This is an essential social service. It is just as essential as education or any of the other services that are not expected to pay for themselves at all. Therefore, I consider that the same standards should be applied to CIE as are applied to these others. I am aware that some of the employees of CIE, particularly in the Waterford depot, are extremely concerned about the liberalisation of road haulage. I hope and I know that the Minister will take care of this. I have no more to say about it.

Mr. B. Lenihan

We will have the Bill in about a month's time.

Dr. O'Donovan

Very good. I should like to say a few words about the tourist industry. The expenditure on the tourist industry is about £5 million a year. I do not regard that as a small amount. There is considerable difference of opinion about the accuracy of figures which are mentioned from time to time regarding tourism. I feel that Bord Fáilte is one State organisation which is not as careful about its expenditure as some of the others. For example, when the Inter-Parliamentary Union met in Tokyo there were three representatives of this Parliament, that is of both Houses of the Oireachtas, there. If I were to suggest that at the last international tourist conference in Tokyo there were nearly 20 people from Bord Fáilte would the Minister comment on it?

Mr. B. Lenihan

I could not say offhand what the number was.

Dr. O'Donovan

Either the people in Bord Fáilte have altogether too high an opinion of themselves or politicians have too low an opinion of themselves. I think both are true.

Mr. B. Lenihan

My information is that this included representatives of the travel trade and the hotel industry. This would not by any means be exclusively Bord Fáilte. It was a business matter and included members of the travel trade and the hotel industry.

Dr. O'Donovan

Who paid for them?

Mr. B. Lenihan

Themselves.

Dr. O'Donovan

My information is different. It is extraordinary that when the Inter-Parliamentary Union met in Tokyo there were three representatives present from both Houses of the Oireachtas and when there was a tourist meeting there there were nearly 20 people there from this country.

Mr. B. Lenihan

The great majority of the 20 would be financed by themselves, the hotel industry and the travel trade.

Dr. O'Donovan

My information is that the great majority were paid for out of the funds of Bord Fáilte.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I shall get the exact details.

Dr. O'Donovan

I want to say a few words about Aer Lingus and Aerlínte. First of all let me say a word of praise. The advertising in the English serious magazines — the ones I see are those attached to the Sunday Times and the Observer— by Aer Lingus is excellent from the tourism point of view. It shows what Ireland is like and offers enticements to people to come to Ireland. However, I have an impression that there is wasteful expenditure by these air companies. Will we ever stop spending money on the airports? The Minister will say that when there are jumbo jets we must do something.

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is all over the world. I saw it myself at London airport yesterday.

Dr. O'Donovan

When the railway stations were built they were finished with.

Mr. B. Lenihan

That was in good Queen Victoria's time.

Dr. O'Donovan

I do not mind if it was in the time of Caesar or Mark Antony. The fact is there is more to it than just the runways. From personal observation and indeed from what one picks up in the wind I know that there was excessive expenditure on the Casement Airport on office buildings and so on. I will not go into details on that.

There is a large sum here to meet investment grants for ships, a sum of £2½ million. The Minister will say that this is for the Cork Dockyard and that it is common all over the world and has to be done. If something is common all over the world should not we take the benefit of it rather than do it ourselves? At least half the total cost of a ship represents imports to this country. I have worked out that this is £2½ million to employ 800 workers in the Cork Dockyard. That is £3,000 per worker per year. That is a lot of money to spend to employ people. I made a similar complaint many years ago which brought me a letter from Irish Shipping. I said that there was an investment of £12 million to employ 400 people. The letter was not in fact signed by the chairman. I thought the better of the chairman for not having signed it. Perhaps he realised there was not as good a case as was made in the letter.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Irish Shipping has substantial foreign exchange earnings that help to finance other undertakings.

Dr. O'Donovan

That may be. This is many years ago. My point is that to employ 800 people at Cork we are spending £2½ million per year.

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is not quite as simple as that.

Dr. O'Donovan

I have no doubt it is not but it requires a very powerful answer.

There is a point I took up with the Minister for Industry and Commerce before Christmas concerning the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. The Minister came in here with the figures for the gross exports by the company. He did not have the net figures at all and he did not have the figures of what imports were required to create these exports. The exports amounted to £35 million for the year 1968-69, arising from imports of £20 million. That left a balance of £15 million. That was a great deal better than some years ago. It was certainly a fine margin. Then I went a bit further and found that employment down there was just over 4,000 of whom about 2,500, or 60 per cent, were women. If you took the fantastic figure of £1,000 a year each the total amount paid to those workers was only £4 million. Remember the difference between the exports and the imports which brought about those exports was £15 million. Obviously, the enormous difference between £4 million and £15 million would represent a little bit of profit — apart, of course, from what they paid to the ESB and so on. There was a custom in the fifties, when socialism was going strong in Britain and there was criticism of big companies, to show where your £ went. Unilever, for instance, would say that of every £ made last year, 9/6 went on wages and 8/9 on materials, ending up with only a ½d left in the £ for the shareholders.

Now we can see that these firms coming to Shannon from abroad, in 1968 spent 55 per cent of the total on raw materials — that is not far off the old figure — but, on wages and salaries, they spent less than 10 per cent, even on my extraordinary figure of £1,000 per head per person employed in the estate as given by SFADCO. There is no use pretending that they were paying anything like an average of £1,000 per annum; they were not. The profits were at least 25 per cent. These were tax-free profits. Therefore, it is the same kind of situation as brought the American companies that went into the Common Market into the Flemish part of Belgium, where they found nonunion labour and built big factories. This was not in the industrial part of Belgium below Brussels but in the agricultural area where they could get cheap labour, where people would work hard before realising that industrial work is harder than agricultural work. This part of Belgium has developed enormously inside the Common Market as the Minister will find if he cares to inquire.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I know.

Dr. O'Donovan

As I said before Christmas, I thought SFADCO was one of the best ideas Mr. Seán Lemass ever had — and he had a few good ones, but I am not prepared to swallow the kind of nonsense the chairman of that company occasionally talks or the kind of story we were told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I do not say he did it deliberately but he told us a tale before Christmas and I had quite a wrangle with him.

It is a bit much that at least one of these companies would not allow trade union labour, having regard to the kind of profits they are obviously making. They just wanted more, in good American style. There is no limit; good old capitalism — all for me and as little as possible for the other fellow. I shall end on that note but it is not to be taken from what I said that I am critical at all of the semi-State bodies we have. On the whole, they have served the country well and those in the Minister's Department of Transport and Power are probably the best, the ESB and CIE, and even the worst of them that he has are not to be too strongly deprecated.

Mr. Coogan

I want to support Deputy O'Donnell to ensure that there will be no sell-out as far as the airlines are concerned at either Dublin Airport or Shannon and that the status quo will remain. We are bound up in the west as much as anybody else with the system of airlines landing at Shannon. We have the major tourist centre in Galway and we are concerned as much in this matter as the people of Limerick. I see no reason for a sell-out. We are now equipped to cater for the jumbo jets. Some people may think we are too far ahead but if we do not go all out now we shall miss the bus. I think the Irish airlines have taken the right step in trying to get the biggest slice of tourist traffic crossing the Atlantic.

We are proud of what we have to offer in Galway and prouder still that tourism in Galway was built on the solid rock of private enterprise. The interest of people who ran private hotels is what built up the Galway tourist trade. I am proud that we now have the biggest tourist centre in the west. Not without good reason have the tourist board given the largest-ever grant recently towards the Galway complex. These are hardheaded businessmen, as they must be since they are charged with the allocation of public moneys, and it is not without good reason that the major slice of the cake went to Galway.

I want to pay special tribute to the officials of the Galway tourist office. I have the honour of being mayor in the past year and I could see firsthand the great work they have done in Galway. They are dedicated to their jobs and that is the type of people we are proud to have. Their courtesy and efficiency is outstanding. I trust the tourist board will not close their eyes now to Galway. We have there one of the most scenic lakes imaginable. There is free fishing on a wide expanse of unspoiled waters. I hope the Corrib will remain unspoiled. If it were situated in England it would be a veritable money spinner, all provided by nature.

With regard to farmhouse holidays, there is quite often trouble with the town planners about signs to be erected. If signs are not erected the tourists cannot possibly find those farmhouses. Some arrangement will have to be made.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy appreciates that is a matter for the Department of Local Government.

Mr. Coogan

But the Department of Transport and Power has responsibility for tourism and I appeal to the Minister to use his good offices to ensure that something is done to provide adequate signposting. Farmhouse holidays are comparatively untapped. They mean a great deal to the economy. The people who avail of farmhouse holidays are the people who want to fraternise with our own. They do not want hotel life.

A previous speaker questioned the money invested in tourism. I know what tourism means in my area. It is the greatest economic asset we have in the west. If a man changes a £5 note in the west and does not get in the change at least four English £ notes, then there is something wrong. The English tourist is the best money spinner. Next week I shall be going to Britain in an effort to encourage more tourists to come here.

On the question of transport, the young people who go into factories are not on full pay for the first year or two. Yet, they must pay full bus fare and, at the end of the week, they find there is not much left. There is little to show for their efforts and so they emigrate. Young workers should get some reduction in bus fares during their first two years at work to enable them to have something worthwhile at the end of the week for themselves.

I am strongly opposed to the policy of the Government of channelling all freight through the port of Dublin. We have spent a good deal of money developing our docks and we are entitled to a certain proportion of freight. A strike in the port of Dublin can hold the entire country up to ransom because of the present policy. If freight were diversified through other ports such a situation could not arise. We would like to see some results from our investment in the port of Galway.

It is vitally essential that rural electrification should be speeded up particularly in the areas catering for farmhouse holidays. Tourists do not want oil lamps or Calor gas. Possibly I should not have mentioned any particular gas. Calor gas is very good, but it is not the answer where lighting is concerned. It is an odd evolution, to say the least of it, to have successive speakers in the Fianna Fáil Party standing up here looking for more electricity. A few years back an electricity scheme was referred to as a white elephant.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I hope the Deputy will not go too far back. He should keep to the Estimate.

Mr. Coogan

I am very glad we have developed so much electricity. We no longer hear references to a white elephant. I am making a plea for a further extension of rural electrification in the Irish speaking areas. Lipservice is paid to these areas by both sides of this House, but nothing concrete is done. People in these areas are in dire need of electricity. I hope the credit squeeze will not be the last straw where they are concerned.

I should like the Minister to tell us what is happening in the turf-powered station at Skreen.

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is still there— going ahead.

Dr. O'Donovan

This was the polling station, was it not? There were four of them.

Mr. B. Lenihan

There are still four of them.

Mr. Coogan

I hope the Minister will satisfy me in regard to the progress of the four. I want to know the number of lorries of turf and the number of kilowatts.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I have not got that information off the top of my head, but they are progressing. The Deputy knows the position perfectly well. He lives down there.

Mr. Coogan

I want the Minister to tell the House. Let us go a bit further afield now. In regard to nuclear power, we have to think big.

Mr. B. Lenihan

We shall have a Bill before the House inside the next few months setting up a body to deal with this.

Mr. Coogan

Can the Minister envisage when we shall have nuclear power?

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is coming. It is inevitable.

Mr. Coogan

The tourist industry plays an important role in the west. We had a promise here some months ago about the erection of power stations on the islands around our coasts. The Aran Islands are one of the major tourist centres off our coast. The people on those islands are crying out for electricity. People from all over the world visit these islands. It is rather strange to see people going out there even in the middle of the winter. There is some wonderful attraction there for people.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I was there myself 18 months ago.

Mr. Coogan

There is no better place, with an endless stretch of unpolluted air. I would encourage other Deputies here to do the same as the Minister. Reference was made to Bord na Móna. It is a strange situation that you have Bord na Móna trying to come into our county. At least so I am told. I do not know how true it is.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Bord na Móna are extending from Shannonbridge into east Galway, south Roscommon and east Galway.

Mr. Coogan

They may be coming in on the Rathmyon Bog. Maybe my information is not quite correct.

Mr. B. Lenihan

No. I know what the Deputy is talking about. That will not arise.

Mr. Coogan

I thought the people from that area had certain objections. Maybe it was private enterprise coming in. That is a horse of a different colour. In regard to bales of briquettes I would suggest to Bord na Móna that it is women who mostly bring these to their homes and they are rather heavy. Could they be made up in smaller quantities? As they are they would not fit into a shopping bag.

I fully support Deputy Tom O'Donnell, the shadow Minister, in his claim for Shannon. Our railway goes through some of the finest scenery in the world but hedges alongside the track obscure the view. A bulldozer should be used to lower these hedges, so that a great deal more of the scenery could be viewed from the trains.

Once again I congratulate Bord Fáilte and I hope they will continue to encourage English tourists. If you give a shopkeeper in our town a £5 note — Deputy John Geoghegan will bear me out in this — you are likely to get English notes in your change. They come from the English tourists who are the greatest money-spinners and we cannot spend enough in attracting them to this country.

Mr. Barrett

The Minister's Department has a lot to do with the day-to-day life of my constituency and its economy, particularly that part of it about which many Deputies seem to be boastful nowadays, namely, Shannon Airport. There are three bodies in Shannon Airport which are directly responsible to the Minister for Transport and Power. One is Aer Rianta which is responsible for the day-to-day management of the airport. This time twelve months many of the employees at the airport, that is, those in the Department of Transport and Power itself, the sales and catering staff and many other employees, were apprehensive when they became aware that the day-to-day running of the airport was to be taken over by Aer Rianta. Those apprehensions were without foundation and all the employees of Aer Rianta are very happy to work for this body who are doing an excellent job down there. As has been pointed out in the Estimate, the preparations for the jumbo jet age are well advanced. It is very heartening to see in the Estimate that, in the sales and catering section alone, for the 14 months ended 31st March, 1969, their profit was £78,000. This is a great achievement for a semi-State body because many of our semi-State bodies do not seem to be able to do this. The sales and catering service is very ably controlled by Mr. Brendan O'Regan who has a very efficient staff engaged in the duty-free shop and the many other activities carried on there. In regard to the Shannon Free Airport Development Company, this body has many responsibilities in the region not only for industry but for the promotion of tourism and, indeed, for the people who live at Shannon Airport.

Deputy O'Donovan was very apprehensive and doubtful about the benefits to the employees in the industrial estate. I cannot agree with him. Neither, I expect, would Deputy O'Donnell or any Deputy from the region agree with this nonsensical talk. Deputy O'Donovan speaks about the low level of wages in the area. This is not so. If Deputy O'Donovan were to do some research he would appreciate that there have been hardly any strikes in the Shannon industrial zone. The only serious strike which took place was with the EI company and this strike had nothing to do with wages; it was a matter of whether the company should recognise the union. Eventually agreement was reached and the union are now happily installed in the factory. I have heard very little cribbing or complaining about the level of wages in the airport. Many people come to me as their public representative to help them to get jobs in the various concerns within this industrial complex.

As most of the factories, if not all, are unionised, if the wage level were as low as Deputy O'Donovan would have us believe, we would hear from the unions. We must assume from the lack of strikes in the zone — and I know — that the wages are appreciated and found to be reasonable. Deputy O'Donovan may not visit the area very frequently.

The Shannon Free Airport Development Company have been responsible in no small way, with other tourist bodies, for the very rapid development of the tourist industry in the area. Medieval tours and castle dinners are very positive proof of this. They have caused a big influx of extra tourists. They take a medieval tour which stretches into Galway, as far as Kinvara. This is a tremendous success, as will be the new line they have gone into — the "Rent an Irish Cottage" scheme. This scheme covers Clare— Ballyvaughan, Carrigaholt, Feakle, Broadford, and in future will spread into Tipperary, Holycross and other places. They intend to build cottages and are quite confident that there will be tourists to take them. Those already available at Ballyvaughan are broked out for the coming season. The Shannon Free Airport Development Company have no trouble in selling the "Rent an Irish Cottage" idea abroad at pretty good rents. The scheme is concentrated in small villages where it will mean more money for the local people. Perhaps we will have as many dollars in these areas as a result of this scheme as Deputy Coogan has English £ notes in Galway. This is part of the success story of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company.

There is one small criticism I would make of this company. There are over 2,500 people living in the new town at Shannon. There has been very good planning. The rents are reasonable. People are not complaining about the rents of the houses or anything like that. I go there quite often to various types of meetings, not exclusively to Fianna Fáil cumann meetings. I meet the community representatives. There is growing frustration because of the fact that the people are not involved in the planning of their own environment. They do not claim that they should be involved in all the activities of the development company in the industrial or tourist fields. They do, however, feel that they should be more involved in the planning of the town and the facilities available, where they should be and how soon they should be made available. My suggestion would be that when the directors sit down to discuss any aspects of the town or the facilities to be made available to the inhabitants, one or two representatives of the community should sit in at those discussions.

Among many desirable facilities mentioned to me was the provision of a drapery shop. The nearest drapery shop is in Newmarket. A very enterprising lady was prepared to open such a shop if premises were made available. The premises have to be made available by the company, as is only reasonable, as they are responsible for overall planning. The lady in question opened a shop in Newmarket. Premises could have been made available to her. The company intend to build an extensive shopping centre but this may not be for a few years. There are small items that could make life better for the people. Encouragement of this kind is needed. The people in this area are drawn from many parts of Ireland and from outside Ireland. It will be quite difficult to secure a close-knit community there. They are most appreciative of the job opportunities provided and the strides made by the company but feel that they are entitled to greater involvement in the planning of their environment. I would ask the Minister to refer to that matter when he is next in touch with the Shannon Free Airport Development Company.

Deputy O'Donnell referred to Kilkee and the matter of a tourist grant. There is a big development programme envisaged for Kilkee. Deputy O'Donnell rightly referred to the fact that Bord Fáilte wrote a letter to the commissioners to the effect that they could not make this grant available at this time. There is considerable despondency in the area because of this. I fully understand Deputy O'Donnell's concern for Kilkee. Kilkee has been greatly dependent on Limerick for holidaymakers down through the years. We were very happy to have the Limerick people there for family holidays, and so on. They were our main source of supply. I hope they will long continue to come to Kilkee. We all appreciate that there are many and varied calls on the funds of Bord Fáilte and that these funds are limited and have to be allocated as equitably as possible to the various regions.

I would ask the Minister to suggest to Bord Fáilte that they make part of the total grant available now in order that the proposed car park can be made and the cliff, which collapsed, repaired. If the money to do this were made available now it would be greatly appreciated in the area because there is very little employment except during the tourist season.

CIE operate educational tours for children in the country. The children are brought up to Dublin by train where the educational tour commences. I suggest it would be of considerable benefit to the children if the tour started at Limerick, Ennis, or Tralee and that a courier be made available on the train to point out the various places of historical importance along the way.

Instead of ploughing more money into hotels I suggest Bord Fáilte concentrate on giving more grants to guesthouses and farm guesthouses in the villages in the West of Ireland. The farm guesthouses in my county have been a tremendous success and I believe the same is true in other counties.

With regard to the ESB I want to refer to a report in the Irish Independent on Thursday, 5th February, 1970, about the remarks made by the coroner at an inquest into a tragedy on Cooney Island, which is one of the islands in the Fergus. The heading is: “Neglect of our islands denounced”. We all know that people living on islands suffer hardships which people on the mainland do not have to suffer, but the coroner is reported as saying, during the course of the inquest:

Many of the islanders might as well be living in the jungles of Africa for all the authorities seem to care —no roads, no electricity and no communication whatsoever with the mainland except through small boats. They are forgotten people, our islanders.

First of all, I want to say that I have been informed by people who were at the inquest that the coroner did not make these remarks at all from the time the inquest opened until the time it closed, but, wherever and whenever these remarks were made, the point I want to make is with reference to the lack of electricity on these islands. When I was elected in March, 1968, I went to see the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Childers, to try to get current extended to these islands, particularly Deer Island and Cooney Island, which are the two nearest the mainland. The Minister gave the matter his personal attention and in due course referred it to the ESB who, with great haste, went and did a survey of the two islands in question. Eventually, they came up with their quotations which, considering the distances it had to be brought from the mainland, were quite reasonable.

In Deer Island there were six families and in Cooney Island there were five families. I was very glad they came up with these quotations and so were the islanders. In fact the five families on Cooney Island, which is the island where this tragedy occurred, accepted the quotations without any difficulty and looked forward to having the current installed. Three of the six families on Deer Island refused to accept and even though the other islanders and I tried to persuade them we failed. The offer was made by the ESB on condition that all would accept. The money was kept over by the ESB for a considerable time before being allocated to another part of the county in order to give them another chance to accept. Having the current would have meant a complete change in their way of life, but as we failed to convert the other three families the ESB had no option but to allocate the money to another area. I give this instance in defence of the ESB, because contrary to what is said in the report they made every effort to bring the current to these islands and I think that should be appreciated by the public.

I should like to congratulate the Minister on the recent distinction which was bestowed on him, namely the presidency of Euro-control. It is a great honour for the country that our Minister for Transport and Power should be president of this very important body.

Mr. Timmins

I should like to say a few words concerning the many developments which have taken place over the last decade in the ESB, a body which plays such a vital part in our economic life. During this debate the expansion which has taken place in the ESB has been mentioned by many Deputies. We are sometimes apt to forget the developments and improvements that have taken place and dwell instead on the problems which exist.

The people in my constituency, who had expected to be provided with current by the end of this year at least, now find it will be another three or four years before it will be made available to them, unless they are able to pay the unrealistically high deposit charges. We all understand the problems of providing electricity in remote rural areas but I do not think all the activities of the ESB should be looked at solely from an economic point of view. The social aspect of keeping people in rural Ireland should be taken into consideration in determining the approach to be adopted in connection with areas still to be provided with current. I know of instances where people are being asked to pay almost £400 to have current supplied to them. Admittedly, the money will be repaid when the complete canvass of the district is being done but that may take three or four years. This means that the people concerned will have made money available to the ESB without receiving interest on it. When they get it back it will have decreased in value very considerably. In the meantime they will have to pay the very high overheads as well as paying for the electricity used. I understand — when the Minister is replying I would appreciate it if he would clarify the matter — that the amount of money being made available to the ESB for 1970-71 is the same as that provided for 1969-70. If this is true it will mean a further reduction in the development programme in view of increased costs and other factors.

Another matter to which I should like to refer while on the subject of the ESB is the difficulty that has arisen regarding the erection of pylons to carry current from the Turlough Hill project in County Wicklow and County Kildare. Every effort should be made to preserve the beauty of this area. It is an area of high scenic value and every reasonable effort should be made to preserve the undoubted beauty which exists there. We all appreciate the Turlough Hill project. It is one upon which the ESB must be congratulated but, at the same time, the personnel of that body should bend over backwards in endeavouring to allay the fears that have been expressed about the manner in which current is to be transmitted.

No one wants the ESB to spend outlandish sums on unproductive work, but it is felt that, with the help of competent landscape designers, and through consultation with the various bodies involved, and Bord Fáilte in particular, it would be possible to preserve the great natural beauty of this district. I hope the Minister will use his good offices in this respect. The people of the area certainly understand the problem with which the ESB are faced and do not want to put any obstacles in the way of the development that has taken place but, at the same time, it would be a tragedy if, through lack of foresight and planning, this area of tranquillity were to be destroyed.

It is hardly necessary to emphasise the important part tourism plays in the economic life of County Wicklow. The income derived from tourism is almost as great as that from industry and slightly greater than that from agriculture. Publicity of the right type is essential in bringing that area to the notice of the people. To my mind, on many occasions in the past when things occurred in County Wicklow which were not to the benefit of the tourist industry, those happenings were highlighted on radio and television and in the newspapers but the very things that might be of benefit to the area did not receive similar publicity.

Generally during the summer days the television camera crews are anxious to put on the screen the happenings in tourist resorts around the country. Resorts in County Dublin are generally picked out. If flooding in Bray and in various parts of Wicklow is publicised, when opportunities for publicity of the right kind become available to the news media, Bray, Greystones, Arklow, Brittas Bay and Wicklow town should not be forgotten.

According to the survey in the report on tourist resources carried out by the Eastern Region Tourism Board there are four areas in the region where overnight accommodation facilities are urgently needed. These are in the environs of Dublin Airport, the Cooley Peninsula, the Boyne Valley and west Wicklow. I have no local knowledge of the various problems in the Cooley Peninsula or the Boyne Valley but I know the difficulties that exist in regard to overnight accommodation in west Wicklow.

West Wicklow is an area which can be most successfully and should be most urgently tackled by Bord Fáilte because in that district we have a development association which is acting very responsibly in the field of social and economic development. The people as a whole are behind the work of the association. Good planning and team work are the major factors in the promotion of tourism and industry, but tourism may not do so well even with the best possible effort and, for that reason, it is only right that the State should involve itself more through Bord Fáilte particularly in the underdeveloped areas, and areas that are trying to emerge as tourist resorts and tourist districts.

While it may be all right to have special facilities and special grants made available to the western part of the country, at the same time, there are certain pockets in the eastern part of the country where Bord Fáilte and the Department of Transport and Power could provide the same type of facilities and grants as they are providing west of the Shannon. The fact that the Government have made a grant of £10,000 over three years for the employment of a development officer in west Wicklow is an indication that they understand and appreciate the peculiar circumstances which exist in that district.

One way of improving the incomes of the people in the area is through tourism. When we realise that close on 60 per cent of the people of that district are living on the land — twice the national average — this will surely bring home to the Minister the urgency of taking special measures in that district to develop the tourist industry. It is virtually impossible to promote the undoubted attractions of the area, or of any area, if 90 per cent of the people who visit that area cannot find overnight accommodation. For tourism to be of any real economic benefit to the people of west Wicklow, Bord Fáilte will have to meet the needs of the people by providing aid in the area of farm guesthouse accommodation.

At the moment in an area of 250 square miles we have only three or four registered premises. As things stand, without increased assistance this will probably be the limit for some time. People who are anxious to go into this line of business cannot do so because they have not the necessary capital to undertake the improvements required by Bord Fáilte. In many instances the houses are very old.

The Minister would be well advised to examine the situation on the basis not only of providing grants but of seeing whether he can, on similar lines to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, provide loans for people who are anxious to go into this particular line of business and who cannot get credit from the commercial banks to do so. The Minister, I am sure, can give all kinds of reasons as to why grant aids cannot be given in this district, but these are of little value to the community. He should allow some money, similar to that which applies to designated areas, to flow into west Wicklow even for a limited period. If he does that I feel that the experiment will bear fruit.

Deputy Coogan referred to the question of high hedges hiding the beauty of the countryside. It is hardly practical to suggest that Bord Fáilte should help with the cutting of hedges in scenic areas but it must be remembered that farmers do not take tourists into account because no great economic benefits accrue from them. It is a bit much to ask these people to undertake work which should be encouraged by Bord Fáilte and by the Department of Transport and Power. Of course, if there was encouragement and extra incentives for people to go into the farm guesthouse business much good might come of it in other fields. Having regard to the success that has attended Bord Fáilte's tidy towns competition, it is not unrealistic to suggest that they might examine the possibility of a tidy countryside competition and apply to it the same diligence that they have applied to the tidy towns competition.

There is one other matter I should like to mention, a matter which is of very real importance to a part of my constituency. It concerns the position that has arisen in connection with the development of Arklow harbour. My colleague, Deputy Kavanagh, mentioned this matter here last week but I feel that I should repeat the sentiments that were expressed by him because of the urgent problem that has arisen in Arklow as the result of the reopening of the Avoca mines. As the Minister is aware, the harbour authority felt that there would be an increase not only in their own business but in the business of Wicklow harbour as well when the Avoca mines were reopened. For some years past efforts have been made to secure from the Department of Transport and Power a very substantial grant to develop this harbour. As a result of the reopening of the Avoca mines this problem has now become a very urgent one because the Avoca mines people are very anxious to have storage facilities provided so that they can export the ore from the Roadstone jetty at Arklow Rock.

I am sure the Minister is aware of the vital part that Arklow harbour plays not only in the development of the town of Arklow but also in the development of the whole hinterland of Arklow as well. I am sure he is also aware of the problems that exist in regard to the silting of that harbour. Plans have been submitted to the Minister's Department and an economic survey has been carried out in an effort to justify the expenditure of £750,000 which the harbour authority is seeking from the Department of Transport and Power. It is time a decision was reached having regard to the urgency of the situation. The Minister's predecessor referred at length to this problem at the Arklow Chamber of Commerce dinner last year. It is a problem of which the Minister himself is also very much aware. It is time the Minister's and the Department's attitude was made known. I appeal to him when he is replying to give some indication of what steps the Department are taking in connection with the request of the Arklow Harbour Authority which has been before the Department for a number of years.

Mr. M. O'Leary

There are many areas of importance covered by this Estimate that we could go into in depth but as this is Conservation Year I should like to address my remarks to some things I have noticed in driving around the country and the effort we are making to preserve the scenic amenities of the country and the way we are attempting to preserve some of the assets this country has in its physical makeup.

Some years ago Seán Ó Faoláin and Paul Henry collaborated on a book with the title An Irish Journey. In this book Seán Ó Faolain writes of his travels around the country and treats of the inhabitants and the buildings in various towns. If we want to attract tourists we must preserve the great assets we have but, leaving aside tourists, as a civilised people we should ensure that our industrial development does not mar the physical characteristics of the country. I do not see that there should necessarily be a conflict between industrial development and a proper conservation of the natural beauty of the country. There has grown up in recent years, with the increased emphasis on tourism, a justifiable emphasis on accommodation. There is involved in this emphasis a danger to existing amenities. We have not a great deal in this country. We cannot compete on climate. We have clear beaches but very often even in the height of summer the sun is not very strong on these beaches. Even if we approach the problem on the financial level and what it means to the country, it is in the long run harmful to see natural scenic attributes of the country marred by unnecessary and tasteless development.

I am aware that the Planning and Development Act, 1966, in broad outline gives local authorities power to take whatever action is necessary to preserve scenic amenities in their areas but there is a serious problem probably not often adverted to. In this House we generally uphold the rights of local authorities to retain power to decide matters for their area. The difficulty under the Act, as it stands, is that we have not many, if any, examples of local authorities in their planning capacity deciding that an area is one of specific amenity and must be preserved as such. Planning authorities are not courageous enough to decide that an area is one of special amenity. If they did so, under the Act, the local authority would be enabled to exercise a great deal of control over development they would consider harmful to the long-term interests of the area. Authorities decide that areas may be of "high amenity" or they choose some other form of words but not many have the courage to decide that an area is one of "special amenity" and we can see the result in many coastal areas of that lack of courage.

Bord Fáilte is usually cast by local authorities in the role of the big, bad Dublin wolf coming along to devour the legitimate rights of local authorities. I think Bord Fáilte must earn the gratitude of every Member of the House for what it has done to prevent or attempt to stall certain local authorities from engaging in what can only be described as vandalism by permitting developments which in the long run would only detract from the efforts we are making to preserve the country in its natural state. Some time ago a British travel writer, Elizabeth Nichols, writing, I think in the Sunday Times, said that this was probably the last European country with an unspoiled coastline. Some Deputies who are in a position to do so and who possibly are just back from Spain in the winter season would know the damage that has been done to the Spanish coastline and much of the European coastline through the unfortunate ribbon development, with villas stretching along the whole coast and permanently impairing its general appearance. To some extent we still have an unspoiled coastline but the position is not as secure as it was ten years ago and various parts of the country have been mentioned to illustrate this. Kerry has been specifically mentioned and we have reports referring to the “rape of Kerry” and other rather sensational descriptions. There certainly must be grounds for grave disquiet about the kind of development going on in the south-west and the west generally.

I appreciate local councillors' difficulties in the matter of ordinary democratic pressures to which we are all subject. The authority is there for local authorities to give ample protection to local amenities but they have been reluctant to avail of that power for understandable reasons such as those I have mentioned but there is too much at stake to allow it to become a matter of hoping that courageous people will speak out at local authority level throughout the country. I think we must take a leaf out of the book of Northern Ireland where the National Trust have been able to tackle the matter on a national basis. The problem in the Twenty-six Counties is that the matter has not been tackled on a national basis and we are depending on the vagaries of local politics to ensure that priceless natural assets of the nation would not be permanently impaired.

The last word rests with local authorities under present legislation and Bord Fáilte is limited to a consultative status. We usually find the intervention of Bord Fáilte, who must think of the national picture, treated in the local press as another case of Dublin busybodies holding up local development. Bord Fáilte have been cast in this unfortunate role where they have attempted to prevent the erection of a petrol station where three or four already exist in the vicinity and we find councillors saying that such a person is entitled to erect a petrol station and that the council is entitled to give permission. We find that section 4 of the Act is being used over and over again to force managers to give permission for such things to be done.

It could be said, perhaps, that the National Trust in Northern Ireland has more money. I know it would not be popular to suggest Bord Fáilte should have more money but they are not equipped for this essential operation of acting as our watchdogs. That is what we need — national watchdogs to ensure that all over the country people who might consider for their own narrow interests that a house should be built on the coastline, that trees should be felled here or that a petrol station should go up there, would not be allowed to make their narrow selfish interests prevail over the national interest.

Again, if one has to base the argument on cash, one of the things that has attracted visitors from abroad is the fact that this is a rather beautiful country. We also like to think we are a good-humoured people and, perhaps, we are. If the present trend continues in several parts of the country we shall not have the attraction of beauty any longer and it is doubtful that we would have a long-term tourist potential on that basis.

I am thinking of the coast from Dublin to Dundalk. Stretches of this coast are being very closely built up and can no longer be considered an open coastal area. The same applies to part of the Wexford coastline where there is much tasteless building that must detract from the long-term attraction of the area. I am sure other Deputies can think of other places where similar developments are occurring. For instance, in the matter of ribbon development we have the road from Galway to Carraroe which is becoming almost like the run from Dublin to Bray. Other western Deputies could probably refer to other areas in the west where a similar pattern is emerging. I am not against development but we must plan development in a coordinated fashion to ensure that it is not a sort of mindless ribbon trailing into the open countryside which in the long run would make this country, as has been the case in many industrial countries, a long sprawling suburb from one industrial area to another.

I am aware of difficulty at local authority level because if a local authority designates an area as an area of special amenity no compensation is paid to the occupiers of the area so designated. Naturally those affected by such an exercise on the part of a local authority have cause for annoyance. I think the main reason why no local authority has so far designated any area an area of special amenity is because of the disastrous repercussions that could have from the point of view of local support.

We must then have another look at this matter and ensure that compensation is paid to those affected in these designated areas. At the moment local authorities are burking the issue and no areas are being designated because no local authority will take the political risks involved in making a decision which would have such extreme repercussions on constituents. I think that is the reason for the delay and for the lack of decision on the part of local authorities in deciding on areas of special amenity. We will have to have another look at our legislation and see whether, in fact, we cannot bend it or amend it in such fashion as to make it more useful—incorporating legislation which could be invoked freely up and down the country.

In the Dingle Peninsula we must ensure that developments do not occur which would be of no assistance in the long run to that area's future. The area adjacent to the west Cork coastline is being gobbled up to a great extent by development. I can appreciate the position of the man with a small amount of land. He would regard it as an intolerable invasion of his rights should the State, or anyone else, tell him that he may not sell his land or that he may not have such and such a development because the area is one of special amenity. Designating areas could cause a drop in the value of land and we must, therefore, ensure that those affected get some compensation for their sacrifice on behalf of the community.

This is "Conservation Year". I do not raise the subject here because President Nixon has suddenly made it extremely fashionable. This country has a habit of taking its fashions from abroad, particularly from the Anglo-Saxon. This habit needs watching. Our assets are God given and it is our job to tend and preserve them. Up and down the country we seem to have an inordinate hatred of trees. Every Deputy must be aware of this. Our ambition seems to be to cut down every tree. Beech, oak, ash, elm, sycamore — all have been cut down quite unnecessarily. There is a beautiful belt of trees on the road as one enters Malahide village. Development is taking place there and the trees are being cut down. The late Deputy Seán Dunne had a theory that our hatred of trees grew out of hatred of the big houses; I do not know about that, but it was not the fault of the trees that the big houses existed. If one can find any justification for aristocracy then it can be said truly that our former aristocrats surrounded their houses with magnificent trees and parks. I do not think we show our free citizenship status by cutting down such beautiful trees and digging up such beautiful parks. Traditionally the country had great forests. Today the reverse is the case. We must be very far down in the list of European countries from the point of view of preserving trees indigenous to the country. We have a great many forests under conifers, but I am talking about deciduous trees. There is not a tree left in the whole stretch of the Mardyke in Cork. Someone should inquire into what happened to the trees along the Mardyke.

With regard to strands, Dollymount strand is in my constituency. Every year it is becoming more and more polluted. There is every variety of plastic container and all kinds of rubbish. Dollymount strand was a unique asset. The whole of Dublin Bay is unique. There is not a city in Europe with such a bay at its doorstep. It is no consolation to know that the local authority does not consider the pollution of Dollymount dangerous. It may be a matter of individual preference, but most people would prefer not to be in such close proximity to untreated excrement and so forth.

Dublin is a city of literary memories, of theatrical fame, of a certain style of architecture. Are the authorities doing their best to ensure that these things survive into the twentieth century? Could one say fairly that the State is not acting responsibly in the guardianship of those things we should cherish? Is it the ambition to turn Dublin into a second-rate Birmingham? Can one make these accusations justifiably in this "Conservation Year"? We have only to look down the road to see what the ESB have done, to see the horror which lies in the wake of the hoarding. I am not involving myself in the intricacies of the controversy raging around the preservation or non-preservation of Georgian Dublin, but that one per cent of the buildings that certain responsible people believe worthy of preservation, should be preserved. We should try to preserve this authentic Dublin that is rapidly changing and we should not embrace too uncritically all kinds of development which have been coming.

People in this House speak of tourism as if it was something that applied only to other parts of the country but tourism is also a great contribution to the prosperity of Dublin. If we continue the way we have been progressing, not caring about the character and the environment of Dublin, then I cannot see how the kind of tourists we have been attracting will find anything of interest to come to Dublin to visit. Was it not Joyce who said — I think it was in the Portrait of the Artist—“Walking into eternity along Sandymount Strand”? I should like to know what he would be walking into at the moment, an eternity of ashcans and garbage of all kinds!

I know that the Government are concerned about the future of Dublin Bay. I do not see any conflict between industrial development and conservation. However, the development going ahead under the auspices of the Port and Docks Board is having an adverse effect on the whole Dollymount area which is silting up. The problem is that nobody can say who has the authority for what is proceeding. The Minister for Industry and Commerce in a frank moment during the election campaign — most of us find the ballot box induces a sensitivity to truth— said he would prevent any develop. ment which would have an adverse effect on Dublin Bay. The Minister for Transport and Power subsequently said in the House here that he backed the Minister, Deputy Colley, up to the hilt. There is grave concern among the residents of Deputy Colley's constituency and my constituency about the developments which are occurring.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I am aware of that. At the moment there is a comprehensive plan being prepared by the Dublin Port and Docks Board. I expect to have it by June and then Dublin Corporation, myself and the other interested bodies will discuss it. There is no final decision.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Is the Minister aware there are developments going on while we are talking here.

Mr. B. Lenihan

They are reclamation developments.

Mr. M. O'Leary

But these reclamation developments are affecting the situation.

Mr. B. Lenihan

As the Deputy has said, there is no conflict between development and conservation. If there is any industrial development there it will be fitted into the overall amenity development of the area.

Mr. M. O'Leary

The Minister has given these assurances before. I am reminding him the situation is getting worse.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I am glad the Deputy has mentioned it because I am concerned about it. I do not want to see anything developed that is wrong from the aesthetic point of view.

Mr. M. O'Leary

This is Dublin Bay. It is the capital of the country. It is a fantastic natural bequest for any city to have such an amenity on our doorstep. I should be grateful if the Minister would give more information about the official attitude on this matter. There is a great deal of confusion in the public mind about it. It would be helpful if we had even an interim report or some way of getting the associations involved to give their views to the Minister or if the Minister would meet them in the meantime. We have had many reports. The Minister, Deputy Colley, Deputy Belton, and Deputy Mrs. Celia Lynch and myself, we are all representatives of that constituency and are united on this matter. We are all extremely worried about the problem. It is not a party issue.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I am aware of that.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Reference has been made in the debate to the kind of hotels we are building. Mention has been made of the attitude of the Minister for Lands, Deputy Flanagan, and his policy for the west. He is becoming, I suppose, the voice of discontent in the Cabinet. The complaint is that there are too many grade A hotels and that not enough attention is being given to guesthouses. However, there is a more fundamental problem here. The tourist industry unfortunately is falling more and more under foreign control. These are only my own impressions and I do not know whether the figures would bear me out. I am not adverse to foreign participation in the economy but there should be no need for foreign capital in the tourist industry. All we seem to get out of this foreign participation is the price of the labour. Are our sights so low that all we are looking for in this country is work? Work is important but the profit from such work should be re-invested in industry and it should remain in Irish hands. What is happening in the hotel industry— there is a great deal of foreign participation in property in general and that is how the interest arose in hotels — is that in any of our seaside towns one can pick out many places which have fallen into foreign hands. Take the town of Kinsale. What was it ten years ago?

Mr. B. Lenihan

A dead town.

Mr. M. O'Leary

What is it now? How much of the increased prosperity in Kinsale comes back to the local inhabitants under present management? We have Ranks at one end of the town; Actons has been taken over by a foreign combine and there are many other instances of this all over the country. We can accept the necessity for foreign partnership in business where we are trying to break into the export market but here at home, simply in the matter of preparing food for foreign guests, ensuring that they look at the country around them, and ensuring that they are well looked after, even in this area we are being steadily taken over in merger bids by foreign, mainly British, interests. This is a very serious development and is one with which the Minister should concern himself.

The matter of guesthouses is important but if our hotel industry is increasingly to fall into foreign control this is a great loss to us as a country.

Mr. B. Lenihan

That is not really happening. A certain amount of it is happening.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I would say an undue amount, which I would not welcome. We can train our people in hotel management. Great work has been done by CERT and the unions involved. We can train chefs, waiters, management personnel at home. We can send them abroad to be trained in foreign skills. I see no reason why there should be increasing foreign control.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Just to correct the Deputy. There is certainly no management incursion.

Mr. M. O'Leary

No management incursion — correct. I would agree with that. There is capital incursion.

Mr. B. Lenihan

To some extent, there is.

Mr. M. O'Leary

This is something that we would need to be worried about. It seems to me generally, in relation to any kind of economic development, hotels or otherwise, there is little examination to find out what is the long-term benefit to the country from such establishments. In relation to coastal facilities there is a study being made by An Foras Forbartha on the Cork/Kerry coast. I do not know what stage has been reached. There are other parts of our coastland which could also profitably be examined. For instance, there is the heartland of Fianna Fáil — the Donegal coast. They should look at what is happening at certain sections of the Donegal coast. That is a beautiful coastland and there is a danger that, unless we amend our legislation to ensure that local authorities fulfil the possibilities of the Act and use the powers they are given under the Act, the authorities will not declare areas to be areas of special amenity when it means no compensation will come to people living in the area. They are, in fact, burking this whole issue of describing areas as areas of special amenity. In regard to local authorities, Bord Fáilte and An Taisce and the National Monuments Advisory Group, there is not sufficiently strong centralisation or central emphasis in all our legislation. We are depending to a great extent on the goodwill and farsightedness of councillors who in only too many instances display no such goodwill towards the protection of the natural assets in their regions, who find themselves far more affectionately disposed to the provision of an extra petrol pump than to the preservation of a stretch of road, far more disposed to accede to the request of a favoured constituent that a house should go up in such a place than to consider the national good.

I suggest that we might take an example from what is being done in the north, where the National Trust appear to be better equipped to do this job. Admittedly, they have been longer in the field. We cannot allow the present situation to continue where piecemeal developments are occurring which in the long term will adversely affect the environment. Even if we do not get the benefit of an industrial revolution, we can have a countryside made untidy and tatty by the thoughtlessness of people involved in housing developments along our coastline or near areas of scenic beauty.

Think, for example, of the monstrous barbarity of building that hotel in Cashel. Within about one mile of Cashel Rock we now have a large, horrible-looking building. I do not know who gave authority for that. I would regard that as national sacrilege. This is near Cashel, one of the most important historic sites.

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is well back from the road.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I would say it is most offensive.

Mr. J. Lenehan

What about Liberty Hall? Did anyone ever see the like of that thing — and built from foreign currency?

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Lenehan should allow Deputy O'Leary to proceed.

Mr. J. Lenehan

Deputy Lenehan is right.

Mr. M. O'Leary

He is always right— that is the trouble about him. I do not know what authority was given for that hotel. I certainly consider it an affront to the eye, so near Cashel.

Mr. B. Lenihan

The planning authority. Looking at it as an individual, I would not think that offensive. It is well back — well over half a mile back from the Rock.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I am only giving my impression and I certainly consider it offensive. From what I can see of our towns, the Irish have never been very good at town planning. Historically, we lived in the open. Some of us have not come in. Our towns — the road running from a small central main street — allow for untidy development, are a temptation to untidy development. We have got to watch this position very carefully, where local councillors with little concern for the larger questions of the preservation of the countryside work their own prejudices. I am making the point that we must have stronger central control. Human nature is fallen we are told and we cannot depend on the absolute benevolence of every one of our local authorities and of their members. We cannot expect total commitment to this idea of preservation of the natural attributes of a locality. The question of votes in a locality exerts its own kind of pressure when it comes to planning permission. The time has come to remove such temptations from local authorities.

I understand the position of a small person, say, a small farmer living in very poor circumstances, who finds that a piece of rocky coast has rocketed in value and he is anxious to sell it to buy something to improve his position. That is his God-given right. If we declare the area in which that property is situated, an area of special amenity, his property will be severely controlled. I accept that this is unfair. We must incorporate in our legislation some compensation for such people.

Bord Fáilte should do a little more in the matter of entertainment of visitors. There are places called singing pubs. I do not know what idea visitors could get from many of our singing pubs. One can hear the same singing in any place from here to Wigan. The visitor would not know what country he was in. I have no definite ideas on this but I do think that Bord Fáilte should attempt to raise the standard of our singing pubs, certain hotels and the kind of entertainment offered to tourists in the summer season. I am not suggesting that we should all get ourselves up in kilts — nothing as extreme as that—but we should attempt to preserve certain standards, a certain style, in the kind of entertainment we offer visitors from abroad, to demonstrate that there is a bit more in this country than "When Irish Eyes are Smiling", or "A Pub with no Beer". This kind of thing cannot make a tourist feel that he is in a foreign country with a culture of its own. CIE have made an effort in their hotels to correct the deficiency, but there is still a deficiency.

Mr. B. Lenihan

A number of hotels are moving on to these lines now, but I agree with the Deputy that more should be done.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I make the point merely to show that there is a great deal to be done which can be done from our own resources. Many of these newly established hotels and inns insist on being called "The Manhattan Bar" or "Broadway". I think these establishments could be a bit more original in their nomenclature. Bord Fáilte could also see to it, when we build new roads into scenic resorts, that we call them by local names. I am thinking of a run through Wicklow to Valleymount. I am sure there is a good old Gaelic name for the district which I think we should use. We should use our imagination in this area. The psychology of the tourist abroad is that he likes to know he is in a country with a distinctive culture. I suggest many tourists could be in understandable doubt about our identity because of the way things are going at present.

A great deal could be done about the kind of souvenirs which are on sale. Anyone who has been abroad will know that similar articles can be produced with a certain artistry. I do not think it improves anyone's idea to find on the bottom of a shilleagh "Made in Hong Kong" or mock Celtic Crosses made somewhere else. These things might not be considered of great importance but I believe we have a great inheritance and to be able to preserve such a heritage in the twentieth century is of tremendous advantage, when one sees what is happening in other countries. We can learn from their mistakes. We are always saying this on other matters, but this is one area where we can learn a great deal. We can see the disastrous results of the thoughtless, mindless developments in other countries.

The sterling limit imposed on the British no longer exists and this makes it all the more important for our tourist industry to be run with style and distinction, to reflect the kind of country we have, so that people will come here and enjoy themselves. I would not like to see the development of casinos as part of our tourist industry. I think we can well do without such development.

I know we have done a lot in relation to pre-monastic monuments, such as the developments in Gallerus Oratory in Kerry, but I think we can do a great deal with our monasteries. There is a magnificent monastery called Desmond Abbey, just outside Limerick near Adare on the road towards Listowel, which is pretty well preserved. Visitors from abroad coming to look at such places usually find a very rusty notice telling them it was set up in such and such a year. Surely it would be possible to give to someone living nearby literature relating to the area.

Visitors could make a contribution to the person distributing the information and this would help spread the benefits of the tourist industry. The whole point of the tourist industry is that we should try as much as possible to spread the benefits over the widest possible area to ensure that as many people as possible participate and receive the benefits deriving from the industry. As we have so many areas of historic interest we are probably a little bit careless about their upkeep and about giving tourists information about them. Visitors to this country are very interested in this aspect even though we may not be too concerned about it ourselves.

I think Bord Fáilte could do a great deal to preserve another part of our living culture, namely, our pub life. Too many of our pubs are falling for chrome top counters and neon lighting. Very few of the traditional Irish pubs are left in our towns. It might seem trivial to suggest that tourists would be interested in places of such low resort but when people are abroad they have a curiosity about such places. They appear now to be taking on almost compulsory similarities. There is certainly no desire to retain historic discomfort — we can have comfort in the traditional pub — but the tatty monstrosities which are springing up all over the country will not attract visitors to take a drink and certainly they cannot ensure that visitors will be interested in calling in to such places. Our public houses should share in the tourist prosperity. Bord Fáilte should give help and advice to people involved in the renovation of these pubs to ensure that these havens are not wrecked by the substitution of plastic monstrosities.

I have made the point Seán Ó Faoláin in his book An Irish Journey speaks of in 1941: a different country from the one we are now living in. I do not want to be alarmist but in different parts of the country there is a great deal of basis for alarm that, if developments continue unchecked, we will seriously damage the natural environment of this country and that we will certainly destroy — or certainly abridge — the attractions that this country had in the past for people from abroad at a time when such attractions are becoming more rare in Europe. If we have not got the sunshine we have the countryside and it should be our job to protect it. If amending legislation is necessary it should be brought in.

I have suggested various areas in which legislation should be amended to allow for the interests of the small man who sees a chance of selling development land, to meet him in that natural desire of his. We should, as a State, attempt to meet such people. At present there is no middle ground for this person. If a local authority describes his piece of land as an area of special amenity he will receive no compensation. We then have the unhappy conclusion that the local authorities in this situation are not designating any areas as areas of special amenity. They are choosing any other name you like but they are not using the legislation they have to work with at present.

In trying to bring visitors from abroad into as wide an area of the country as possible we could also see to it that portions of the midlands are not overlooked. They are often overlooked. People talk about the west coast and the south west coast and the east coast, but there are several inland parts of this country which are of tremendous attraction. I am thinking of the area around Tipperary, towards Waterford and the Knockmealdown Mountains. Much more can be done in arranging for regions like that to be pushed as areas of interest.

These backwaters which are overlooked at present have a great deal to commend them. They are areas that are much in need of a boost from tourists as other parts of the country. In fact, the kind of traditional approach, mentioning only three or four focal points in the whole country, has possibly done a disservice to the many quiet areas which have all the attributes of the other better known areas but where the people never see tourists from one end of the year to the other. Bord Fáilte have a job to see that these people also get their whack of whatever tourist trade is coming.

It is regrettable that the tourist regions which have been decided on, Ivernia and all the other regions, the east coast region here in Dublin, have not been tied in more closely with the planning authority areas. So, we have the local authorities empowered to make plans for their areas which have no relationship with the larger tourist area and its development as an integral region to attract visitors to that area.

This again is something that displays the lack of a national approach to the whole question, and a national approach is necessary. I am all for giving as much power as possible not alone to local authorities but neighbourhoods even. At present there is no co-ordinated approach to this matter of preserving the important areas of the country. Development is occurring ribbonwise and this must result sooner or later in large portions of our coast land being cut off from the sea. It must result in our losing the incalculable advantage which we enjoy at present over neighbouring countries, that it is largely unspoilt.

Miss Elizabeth Nichols, a very famous travel writer, said about five or six years ago that this was probably the last coast line in Europe which had an uninterrupted sea view. This is in danger of being lost if the present unco-ordinated approach continues. Without proper planning from the central authority we cannot expect this country to be preserved as it should be. I regret the fact that in two instances when Bord Fáilte attempted to be the watchdog of the community, and attempted to advise the local authorities about the assets which should be preserved, the local authorities turned down that advice. I regret the fact that local prejudice and local pocket interests have finally dictated what should happen in particular areas. This presents a serious challenge to any of us who are interested in the subject.

I have spoken about this before. Bord Fáilte are the only body in the country with this national concern for the appearance and outlook of the country. Their advice has too often been ignored by the local authorities. There are shameful instances of their advice being ignored and there are shameful instances of their intervention in a local matter being made a matter of local party politics and this too convenient sneer: "These are the know-alls from Dublin down to tell us our business."

I would not confuse this local parochialism with true patriotism but very often we have local parochialism, thinly disguised, parading itself as being truly in the national interest. If necessary we must speak very sharply to the local authorities who have consistently spurned advice given by people who had no axe to grind. We must ask ourselves have the individuals on the local authorities, who may change from year to year, the long term interests of their area at heart when they say that this house should be built or that petrol pump should be erected? Can they really stand over these actions and say that this is in the long term interest of a particular region? This is the unhappy situation at present.

If we are serious in this so-called National Conservation Year this is one problem that must be tackled without delay. We certainly have local vested interests dictating to councillors and councillors obeying this dictation and spurning the advice of people sent from Dublin by Bord Fáilte who tell them: "I do not think that this would be in the best interest of the area." Suddenly it is in the local paper and there is an automatic majority for the local man's opinion. I do not know exactly how we can provide more power but it is necessary that power rather than consultative status be given to Bord Fáilte. If we are serious about this matter we can no longer tolerate a situation where the authorities are not willing to utilise the powers under the Act and not willing to use them very often, and then allow developments which cannot be in the long term interests of the locality.

Mr. Tunney

I do not propose to speak at the same length or indeed to be as comprehensive as the previous speaker but I should say perhaps that, for once, I found myself in almost absolute agreement with Deputy O'Leary when he was developing the point about Bord Fáilte and how we should, in the times in which we live, resist all efforts at making ourselves identical with other people and strive to retain at least our own identity. More important than anything else in this field is our language. Perhaps those who are critical of it may be consoled when they see it being used for the benefit of the economy.

I say that in passing. My real reason for rising was to mention — I hope I will not be accused of being parochial — the matter of the ESB and the people living in the Dublin North-West constituency, the one which I represent. We have heard Deputies from rural Ireland speaking about the desirability and the need for supplying ESB power to rural areas. I readily agree that ESB power is a commodity and a service which we should make available to all our citizens. In so far as the citizens of Dublin are accus tomed to the service perhaps they feel its absence more than those who have never been accustomed to it. That may seem paradoxical but it is true. Not withstanding the fact that the ESB occasionally launch demonstrations with a view to selling certain electrical appliances, they are not in a position to cater for those appliances — cookers and television sets — which are already in the houses in certain areas. It is rather frustrating for people in areas like Finglas, where this has been happening for about two and a half years I am not saying it is general but people from certain areas have been coming to their representatives in connection with this for some time Promises have been made but in a situation like this whatever transformer stations are required, money — and it should not be a considerable amount of money — should be made available so that those people who have appliances and are depending on ESB power will not be left without power. I appeal to the Minister to approach the ESB and explain to them the frustration that exists especially in the Finglas area.

Speaking of Finglas reminds me of another problem which exists there. It is the problem of noise because of its proximity to the airport. I know that there cannot be an airport without noise. I know that in an age when air companies are competing with each other as to which of them will succeed in moving a passenger from one place to another there will be development of engines. Unfortunately this development does not include the lessening of noise. I am prepared to accept a certain amount of noise. I asked the city manager whether any inquiries or any survey had been carried out which would help me to make up my mind as to whether or not any injury was being caused to the people who live near the airport. I would be very happy to accept the noise and to accept its disturbance if I thought no injury was being done to the people but I have read articles on this problem as it exists in other countries.

I appreciate that occasionally professional people make a case which is not the voice of the whole medical profession but doctors in France and in Scandinavia have stated, and have not been contradicated so far as I know, that the incidence of noise in areas around airports is a health hazard to the people living there. If I can get an assurance from the Minister that is not the position as far as Dublin Airport is concerned I shall be quite happy and I shall be prepared to ask the people there to accept the disturbances, having their sleep disturbed and having to suspend conversation until a plane has passed. If I had that assurance I would ask them in the interests of the nation to accept this, but I will not be happy until I get an assurance that there is no injury to the health of the people living there. I hope that when the Minister is replying he will give me the up-to-date position as far as noise is concerned.

I have travelled on a few occasions from Dublin to London. On the last occasion I travelled from Blanchardstown to a hotel in the centre of London. It took me three-quarters of an hour to travel from Blanchardstown to the airport. I was obliged to wait for a half an hour at the airport. After one and a quarter hours I was still at the airport. I sat into the plane and, as they had guaranteed, Aer Lingus took me from Collinstown to London Airport in one hour. I was at London Airport at 4 o'clock. When I reached my hotel in London it was 5.15 or somewhat later. I thought that perhaps it would be better if air companies would consult more with land transport companies and instead of selling a trip from Dublin Airport to London Airport they sold a trip from a Dublin hotel to a London hotel. I cannot see the wisdom of concentrating on air speed when there is not a simultaneous concentration on speeding land traffic. I do not claim to be an expert on these matters but I try to observe for myself and make what I hope are intelligent observations. I thought it rather strange that my journey should have taken so long. It would be better for the authorities here and in London to spend more on roads. It would be money well spent.

I hope that the Minister will give me an assurance, when replying, that electric power will be available to people living in the Finglas-Ballymun area and that noise already existing in the area is not injurious to the health of the people who live there.

Mr. O'Hara

I should like to join my colleague, Deputy O'Donnell, in expressing appreciation of the great work which Mr. Michael Dargan, general manager of Aer Lingus, has done for Irish airlines. While we have men of his calibre in such responsible positions we can be very confident that with the co-operation of his excellent staff, that company will make progress It has made remarkable progress already and I am very confident it will continue to do so. Again, I should like to join with Deputy O'Donnell of Limerick in appealing to the Minister to ensure that no forces, internal or external, will cause any change in what we understood through the years to be the agreed programme for expansion at Shannon. Expansion there and along the west coast means that we can look to the future with confidence, not alone as regards the Shannon region and all the Limerick region but for the western region as a whole. If that airport were to go, or if services there were to be curtailed, I think it would very seriously affect the whole western region and I could not imagine any Minister for Transport and Power such as the Minister agreeing to yield to any international airline or any vested interest even one inch there. Therefore, I sincerely hope that, as he has promised to deal with this matter in his reply, the reply will be encouraging and that we can all anticipate him saying that as far as Shannon is concerned it will be a case of further expansion and no yielding to pressures of any kind to curtail development.

The western problem is a serious one and several politicians have proposed remedies but at the present time nothing is more important than an efficient transport system. We should also appreciate, that my own county. Mayo, and going right down the west coast, Connemara, Galway, to the Clare coast, to Kerry and west Cork, have great potential for development in the tourist field provided we have good transport facilities. This is the age of air transportation and Shannon is vital to all that type of development. It should be remembered that many of our people in Boston, New York or Chicago or other cities are people who left this country ten, 15 or 20 years ago to seek a livelihood abroad and it would be too bad if those people, who mainly emigrated from western regions, were compelled when they planned to return home to come to Dublin city with consequential financial loss to the tourist industry in areas where it is vital to the economy.

I know Dublin for many years. This evening I was down town and there was hardly standing room at this time of year on the footpaths. You could scarcely cross the street. There are many problems of congestion in Dublin and to suggest that this should be intensified by increasing activity at Dublin Airport is simply ridiculous. I have nothing against Dublin. I heard with interest Deputy O'Leary making many important points quite clearly and quite truthfully, I think. He was generous in his remarks about other parts of the country and showed no signs of parochialism but, at the same time, I think the development should be at Shannon and this should be linked up with the development we have in Castlebar which can become very important to the west of Ireland.

We already have a little airport there of which we are very proud. We admire the people who invested money in it and are responsible for it and I wish the project every success. There, also, you could have shuttle services which could mean a great deal to Mayo, Sligo and Donegal by giving people quick transport from Shannon to their home counties. I sincerely hope when consideration is being given to further development at Shannon it will be borne in mind that there is an airport at Castlebar capable of further development. I would welcome further development in that area which would have a big impact there.

I am well aware that in many ways CIE have modernised at great expense and have improved services. They have improved the coaches and the speed, mainly through dieselisation. Generally they are efficient. It should be borne in mind, however, that we have a special problem in east and north Mayo from the point of view of transport. There is a leading article in the Western People this week dealing with that problem, pinpointing a situation which is not conducive to encouraging tourists in the area. Apart altogether from tourists, our people are entitled to better facilities, particularly those living in Ballina, Foxford, Swinford and Crossmolina. One travels at speed by rail from Dublin to Claremorris. The journey takes roughly 3¼ hours. One then has to wait 20 minutes or so for a bus connection to Kiltimagh, Balla, Swinford, Foxford and Ballina. The journey is a roundabout one taking anything from an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters. The bus has to draw into the side to allow heavy vehicles to pass. There is only one train out from Ballina in the morning and another back at night. This is more of an inconvenience than an advantage, particularly in the case of families. Picture a mother with three or four children trying to cope under such conditions. I appeal to the Minister to examine the position. At the moment the people in that area are being treated as third-class citizens. That is not fair.

I know I cannot deal at length with roads, but I must say that our roads in Mayo are not up to standard. If we had a rail service it would be a tremendous advantage to those resident in the area. Later in the year tourists could avail of it. Many of our tourists are Irish families returning from England for holidays. They are great spenders. They think nothing of spending £200 or £300 and the economy of the west is vitally tied in with these people. I bring these facts about transport to the notice of the Minister.

There is talk about industrialisation in the west. How can we encourage industrialists into the area when they must pay the high cost of transport of the raw material into the area and the high cost of transport of the manufactured article out of the area. That is an overhead that no industrialist could face with equanimity. If we had subsidised transport there might be some hope of encouraging industrialisation. Indeed, such a subsidy would pay a dividend in the long run. For many years now there has been a great deal of talk about the decay of the west. Lack of transport there militates more than anything else against any industrialisation.

Again, farmers in that area have to pay the high cost of transport on fertilisers and that puts the small farmer at a very serious disadvantage. There is the high cost of transport, too, of cattle out of the area. All the time it is the small man who is suffering. CIE have broadened their approach and they made a nice gesture in giving free transport to Old IRA pensioners and others. But many people cannot avail of that. Could we have the same liberal approach to——

Mr. Timmons

It was the Minister for Finance who did that.

Mr. O'Hara

It does not matter who did it; it will come out of someone's pocket eventually. I will gladly give credit to any Minister who will do something concrete for the west. Recently the Minister for Lands and I attended a local authority meeting and there was very little disagreement between us as to what would benefit the west. Cheap transport would be one of the greatest benefits and blessings that could be conferred on the west.

Along the west coast there are many fine harbours and if they were developed it would be a great boon to the west. At the moment development work is going on at Killala Harbour in my constituency. While we appreciate any little benefits of that kind, the sum of money being made available is niggardly. I am not a seafaring man but I have it from people who have experience of such work that this is a port which lends itself to large-scale development and it would be justified. I believe many people, particularly people from Scotland, would avail of a passenger service in and out of that port. Further development could also be carried out in Donegal, Galway and other western regions. The tourist trade is expanding and a greater slice of the revenue which is coming from tourism should be devoted to the regions that need it most and I am, therefore, making the plea for Killala as an area that needs an injection of capital.

It is likely that at some time in the future consideration will be given to the establishment of an automatic reactor station. There are many suitable locations in the west of Ireland for that development. If it could be established in my own county I would appreciate it. Therefore, I should ask the Minister to consider the claim of Mayo when it comes to deciding on a site.

Many of the points raised in this debate have been dealt with very ably by my colleague, Deputy O'Donnell I should like to compliment him for the logical and compelling arguments he made in support of development of the west of Ireland. Deputy Barry Desmond of the Labour Party was very generous in his remarks and I certainly appreciate this support for the western regions from a Deputy who does not represent the area.

I do not think there has been much criticism of the Minister and his Department on this occasion, but there have been many suggestions as to how the tourist and other services under the control of the Minister could be improved. Many of the people who complained about the Minister or his Department being too slow or inactive are the people who are not prepared to help themselves. If people want tourists to come to their region they should form their own development organisation. If they fail to do that there is no justification for blaming Bord Fáilte. I have heard publicans and hoteliers grumbling about the Government not helping them with this, that and the other. Meetings are called in a local hall to discuss the matter and the people who are loudest in their criticism and who have most to gain from an influx of tourists will be found behind their bars or in their hotels when other people are attempting to do something for the neighbourhood.

I am happy to say that in my own home town of Foxford a great effort was made by the local curate in co-operation with the townspeople to make the town tidier and in one short season you would be amazed at the amount of good work that was done to make the town attractive. I hope such efforts will be pursued in other areas as well. This country has many wonderful advantages over other countries and we should co-operate in improving the regions, whether they be town or country, in which we live.

Mr. Timmons

I should like to avail of this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on his appointment to the Department and to say how pleased I am that he is devoting his energy, talent and ability to a very sensitive service to the community, transport and tourism. I have listened to many constructive speeches, and I think the policy of Fianna Fáil has been vindicated by the last speaker when he said there was no major criticism of the Government's policy in relation to tourism and transport and power. It is through the efforts and the dedication of our organisation to the different Governments down the years that we have produced economic conditions which enable us to open our shores to countless thousands of people from other countries to share in our highly developed society.

I have a few points to make in regard to the various organisations that come under the Minister's control. I shall take first the ESB. It is a well-known fact that urban consumers of electricity are subsidising rural consumers. We do not begrudge that. We do, however, consider that a compassionate view should be taken in regard to urban dwellers who have not been furnished with accounts during the period of the dispute between a certain section of employees and the board. I am not in a position to assess the relationships between the management and those involved in the dispute. It is regrettable that an organisation that has done so much for the country through its professional services and administrative ability should have allowed the dispute to drag on for so long. I understand that some settlement has been made or is in process of being made. It strikes one as rather strange that with all the avenues available for settlement the dispute should have been allowed to continue. I am not concerned with the details but it is regrettable from the public point of view. I hope that when the matters at issue have been settled the consumers will not suffer. The dispute has continued for six or eight months and the accounts for that period will be a major consideration for the consumers. I make an appeal to the board on their behalf. There was an announcement made yesterday that arrangements will be made. I hope that they will be acceptable.

The next point I wish to make is in regard to CIE administration. CIE have the very responsible and difficult function of providing a bus service. I am concerned mainly with the city of Dublin. I greatly regret that CIE have not measured up to the transport requirements of Dublin city. I stand at bus stops at certain times of the day and have seen ten and 12 buses parked in the centre of O'Connell Street while 20 and 30 persons are waiting for buses. I do not know what is wrong. There could be better understanding between management and employees so as to produce a better service for the public.

I am not a car driver. I travel by bus, mainly, to my places of business and to the Dáil. I have had the frustrating experience, shared with countless others, of the inadequacy of the bus services. I am not blaming the operatives. I put the blame fairly and squarely on the management of CIE, who are not bus users, as far as my information goes. I am reinforced in that by statements made by CIE employees. I have seen buses in processional order at various times of the day. I have seen people stranded on a Sunday afternoon in my own constituency. What I want is an intelligently-planned bus service, particularly for the suburban areas. It is impossible to get to the seaside from north-east Dublin unless one has a car. If CIE has not got sufficient permanent conductors or drivers, it could have a panel of spare-time drivers and conductors. Other countries employ that system.

The system of cross-city services is causing congestion and traffic difficulties which could be avoided by intelligently-planned services.

I know that the Minister will convey these suggestions to those responsible. I am conscious of the deficiencies in bus services because I have lived with them for so long. There are over 600,000 people in the city of Dublin. The bus services should be extended so as to provide a half-hourly or hourly service throughout the night to meet the needs of workers. That is done in industrial centres in other countries. I cannot see why it cannot be introduced here.

I congratulate Bord Fáilte on the immense efforts they have put into publicising tourism and on the facilities they have provided. The extensive advertising which they have done in Britain and in the United States is producing great results. The standards they set in order that people can avail of the grants fall short of what many people would like. The modest hotel and the boarding house should equally share in any benefits and grants which are available.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the Clontarf promenade. It is not in my constituency but I live there. I share the objections of countless numbers of people who face the prospect — unless there is some determined official action to avoid it — of having that magnificent promenade from Howth Road to Dollymount filled in. We do not wish to stop industrial progress and deprive people of employment opportunities but, at the same time, it is a big step to take one's environment away. I know the Minister in his approach to this problem will have regard to the preservation of the environment and amenities in any decision which will be taken to provide further facilities for the industrialisation of our city.

Mr. McLaughlin

I should, first of all, thank the Minister for rectifying two complaints I made here on a previous occasion. I complained that a person could get a return ticket from Dublin to Sligo for £1 and yet anyone who went on the same train on Sunday evening had to pay £2 11s. I brought this matter to the Minister's attention and he has rectified it. I also complained about faulty heating systems in some of these trains. The Minister has had that checked and there are no complaints whatsoever now of people feeling cold on the 140 to 150 mile journey.

A number of Deputies talked about the great advantages of tourism, and I agree there are many advantages. This country has earned about £100 million per year over the last few years from tourism. I should like to point out that no Minister can claim full credit for the amount of money earned because a large percentage of the people coming into the country are, in fact, returning to their homes. Even if there was no such word as "tourism" and no such an organisation as "Bord Fáilte" these people would come back home.

We were told that about £150 million was floating around in this country during the Christmas season. That is a lot of money considering we only have 2,800,000 people in this country altogether. In spite of all that money public representatives on local councils have to meet during February and March and face up to a steep increase in rates. In Sligo-Leitrim we have to make a substantial increase in the rates in order to provide the finances which will add considerably to the roads that are already done. I think the Minister for Transport and Power should come in and relieve the situation at this stage.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy realises that roads are a matter for local government.

Mr. McLaughlin

I am not disputing that but, at the same time, I think the Minister for Transport and Power should give some of the money earned from tourism to relieve the burden of rates. Nothing will change my mind on that score.

A lot more should be done in the west. There are large areas of bog which should be tackled by the Minister's Department. We know employment figures are improving. When jobs run out the people concerned will be looking for alternative employment. The problem could be tackled by moving down to these large tracts of bog. We cannot get industry into these small villages or in places which are far removed from growth centres. The only solution is the one I have suggested. The stretches of bog could be worked with smaller types of machinery which could be operated effectively and economically. The sooner the Minister tackles the problem the better. I know there are many bogs in Sligo-Leitrim which would be well served if a scheme like this was introduced and not alone would it produce turf but it would also help to drain other large tracts of farmland. I would appeal to the Minister to examine this without delay because, no matter what they may say about an improvement in employment in those areas, the boys and girls still have to go.

We have one good growth centre in Sligo in my constituency. There is no other growth centre which will give substantial employment. I am most anxious that some type of industry should be started there. The Minister should lead the way. I must pay tribute to the people who have done so much for tourism and attended so many meetings and given the area so much publicity. I am not yet convinced that Sligo and the surrounding areas have got enough. There are many places in Sligo and Leitrim that are practically unknown and, to my mind, if they were properly publicised they would draw great numbers of people because of their scenic value. Much more publicity is needed to put those places on the map.

I often thought that we are inclined to over-emphasise tourism. It certainly is a great money-earner but we go all out for a few months of the year to cater for visitors and we forget the great loss we suffer if we allow our own people to go away from the countryside. The Minister should try to provide employment in those areas. On a few occasions when local contractors were prepared to develop an area or when private individuals were prepared to establish a home, erect a petrol pump and provide other facilities that would help them to earn a living, they discovered that even on their own land they might be told——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair must point out that the Minister has no responsibility for anything which comes under the Planning Acts. He has no responsibility for industry as such.

Mr. McLaughlin

Is the Minister not responsible if the local authority say something can be developed for the tourists?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

These regulations come under the auspices of the Minister for Local Government.

Mr. McLaughlin

I heard other Deputies talking about this but I will not argue with the Chair. The question of an airport for Sligo has been mentioned. The Department should have another inspection carried out there Sligo being a growth centre is teaming with people from May to October or November. If we had an airport in Sligo it would relieve congestion and it would also help business substantially. It would bring a great flow of people into and out of Sligo. That area could serve the whole west. It holds a key position there to the north and to the west and it is also on the main line to Dublin. It has a seaport and it has a railway station. It has a good tourist attraction in the river Garravogue. An airport at Sligo would be a great asset and would help in developing that centre. Whether we like it or not it will be hard for any Government to establish enough industry in those outposts to keep the people on the land. It is all right within a 12, 14 or 16 mile radius of a growth centre, but we only have one centre. Our only hope is to make the best possible use of that big growth centre to hold our population.

The Minister and the Department are providing a great air service all over the world. A person can now have breakfast here in the morning and have dinner with his friends in New York in the evening. In days gone by a week of precious time was spent by people travelling by sea. The rate of accidents is low.

Mr. J. Lenehan

I will be pretty fast. We are all pretty fast in my part of the country, including the women of course. I heard Deputy O'Leary this evening making one of the silliest statements I ever heard. He fired it at the Government that foreign capital was being taken in here to develop industrialisation especially in the hotel trade. I should like to say to Deputy O'Leary that down on the quays is built the nearest thing to the Tower of Babel which was ever established in this world since the Tower of Babel was destroyed and it was built mainly with foreign capital. He knows that as well as I do, but he had not the gumption to say it. There is no question about that. It was built mainly with foreign capital and foreign investment. I cannot understand how any Deputy can have the cheek to say that. There is not one of them left. They are all gone. They come into this House and have the audacity to bring up that kind of thing. The Government are entitled like any other Government in this world to get their capital from any source from which they can get it. To come in here and fire the type of muck which this muck-spreader across the seats there started off with this evening was nothing but nonsense. I am sure nobody would agree with me more whole-heartedly than the people now on the far side of the House. We have these doctrinaire geniuses down there — they are all gone. There is nobody left. They are the invisible men. They are the people who are interested in the welfare of the maids and the various people who operate in hotels. They are as interested in them as I am in what is going on at the back of the moon and they are certainly showing that here tonight. At least it must be said for both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that some of us have stayed here anyway and put up our case.

I would not agree with everything that happens. I want to make an attack on CIE. It is all right until you go to the Shannon but the minute you cross it — of course I am sure the Minister is well able to look after his own side of the Shannon——

Mr. B. Lenihan

The west side.

Mr. J. Lenehan

As soon as you cross to the other side it is a different train. If one gets something to eat or drink it is a miracle, especially if it is going to Ballina in Mayo. The Castlebar and Westport fellows are not too badly off but if it is going to Ballina one is bandjaxed. Ballina is not in my constituency now. I am in west Mayo. It is grossly unfair that to the third biggest town in Connaught there is one train a day. I am asking the Minister to get at least two trains per day going to Ballina.

Bad as train services are, the bus services are even worse. They are completely unco-ordinated with the train services. It would be only a simple matter of changing the train time one half hour and the bus time one half hour and there would be a proper service. Strewn along the roads of the west of Ireland there are school buses which could be used to provide links with the different services which exist. It is ludricous that they should be standing idle when they could be used for this purpose. I know the yarn that will be put up about this.

It is extraordinary that it is only in Gaeltacht areas that the ESB have fallen down and not given the people the service they require. It is not beyond their power to give them that service. When we build an out-office in the Gaeltacht we get a 50 per cent increase in grant. Why can we not get a 50, 30 or even 20 per cent increase in the grant to give us electric power at a reasonable price?

I know that my friend from County Mayo, the Minister for Lands, has been attacked for what he said about our hotels, about those grade A yokes. These are strewn across the countryside. I do not know who grades them. I suppose it is a lassie out of a house where she did not get enough to eat until she was fed by Bord Fáilte and then became a big shot. These are some of the people who grade our hotels. It is unfortunate but it is true. I have seen many of these hotels in recent times and apart from myself there was nobody else in them.

Mr. Coogan

No wonder.

Mr. J. Lenehan

I agree, but they did not know I was coming. Nobody wants to leave New York and come here to a miniature New York. Nobody wants to leave London and come back to a miniature London here. When one is going on holiday one likes to go to a place that is different from where one is leaving. What are we doing? We are making everything just the same. At the rate we are going in five or six years time I will reach Belmullet without knowing I have left Dublin except for the distance between the two places. We are crazy. We should try to make everything as different as possible.

I remember going into Bord Fáilte one morning with a gentleman who was looking for a grant. We met a lady there with a mini skirt on her—that is a good few years ago—and that was the only qualification she had. She could not give me any information but after a long time she succeeded in sending me to some fellow. I started to talk to him about Attymass, Ballina and Achill. After a few minutes it occurred to me that as big a fool as I was he was a bigger one. I asked him: "Were you ever in Achill?" He said: "No, I was not". I asked: "Are you the officer in charge of that area?" He replied: "I am". "Were you ever in Mayo?" I asked. He said: "No, I was not". I said: "It is bad enough for a fool to talk to an idiot but for two fools to be talking together is worse". Here was a man in charge of tourism in Mayo and he never happened to be in County Mayo. He was a nice genius.

I am not blaming the Government or blaming anybody for it but I want to say that there are too many fiddlers and flute players in Bord Fáilte who got in by the back door obviously and do not know what they are doing. I do not know what the set-up is. As far as I am concerned their attitude appears to be to make sure that there will be no tourism, that they will do everything possible to prevent it rather than develop it. I know they produce figures every year but nobody except a fool would believe these figures. I want to ask the Minister how can he know the difference between a Scottish pound note brought over here by somebody who went over to pick potatoes and a Scottish pound note brought over by people allegedly coming here on holiday. Do we not all know it is a joke? I do not give a damn whether I am on the Government or on the Opposition side I believe in speaking the truth. It is time somebody said this. If we are giving money to hotels let us give it to the ordinary Irish man or woman who wants to develop a business, who will produce the type of accommodation to which an ordinary person in his commonsense would come. Is it not time we had a bit of commonsense? Is it not time we gave the money to the ordinary guesthouse owner, to the fellow who is setting up chalets or a small guesthouse?

We have a man in Keel in Achill who wants to add on to his house. He wants to develop tourism. When he got planning permission it was written into it that he could not build anything which would exceed by six feet the exterior dimensions. I presume he wants to erect an addition to enable him to develop tourism by giving lunches. He wants to build a restaurant but the position is that nobody could get in except a pygmy if he were to accept this restriction. Is this to be allowed? Because a man wants to build a house between the road and the sea and because an engineer wants to see a lot of mermaids or something, are we to tolerate that type of thing? I think the Minister, or any other Minister involved, must put his foot down. I am sure he has read the papers and seen what I have said. I think this is a damn disgrace. I have no objection to building super-palatial hotels but as far as the west of Ireland is concerned, when Achill started tourism there were no such hotels. They brought the people in and did not overcharge them. They are being overcharged in certain places now, especially in Salthill where, I believe, a pint of lager costs five shillings or more. Achill brought tourists into ordinary houses that were well kept and clean. The people provided decent beds. Tourists found there something they had not met before. I suggest that instead of putting up super-palatial hotels, in which we are involved, we should continue trying to develop the ordinary local facilities of the areas in which we live. If we depart from that idea I think we would lose our individuality and our tourism also.

Mr. Taylor

On this Vote for £13,700,000 it is natural that individual Deputies should attempt to direct and influence moneys as far as possible towards certain counties. Some counties have adequate services from CIE: others, such as Clare, have restricted services. In part of County Clare we are without rail services but a serious attempt has been made by CIE to coordinate services and give the people the service they require at suitable times. Generally speaking, CIE management and executives and their staffs are bringing about a situation which is satisfactory to everyone.

Recently, the Minister and the Government faced a situation which they had previously encountered. I refer to the attempt by American airlines to secure landing rights at Dublin Airport. Naturally, in Clare, with our fine airport at Shannon we, as a people, and also those employed at Shannon, expressed concern when that claim was made. We were delighted when the Minister and the Government firmly resisted the demand. It is the policy of our party, as expressed by our shadow Minister, Deputy O'Donnell, that the Government in power at any time in the future will have our support if any similar claim should be made again. To concede it would have disastrous results, we believe, on the economy of the Shannon area and surrounding counties whose people depend on the expansion there. This shows signs of further development. Any attempt to restrict or reduce services would have disastrous effects. We are grateful that the Minister has resisted the move by the American companies.

I do not intend to cover ground already covered in regard to tourism and Bord Fáilte but I want to refer to cases where grants which should have been expended in particular areas have been restricted and will not be expended this year. In major tourist resorts like Kilkee, despite the fact that something like £3 million is provided for grants in aid and over £400,000 for resort development plans, apparently provision could not be made for a scheme to prevent erosion even though this scheme was approved by Bord Fáilte. We find it difficult to understand this. We hope it is only a temporary restriction. I would ask the Minister to allocate an adequate sum if an amended scheme is prepared and submitted by Bord Fáilte. That is the wish of councillors and Deputies in Clare. An adequate sum should be provided to prevent erosion in that very popular bay and I ask the Minister to note that request particularly I am merely conveying to him the views of the people of Kilkee and of the visitors.

It is generally agreed that the activities of SFADCO have been successful in every sphere in promoting tourism in the area. Every encouragement should be given to that company and its management. They show remarkable administrative ability and their staffs are fully acquainted with their duties and carry them out very courteously. The employment officer whose duty it is in that particular region to attend to requests for employment by people from Clare and other counties, has done a very good job. It is not necessary, I think, to introduce any element of political influence into that sphere in order to secure employment for any of our citizens. The employment officer and his staff will not, I believe, be influenced by political considerations, but will ensure employment as it becomes available in those areas in which vacancies exist. I should like to think that situation will continue. I have the fullest confidence in the management of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company.

The Minister has responsibility for land, sea and air transport. We spend a sizeable sum financing international organisations, such as ocean weather stations. We make contributions in other directions. In all, we spend £178,000. We are providing £2 million by way of grant in aid towards expenditure on shipping. I should like to ask the Minister now to consider, as a matter of urgency, the provision of proper rescue launches to our islands in the Shannon estuary and along the west coast generally. Over the years we seem to have forgotten the people who live on these islands. They are good farmers and they have stood their ground despite the isolation in which they live. They have no telephone service. In most cases they have no ESB current. The Minister has a responsibility. Recently the position was highlighted by a tragedy on an island. I believe that tragedy could not have been averted. Tragedies happen every day on our roads and in our cities and towns. However, the necessity for providing a proper means of communication has been highlighted by this tragedy. Medical aid, spiritual aid and any other requisite aids should be available to our islanders and I would ask the Minister to concentrate on providing whatever is necessary on these lines.

Where Bord Fáilte is concerned, the cottage scheme has been very successful. It is attracting wealthy Americans and this should have a favourable reaction on our balance of payments. Local investment is, of course, important and we should go ahead with this kind of scheme in areas like Lisdoonvarna and underdeveloped areas generally.

Farm holidays are very popular, particularly in the underdeveloped areas in the west. A more generous allocation will, however, be necessary here. There is need for review. Hotels can avail of very expensive modernisation schemes. Guesthouses cater for families and guesthouses do not have the capital resources to enable them to embark on heavy expenditure. Some scheme should be introduced to enable small improvements to be carried out and extra bed space provided. Such a scheme would be a tremendous advantage.

Reference was made to the ESB. They are doing a very fine job but there are people who, because their resources are limited, have not been connected. Those in receipt of social welfare assistance would like to have electricity but they cannot afford the service charge. It is quite beyond their means. These people should be given special consideration. They should not be left out of the scheme merely because they have not the money to meet the special service charge. The Minister might consider that matter.

Some difficulty is being experienced in getting adequate supplies of fuel to maintain turf-fired generating stations Most of these were dependent on hand won turf. There are areas of virgin bog which could be tapped to maintain these stations but these bogs would have to be operated mechanically. The Milltown turf burning station is threatened. The Minister has a responsibility to maintain these stations and he should ensure that an adequate supply of fuel is made available. I suggest turf-cutting machines should be introduced and substantial grants given towards the cost of these machines.

I am glad the Minister arranged to have a survey made of harbours on the west coast. When the report is available I should like the Minister to allocate the necessary capital to ensure that the work necessary is done because along the Shannon estuary and along the west coast there is a tendency for people to purchase fishing boats and landing facilities must be available. Therefore, we should be greatful if some development were undertaken where local needs demand it.

I should like to thank the Minister for his courteous help to me as a Deputy since I came into the House in all matters which relate to his Department. I hope he will keep in mind the few points to which I have referred in relation to tourist development in major resorts like Kilkee and that he will also remember the necessity for the provision of adequate communications through the provision of a launch or some such suitable boat for the islands off the west coast.

Minister for Transport and Power (Mr. B. Lenihan)

I should like to thank Deputies on all sides of the House for the very constructive and sometimes complex debate on the Estimate for my Department. The complexity was understandable because in all there are ten companies coming within the range of the Department's supervision and they cover a very wide segment of economic and social activity in the State. I intend afterwards to go through the debate in greater detail and glean from it the constructive advice that has been given by practically every Deputy who made a contribution.

These ten companies to which I have referred have responsibility for the direct employment of 60,000 people, which is no small contribution to the development of our economy. If you add to that the equivalent of 160,000 jobs that we estimate are provided by the tourist industry through the direct encouragement by Bord Fáilte we see the extent of the activity. That means that there are the equivalent of 220,000 employed in the area under discussion.

As I said in my opening speech, four main companies are responsible for 40,000 of these 220,000, that is, CIE, the ESB, the air companies and Bord na Móna. These four companies are important commercial undertakings in their own right and they are operating on a break-even and profitable basis at present. CIE alone employ in the region of 20,000 people. Every party in the House now subscribes to the necessity, from the social and community point of view, of preserving the nucleus of a rail service and we intend to maintain it. Recently we passed a Transport Act designed to ensure its maintenance. However, apart from the rail service, every other major aspect of CIE and Óstlanna Iompair Éireann, the hotel subsidiary, is showing a profit. It is important to remember that these four companies, apart from giving this substantial employment to 40,000 people, are engaged in a profitable, commercial operation.

I shall go through some of the figures which were not mentioned in my opening speech concerning the various sections of CIE. In regard to the Dublin city road passenger services there is a rising graph which indicates that the operating surplus in 1967-68 came to £264,000 and last year, 1968-69, the surplus came to £354,000. On the provincial and passenger services, including tours and private hire, the increase was from £271,000 in 1964-65 to £941,000 in 1968-69.

Mr. Coogan

What percentage of that would be due to an increase in fares?

Mr. B. Lenihan

I am coming to that. During the same period—this is very relevant to the Deputy's question —of this fantastic increase on the provincial services and on tours and private hire, where we had practically a four-fold jump in four years from £271,000 to £941,000, the total number of passengers carried increased from 60.5 million to 78.4 million. Therefore, there is a rising graph here both in regard to passengers carried and in regard to income. Taking the coach tour business on its own the revenue increased from £218,000 in 1963-64 to £730,000 in 1968-69. So that, again, you had almost a quadrupling of the coach tour side of the operation in that five year period.

You see here the overall picture that these figures reveal in regard to CIE's road passenger operation is a rising graph in the Dublin city passenger service, a substantially higher rising graph in regard to the provincial road passenger service and tours and private hire, and included in that rising graph an almost equivalent rising graph in the actual tour business itself. Whereas you have in the order of 50 per cent increase in the Dublin city passenger business, you have an order of increase of 400 per cent in regard to the provincial passenger business and the coach tour and private hire business.

This represents real growth and I should like to say that in particular CIE have every confidence, and have worked it out in meticulous detail, that this graph will continue into the future in regard to the coach tour business and have estimated a continuing annual increase of 20 per cent in this business, rising 20 per cent each year right into the future.

Similarly on the road freight side, again, CIE show a substantial increase in income. On the road freight side there is a figure of £45,000 operating surplus in 1964-65. Four years later that has jumped to £227,000. These are figures that are very important and show the tremendous attention to business detail and expansion by CIE, that in the four-year period the surplus from road freight jumped from £45,000 to £227,000. That is the figure for the last year 1968-69—that was the operating surplus on road freight— nearly £¼ million. On the hotel and catering side—Óstlanna Iompair Éireann—the subsidiary that CIE operate, again we have a rising graph. In 1964-65 the operating surplus was £145,000. In 1968-69 the surplus was £234,000.

So that in every aspect of activity by Córas Iompair Éireann, employing 20,000 people, other than the railways, profit has been shown and not alone has profit been shown but it is a substantially rising profit year in year out and the forecasts are that into the future the graphs will continue in this way.

It is important that in the presentation of their last accounts CIE have now separated the railway situation from the rest of their business activity. This is only right and proper because for far too long CIE were wrongly burdened with the situation where people lumped all their various activities together and said, in a negative way, they are showing a loss. Now, in the accounts, the matter is quite clearly separated and segregated and it is quite clear now that, as was shown in the debate on the Transport Bill, before Christmas, now the Transport Act, both Houses of the Oireachtas and the public generally clearly accept the situation, that we have voted £2.65 million per year for the next five years to CIE to maintain the railway situation as a community obligation but we have pinned the responsibility on them in regard to their other activities that I have just mentioned—Dublin city passenger service, provincial passenger service, coach tour service, hire service and hotel service—to make money and to operate in a businesslike and commercial way and I am glad to be able to tell the House, and it can be seen from the figures, that this has been done in a proper spirit and a proper way.

So much so that I envisage that the outstanding growth area within what I have mentioned is in the coach tour and the hotel area and I have had discussions with CIE recently on this. I would welcome, and I have said to the managing director of CIE and Óstlanna Iompair Éireann that I would welcome public participation in Óstlanna Iompair Éireann by way of investment in the hotel group and that I anticipate developments in this direction inside the next few months. The hotel group has shown itself to be outstandingly viable and outstandingly commercially minded. Linked with the coach tour business that is expanding at the rate I have mentioned and which is anticipated to expand at the rate of 20 per cent per year and linked with the fact that they have now, as the House is aware, recently been enabled to establish a subsidiary in the United States of America concerned with the promotion of tours here through their coach tour business and through the hotels—taking all of this activity together I feel this side of CIE is now in a position to go out into the market and get investment in the same way as the ESB and the airlines have done in recent years.

I am glad to be able to say that, because it shows that here is CIE being very aware of an outstanding growth area. I see a tremendous future as a result of a thorough marketing operation in regard to the coach tours, which are so excellently operated, and in regard to the Óstlanna Iompair Éireann hotels that set such an excellent standard. They are situated in an ideal chain throughout the country to fit in with the tours as planned by CIE.

I go on to the other main companies. I am taking the employment criterion. I think it is the important one. That is why I took CIE first. The other important companies, of course, are, first of all, the ESB. There is no need for me to emphasise the importance of the ESB in our economic development. The fact of the matter is that we are completely dependent for our power development on the ESB and all the indications are that power expansion will continue into the future at an accelerating rate. Power and power expansion are the inevitable concomitant of economic progress. This is one of the facts of life today. It is very welcome in our society that we have got an organisation such as the ESB to deal with this complex problem and to plan ahead. Planning ahead is inevitable in this field also, to meet the requirements of both industry and agriculture in the years ahead.

We expect that over the next seven years—to put it in straightforward terms—demand for electric power will double. That is the fact of the matter. I am very glad to say that this high rate of growth in demand is among the highest rates in Europe, which is again a fair indication of the type of economic progress we have been making. It is a very good indicator of economic and social progress and a very good indicator of rising living standards.

The board's capital expenditure is now running at about £20 million a year. The ESB have entered the commercial market again—I have already mentioned that the CIE hotels group have—and got substantial loans on the commercial market as well as from the World Bank. As Deputies are aware, the new unique ESB generating station at Turlough Hill in County Wicklow is 50 per cent financed by the World Bank. The World Bank investment in it is of the nature of £6 million, this is apart from other loans which have been raised by the board on the commercial market. I think the confidence shown by the World Bank in investing this amount of money in the ESB is symptomatic of the general confidence which an organisation of that kind has in our economy. The ESB have pioneered the way in this respect and it shows, as far as the future is concerned, that they will be able to raise the necessary finance to meet the further expansion that will be decided. It was mentioned during the debate that the project at County Wicklow, which is in course of construction, is only the first of several such developments envisaged by the ESB where they can utilise water by way of the pumping of water at off-peak periods to an artificial reservoir utilising the slope of the mountain to generate the supply of power. This is an an explanation of the project in County Wicklow. Other areas, including the Comeragh Mountains in County Waterford, are being examined with a view to getting the right sort of technical mountain or hill topography to justify this type of development which, while having a very high initial capital cost, eventually is comparatively inexpensive from the point of view of operating costs.

Mr. Coogan

Would it not be better to try sea water?

Mr. B. Lenihan

I have recently had discussions with the ESB technical people, and I would like to pay tribute to them. They are an outstanding group of technical engineering people. One of the great developments in the ESB is the accumulation of people who are highly attuned to the most modern technological developments. One of the matters now being examined by them is precisely the point made by Deputy Coogan. It is a unique technological field, which nobody has really solved yet, by that I mean throughout the world, and no successful project of this kind has been initiated although it has been very closely examined. The Shannon estuary is one area that has been looked at by the ESB's top engineering people as a possible outlet for this type of development. If the utilisation of tides for power purposes could be made technically, economically and financially feasible it would be one of the great solutions to the power problem not only for Ireland but for the whole world. We will be hearing more about power generation in this particular field of tide control and development if not next year certainly in the years ahead. That covers the Electricity Supply Board employing 10,000 people.

The air companies employ 5,000 people. I should like to pay tribute to the airlines because they are in the most fiercely competitive field of all the commercial State companies. The other commercial companies have to be commercially-minded but they do not have to fight for their markets in the same really tough competitive atmosphere as the airlines. In this highly competitive field I am glad to say that the graph is an upward one for the two airline companies. In the financial year 1967-68 there was a surplus of £1,195,661, whereas in the year 1968-69 it jumped to £1,752,804. Here, again, we see a rising graph with progress being made in a highly competitive field. As the House knows, I moved legislation here last summer to provide the airlines with additional capital to ensure that they would have the necessary funds to the extent of £71.5 million which they proposed to expend by 1972-73 in completely re-equipping their fleet with modern Boeing 737s and jumbo jets.

Deputy O'Donnell, Deputy Taylor, Deputy Barrett and other Deputies, mentioned our problems with the CAB in the United States, the American Government and the American air companies. Our attitude is precisely as I indicated in reply to a question last week. The Government feel that we have a substantial commitment to our airline companies, a substantial commitment to Shannon and the developments that are taking place there and we are sticking by these commitments. I will not say any more than that because this is what one might call a delicate and sensitive area. We are sticking to our commitments as long as we can do so.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

I appreciate the Minister's reply but I think he will agree with me that it is well to emphasise the implications of this not merely on Shannon but for the entire tourist industry in the south west. We are accused of being parochial about this.

Mr. B. Lenihan

There are three aspects to this. First of all, we have a substantial investment in our airlines which have been very successful and have given substantial employment. We have a substantial stake in the Shannon region itself both in the community we have built there and in the airport which employs in the region of 5,000. We have also a substantial commitment to the whole north west, south west and west of Ireland all of which are benefiting from the tourist expansion generated from the landings which take place at Shannon Airport. As far as the future of the two airlines is concerned this is going to be a difficult problem. I am looking very much to the future here. I have already mentioned the figure of £71.5 million as being the sort of money needed for re-equipment up to 1972-73 but looking to 1979-80 and the type of re-equipment that will be needed and the sort of money involved we will have to think very seriously about how to reshape the financial structure of our airlines. Deputy Desmond referred to this aspect last week. I have discussed it with the chairman of the board and the general manager of Aer Lingus and Aerlínte.

This is a matter to which we will have to give greater attention in the future. It may involve some interlocking arrangements with other air companies. It may involve some financial arrangements outside those that can be sustained by the Irish taxpayers and Irish State. Deputy Desmond touched on this matter. It may involve the airlines becoming more commercial in the world sense rather than just being an Irish company tied exclusively to the Irish Parliament, the Irish Government and the Irish taxpayer. We have to look to the future and think of our airlines not just as an Irish enterprise. We are very proud of them as such and they will always be based here and operate from here. We must think of them as being financially viable in a very tough competitive world business.

The next time they have to re-equip it may be not just to the tune of £70 million odd but possibly £200 million or £300 million. This is the sort of world into which we are going with the supersonic jet development and other developments of this kind. I view this problem as the most complex and challenging of all those facing the State companies as far as the future is concerned.

Mr. Bruton

Is the Minister envisaging co-operation with other national airlines in this field?

Mr. B. Lenihan

Yes, I am thinking in terms of this as being a possibility in the future. Thanks to the efficiency of our airlines and their management, we have one of the few successful airlines in the world and certainly the outstandingly successful small airline. There are many other national airlines throughout the world that are in real trouble as far as the future is concerned, and as far as re-equipment costs will be concerned. I mention this because Deputy Desmond referred to it in the course of the debate.

I should like to say again that I am giving thought to how the airlines can best be organised in future to co-operate with other airlines and gradually to build themselves into a situation where they will be able to meet the type of financial impact which they will experience when they next have to start re-equipping. I am also considering the extent to which we can get for our airlines a financial structure in which they can raise money anywhere and not be totally dependent or nearly totally dependent upon the loan facilities that can be arranged from Government sources, where they can be in a competitively commercial position that can guarantee them funds from anywhere in the world. We want to put our airlines into that sort of situation. As I say, I have already had discussions on this aspect with the airline people.

The other main company, using the employment criterion, is Bord na Móna with 5,000 people employed, actually 6,000 people at peak periods. Bord na Móna again are showing a surplus in 1968-69 of the order of £1,267,000. They had some bad years as the House is well aware during which the weather went against them, but this year it is expected again that the operating surplus will be of that order. I know this is not the full type of profit which Deputy O'Donovan might desire but they are showing an operating surplus of an order of £1¼ million.

The point was raised in this House as to where the future lies for Bord na Móna. I want to emphasise here that people are sometimes thinking rather narrowly about the bogs. There are another 25 years left in our present bogs with the present level of Bord na Móna activities. Deputy Bruton dealt with this point. There are another 25 to 30 years left at the present level of activity. That is a fair period, and that is not too bad, but at the same time, they are at the moment, in conjunction with An Foras Talúntais, engaged in very detailed research studies of their entire bog possessions with a view to ascertaining precisely what sort of agricultural development would be suited to each part of the area controlled by them at present.

Part of the advice already received is that they cannot go down the whole way, that a certain residue of peat will have to be left at the bottom of the bogs so as to ensure appropriate agricultural development when the Bord na Móna operations finish in 30 years time. That has already been agreed between Foras Talúntais and Bord na Móna. In addition to that, there is a detailed townland by townland assessment of the whole area going on. It is very important that the State makes the proper utilisation of this farm of 120,000 acres that will come into the possession of the community by the year 2000 so that in that year we will have a State farm of 120,000 to 130,000 acres. We have to plan now for what we are to do with it. This planning has already started. It is a very challenging prospect.

Dr. O'Donovan

You will have some of it long before the year 2000.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Some of it, but it will come totally in by then. I want to emphasise that it is coming in to a very small extent only. There is a surprising amount of development left in our bogs. We can continue at the present level of activities for the next 25 years.

Dr. O'Donovan

Not in all the bogs though.

Mr. B. Lenihan

This involves extensions such as are envisaged in the western bog to feed into the Shannonbridge power station. At the moment, planning is being undertaken to meet this challenge and it will not be just forestry development alone but forestry, vegetable and grass development. It certainly presents a tremendous challenge to the technical personnel in Bord na Móna to assess properly what type of development can take place when this magnificent community farm comes into our possession by the year 2000.

I have referred to the four main companies providing the main employment. Out of a total employment of 60,000 in the State sponsored field these four companies employ 40,000. Each one of them is an outstanding example of high employment rate and first class commercial success. The important thing about the commercial companies is that they have got the measuring rod of profit and commercial success. It is interesting that in the Devlin Report on the reorganisation of our public services, he drew this distinction between commercial and non-commercial State companies.

It is far more difficult, as was mentioned here in the course of the debate, to measure the success of the non-commercial State bodies where the profit motive does not arise, undertakings like Bord Fáilte, for instance, and, while not within my ambit, Foras Talúntais. It is very difficult to measure precisely how organisations of that kind are doing. In regard to the commercial companies like the ESB, CIE once you hive-off the other activities from the railway activity, OIE, the CIE hotel subsidiary, Bord na Móna, and the airlines, they are all companies that stand or fall on their balance sheets and, on that criterion, apart from the social value of the employment involved, as I have just outlined, they are doing very well and we can be reasonably happy with them, although never too happy because that would be a mistake, too.

Before I leave these four companies I should like to refer to the ESB. As the House is aware, the Minister for Labour commissioned a report called the Fogarty Report which was published about a year ago. That was largely on the question of employment and of industrial relations in the ESB. Since then, in the autumn of last year, I had discussions with the ESB and the ESB commissioned a leading international consulting firm, McKinseys, to make a thorough investigation of the board and management structure. This investigation commenced in September last. The firm have now presented their report which is being examined by the board and by the Government and myself at present. It involves a rationalisation of the management and board structure of the ESB. I will be saying more about this in the near future but I think it is important to mention it now because the ESB have become the most complex organisation in our State— the most important and fundamental in that power, literally, is the jugular vein of the modern community. It is essential that we have at every level in this organisation the most professional, most sophisticated board and management techniques.

I mention that because I feel it is very important in regard to this organisation, which has given such tremendous service to us in the past and which has tremendous plans for the future, that we as a community ensure that it is fully developed at board and management level to meet the changing pattern of industrial relations, the changing pattern of marketing, the changing pattern of public relations, the changing pattern of technical developments, with all of which it is concerned.

Mr. Coogan

May I ask the Minister if he can say anything further about nuclear power stations?

Mr. B. Lenihan

I am glad the Deputy mentioned that. Every intervention so far has been very helpful. It has launched me on to another train of thought.

On the nuclear energy side we propose to set up a separate body to deal with this because it has aspects other than power. There are aspects of research, aspects concerning our universities, aspects concerning preservation and conservation, aspects concerning safety, aspects concerning health. I hope to bring legislation before the House inside the next three months. What we propose to do here is to set up an independent nuclear energy board. That would be fully staffed by top class research people who would be able to advise everybody concerned with the aspects I have mentioned as to the appropriate use of nuclear energy, the dangers of it, how it should be utilised and where it should be utilised in the years ahead. There is more than just the power aspect in it. Otherwise it would be solely under the ESB. This will be a very important independent body to advise the Government on where to go in the future and how to go about the development of nuclear energy. We will have more to say about that inside the next few months.

I should like to refer to some of the other important companies. Though not in the same bracket as the four companies I have mentioned from the employment point of view, they are nevertheless important from the point of view of our community. Irish Shipping Ltd. has been mentioned. This company has, after some difficult years, now emerged into a profit making organisation. I am quite satisfied after discussions with the chairman and the top management people in that company that they are now geared to a continuance of the profit making, commercial operation on which they are already embarked.

The figure up to the 31st March of last year—that is the figure for 1968-69—of the latest net profit of Irish Shipping Ltd. was of the order of £315,000. This is an excellent situation: 800 men employed and a profit making situation which I am satisfied will continue and expand. I should like to say one thing about Irish Shipping in regard to the very difficult field of labour relations. People do not have the same wish to rough it any more. People do not want to go on ships or go down mines or do anything of that nature any more. It is a difficult enough field into which to attract people. Irish Shipping are doing an outstanding job in labour relations. The standards on their ships in regard to facilities available to crews, in regard to amenities, are an example to the rest of the world. They have taken a particular interest in this aspect, looking ahead to the future when it will be more difficult to attract men into this type of employment which involves a break with shore and home life for three, six or nine months. That sort of life will not be attractive in the world into which we are moving, so it is very important in that type of employment to ensure that labour relations are good and that the very best amenities are provided for the people employed. Irish Shipping have concentrated on this and one of their senior management officers is wholly engaged on this aspect. He has gone to the Scandinavian countries, which have taken a lead in this direction, and has had discussions with them. The result is that now our ships, along with Swedish and Norwegian ships, are the best ships in the world from the point of view of relations with seamen and the amenities and facilities available. I mention that because it is very important if we are to attract people into this type of work in the years ahead.

As the House knows, our airports are separate from our airlines. What we propose to do by legislation in the current year—I hope to bring in this legislation inside the next six months— is to have all our three airports under one State sponsored organisation, Aer Rianta. At the moment Aer Rianta are managing Dublin Airport but will in future manage Dublin, Shannon and Cork Airports as a national airport management authority. Indeed, it was suggested that we should take a similar step in regard to harbours. It is a matter I am having examined, to see how far we can go in this direction in regard to harbours. Certainly I feel our airports should be managed by an independent authority charged with the responsibility of providing amenities and facilities and of making a commercial profit on them. The reason why this should be is that the airport authority is not just concerned with national airlines. I have mentioned that our national airlines are very important and we are very proud of them, but the airport authority should be concerned with airlines from all over the world. It is an invidious situation when they are tied up with one particular airline, even if it is the national airline. It is much better for them to be independent and in a position to deal commercially with airlines, aircraft, indeed any form of flying object from any part of the world, and do business with them on as profitable a basis as possible.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

Could the Minister say if it is intended to bring the smaller provincial airports within the ambit of——

Mr. B. Lenihan

They are private airports for which a grant is given but there will be an enabling section to enable other airports to be brought within the ambit of the proposed airport authority.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

I think they should.

Mr. B. Lenihan

We shall discuss it later when the legislation comes forward but I would suggest that an enabling section be there to enable that to be done. It is not the immediate intention to do it. They are private airports to which grants are given and we shall first see how they operate in that way and see how they develop.

The B and I is another important company concerned, as the House knows, with the shipment of freight and passengers to Britain. Its outstanding success has been the car ferry development and passenger development generally. I shall refer to freight later. The figures we have here show the enormous development in car ferry traffic into Ireland. We have car ferry services from Dún Laoghaire to Heysham, Dún Laoghaire-Holyhead, Rosslare-Fishguard operated by British Rail and Dublin-Liverpool and Cork-Swansea operated by B and I and Rosslare-Le Havre, which is operated by Irish Shipping and Normandy Ferries.

Taking all these services together, in 1964 we had 30,000 cars driving in here. In 1965, we had 46,000; in 1966, 47,000; in 1967, 68,000; in 1968, we had 92,000; in 1969, 114,000 and in 1972 the projection is 170,000. We had a jump in the five years from 1964 to 1969 from 30,000 to 114,000, a substantial increase by any standards. The 114,000 is likely to jump to 170,000 by 1972.

If we take each car as having an average of three passengers you can see the type of tourist intake involved in this type of development. The estimated tourist revenue in 1969 from 114,000 cars was of the order of £16 million, a substantial share of the overall tourist revenue of £97.2 million. B and I have been very successful in pioneering this development and deserve tremendous credit. It is the type of development that is in the growth category. Some forms of economic development inevitably cannot be put into a growth category because the trend of development is against them such as railway development. Other forms are in the growth category where you are going with the trend of the times and you must take advantage of that trend and expand even faster than the trend in the world pattern. Hotel development is in this category and so is car ferry development, as is evident from the figures.

Other aspects of B and I activity are more difficult. In the car ferry area it is a rising graph with the trend of the times. On the freight side, both for ordinary freight and livestock, it is far more difficult. I have had discussions with B and I and CIE on this matter and discussions are going on with British Railways also on how to rationalise the two aspects of freight shipment and live cattle shipment. These negotiations are at present actively proceeding and are coming down to hard-headed businesslike discussion. I do not want to prejudice the outcome; I shall be saying more about it in the near future. It is sufficient to say that there will have to be a rationalisation of these activities. On the container side there could be closer liaison between CIE and the B and I. I am also generally satisfied that on the livestock and freight sides there should be a more rational apportionment of business between CIE and B and I on our side and British Railways on the other. There is a certain amount of duplication and there is danger of some unnecessary and wasteful competition. I shall refer to this problem in greater detail later when replying to Deputy Bruton's points. It is a matter with which I am very concerned and discussions are now going on within the three organisations concerned and I am keeping in close touch with the situation.

Mr. Coogan

They will continue the policy of channelling all traffic through the port of Dublin?

Mr. B. Lenihan

No. We are concerned with the other ports, Greenore, Drogheda, Waterford and Cork, all these expanding ports——

Mr. Coogan

Move around the coast a bit.

Mr. B. Lenihan

The Deputy is well aware that there are difficulties in regard to Limerick, Galway and Sligo. It is easier, to put it mildly, to generate a greater volume of traffic through the eastern and southern ports than through the western ports. But I am very glad in recent years that Galway in particular has improved enormously as a port. That is why substantial moneys have been invested in Galway. It is my abiding anxiety to ensure that the expansion in Galway will develop to a greater extent. The same goes for the Shannon estuary. However, it is a more difficult job to generate traffic out of these ports than out of eastern and southern ports that are so obviously on the transhipment routes to Britain and the Continent.

Mr. Coogan

No shipping to the United States?

Mr. B. Lenihan

Everything I can do will be done to generate traffic in Galway and Sligo despite the difficulties vis-à-vis the other ports.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

Does the Minister favour the idea of setting up a national ports authority?

Mr. B. Lenihan

I referred to this when talking about the national airport authority which we shall establish. I am examining this matter at present. There is much merit in the suggestion and that is why I am considering it.

I should have mentioned, in discussing Irish Shipping Ltd., that one important aspect of it—I referred to it in replying to a remark made by Deputy O'Donovan—is that, apart from the people employed and the expansion envisaged, they have now become a substantial earner of foreign exchange to the order of £3 million a year. This enables expansion to take place in other directions and Irish Shipping should not be considered in the narrow sense of the employment of 800 people but also from the point of view of the £3 million revenue in foreign exchange which enables the community as a whole to embark to that extent on investment in many other fields.

Another point I did not mention about Irish Shipping is that they have now received a commercial directive from the Government. The point was made during the debate—and this was true at one time—that they were based on strategic considerations. This was the position during the last war and it existed until recent years until they arrived at the situation where from the point of view of supplying this country they had reached the level where they could be directed by the Government to go commercial. They have gone commercial in a big way in the past three or four years with the result they are making the profit I mentioned and, judging by the situation now, that will continue in the future.

Deputy O'Donell referred to hotel investment by Aer Lingus. This is a very desirable development. In other days the railways went into hotels. Today, Aer Lingus is going into hotels. Airlines throughout the world are going into hotels. The important thing in the competitive airline business is to capture customers and cater fully for them wherever their destination may be. Hitherto the airline simply brought people from point A to point B and forgot all about them. The policy now is to ensure that at point B they have a bed, accommodation and food. It is not just a matter of transporting them. It is a matter of catering for them as well and the airlines are now really part of the hotel and catering business. That is why the conceptual approach is so essential. No operation can be looked on in isolation. The airlines have looked into this very thoroughly and they are satisfied that it is essential to capture the customers and hold them captive in hotels as well as transporting them.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

Why cannot the airlines utilise existing hotels? If the Minister is correct there will be a closed shop.

Mr. B. Lenihan

There is no danger of that happening. Private enterprise hotel expansion is proceeding at its own rate. Our airlines, because of their two investments in the Ryan chain and recently in the Kingsley Windsor chain, have a spread of hotels in Ireland and Britain which will ensure that they can look after their customers properly. They will have a priority demand on bedrooms in the particular hotels in which they are involved. This is very important because it will ensure that their customers are properly looked after and they will have captive customers rather than casual customers. This is good business. Of course, there is no compulsion on customers to go to these hotels but the package deal is becoming more and more important and, with this facility, Aer Lingus can sell, particularly on the American market, but it applies also to British and Continental markets. A total package deal can be offered.

Mr. Bruton

Do Aer Lingus have to deal with chains or could they deal with individual hotels?

Mr. B. Lenihan

From the point of view of the package deal it is better for them to deal with chains because they will be secure in the knowledge that a package will be delivered.

Mr. Bruton

There are other reputable hotels, which are not part of the chain but which could equally honour their commitments.

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is a more difficult operation from the business point of view. These things have to be planned six to nine months in advance. This is a profit-making venture. The airlines must become tremendously competitive and totally commercial.

Deputy O'Donnell raised a point about the jumbo jets. Facilities are being provided both at Shannon and Dublin. Some jets may come in next summer. Our own airlines will have them in the early summer of 1971.

Deputy O'Donnell raised the point about the promotion of all kinds of amenities. Angling, golf, shooting, hunting, fishing, pony trekking, and so on, are vitally important from the point of view of extending the tourist season. We are having some considerable success in extending the season. Such extension is very important, not alone from the balance of payments point of view but also from the point of view of maintaining a properly trained staff. In the past there was too much emphasis on casual staff. With the extension of the season it will be possible to have a better standard of employee because there will be greater security of employment. Leisure activities will have to be developed. There will be need for heated swimming pools, Sauna baths and so on. There is tremendous scope.

Motoring is another attraction. We have an excellent road system thanks to the implementation of excellent Government policy over the years. Good roads penetrate into remote areas of great scenic beauty making these areas easily accessible. Our policy in that respect is beginning to pay off handsomely, as can be seen from the figures I mentioned in relation to the car ferry service. When that service started there were pessimistic predictions by the car hire people, but these predictions proved to be unfounded; the car hire people are expanding as well. It all adds up to the fact that the motoring holiday is the kind of holiday for which this country is ideally equipped. It is significant that the length of stay in hotels tends to diminish. Tourists stop over for two or three nights in one place and then motor on to somewhere else. This is the kind of holiday that can exist outside of what is regarded as the traditional holiday period. We get the tourists we need during the traditional holiday period and there would be no advantage in straining it to any inordinate degree. We must aim at doing business during ten, 11 or, possibly, 12 months of the year. Bord Fáilte are very conscious of that.

Mr. Taylor

International conferences help too.

Mr. Coogan

International conferences would help.

Mr. B. Lenihan

I am glad the Deputy mentioned that because there is tremendous scope for development in regard to conferences, particularly in the city of Dublin.

Mr. Coogan

And in Galway.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Yes, but I am talking in terms of a conference hall which could hold 3,000 people upwards.

Mr. Coogan

We hope to do that too.

Mr. B. Lenihan

We can have this in various centres throughout the country, but as regards Dublin I am having discussions at present with Bord Fáilte. There are a number of propositions before them which they are investigating with a view to assisting the more appropriate ones. This is an aspect of tourist development which is growing throughout the world and for which we have unique facilities.

Mr. Coogan

There are ten of them this year in Galway.

Mr. B. Lenihan

If there is any proposition from Galway in this direction, being a westerner myself, I shall do my utmost to help it. Deputy Barry Desmond referred to Irish Shipping's strategic needs and, as I have said, we have now reached the level of 150,000 tons. That was the minimum strategic level, and now Irish Shipping are on a commercial basis. Deputy Desmond, in a letter to me, raised the matter of the County Donegal Railway and asked me to deal with it in the course of my reply in this debate. I hope to introduce a Bill amalgamating the County Donegal Railway Company with CIE. It should be enacted before the summer recess. This will involve the dissolution of the Co. Donegal Railways Joint Committee and the transfer of its assets to CIE. Deputy Desmond was concerned about the staff. It is very important that they should be protected. We will have safeguards for the rights of the staff and I can assure the regular staff of the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee that there will be no redundancy, that the regular staff will be taken over by CIE. The other question of the pensions and welfare scheme is one that we propose to work out through joint consultations between CIE and the trade unions concerned. Again it is important that the welfare, travel and pension facilities that would be available to these employees should be preserved; their wish is that they should be put on all fours with CIE employees. It is a matter for negotiation. This will be done between CIE and the trade unions and, if necessary, myself. However, there is ample time between now and the summer to sort these things out and to incorporate whatever needs to be incorporated in the legislation.

Deputy Desmond raised the question of hovercraft and hydrofoils. There is a special unit looking into this aspect and it is one that lies in the years ahead. It is not immediately feasible either from the commercial or technical point of view. Of course all these new developments, with increasing technical application, have a habit of becoming economic in time. However, developments in this field will be considered.

Deputy Michael O'Kennedy and a number of other speakers raised this whole question of the type of hotel that should be encouraged by Bord Fáilte. This can become a very facile argument, that we should not have big hotels, that we should have this or that type of development and so on. We want all types of hotels. I have discussed this with Bord Fáilte. If we are going to have an expanding tourist industry we want large top grade hotels, we want the medium-sized and priced hotels, the small family hotels, the guesthouse, farmhouse and the supplementary accommodation. We want all forms of accommodation to suit all types of people. This is one matter on which, in a very constructive debate, I am going to be critical. There is no conflict at all between any of these developments. We want more tourists and more bedroom accommodation. That is my reading of the situation. In case anybody is under any misapprehension as to how the development has taken place I should like to put the matter into perspective. The small type of hotel and guesthouse is being encouraged substantially by Bord Fáilte. The whole hotel industry is based precisely on this small establishment.

Mr. Coogan

Private enterprise.

Mr. B. Lenihan

Yes, private enterprise, and whereas the bigger hotels and the big chains come in for publicity and comment, in fact the foundation of the Irish hotel and catering industry is the small private enterprise hotel. Seventy-four per cent of our hotels have under 30 bedrooms; 17 per cent have between 30 and 60 bedrooms; 6.2 per cent have between 61 and 100 bedrooms and only 2.8 per cent have over 100 bedrooms. That proves my point that the real basis of this industry is the small hotel. We need the bigger type of hotel, indeed the luxury hotel, and the small hotels.

That is only in regard to hotels. The percentage figures I have just mentioned do not include our guesthouses and the supplementary accommodation including farmhouse accommodation and town and village accommodation, all of which are very small in size and exist side by side with the hotel development. I mention the figures again to show the growth in this development, apart from the hotel development which is essentially growth based on ordinary people throughout the country who are getting a supplementary income from this development. There are 21,500 hotel bedrooms. There are 5,000 guesthouse bedrooms and 9,400 supplementary accommodation bedrooms outside hotel and guesthouse bedrooms. Therefore the supplementary accommodation, outside hotels and guesthouses, gives nearly half the total number of bedrooms in registered hotels proper.

Mr. Coogan

They are registered with Bord Fáilte?

Mr. B. Lenihan

Yes.

Mr. Coogan

The numbers would be still greater——

Mr. B. Lenihan

I agree but I have only got the registered figures here. There has been a really phenomenal growth in this supplementary accommodation. The figures are there, quite clear: there are 21,500 hotel bedrooms, 5,000 registered guesthouse bedrooms and 9,400 bedrooms in supplementary accommodation, including farmhouse accommodation, spread and diffused throughout the country, in small towns and villages——

Mr. Cosgrave

Partly caused by the rise in hotel prices.

Mr. B. Lenihan

No. The hotel bedroom accommodation is expanding also. This is what I mentioned a few minutes ago, that there is no real conflict between any of these areas of development, that the hotel bedroom accommodation is expanding, the graph there is going up; the graph in guesthouses is going up; the graph in supplementary accommodation is going up. So that there is room for them all. This should be emphasised, that there is no essential conflict between any of them, as long as we continue to expand the cake. I agree that if the cake were static there would be a conflict but as long as the tourist growth continues—and there is no reason not to expect that it will continue because that is part of a world pattern of growth— the trend is on our side in this respect and we will reach, in 1970 the growth target of £100 million income from tourism. The figure for last year was £97.2 million. We hope the figure to be £100 million as planned by 1970 and we hope the figure to be £200 million by 1980. That is the sort of growth that is involved in this industry.

There is one thing I should like to say here—I am already on record as saying it—that in this sort of growth industry we should not just be happy or content to go along with the growth.

Dr. O'Donovan

Even the Ministers will be pushed out of the big hotels if that happens, the rest of us having been pushed already.

Mr. B. Lenihan

We should not be happy to go along with the natural growth that is part of a world trend. I would say, as a matter of advice to everybody concerned in the hotel and tourist industry, that it is easy enough to maintain our share of an expanding cake and to say here we have an expanding industry. What we have to do is to go faster and to get a greater share of an expanding industry than we have at the moment. It is no great achievement to increase your income from tourism if that increase in income is part of a world increase in income, where every other country is also increasing because of the growth momentum inherent in the industry. The real nub of the matter is to increase the growth ahead of the percentage share that we have in the total overall expansion of the business.

Mr. Coogan

Would the Minister agree that the tourists want to meet the Irish people in the ordinary small hotel or private guesthouse and not in the luxury hotels?

Mr. B. Lenihan

There is no question about it—I may be a bit chauvinistic in saying it—the Irish people are a tremendous attraction in every aspect of our personality.

Mr. Coogan

They have a flaithiúil way about them.

Mr. B. Lenihan

There is no question about that. They want to see the people in all their various moods, in all their pleasures and leisures. Some speakers referred to the need to improve our licensed premises. I feel that our pubs are a real attraction in this respect and I have asked Bord Fáilte to look into the possibilities of doing something to encourage more catering facilities in publichouses at strategic points throughout the country, again to cater for the roadside tourist who is a feature of our expanding business.

Mr. Coogan

They like to walk on the sawdust—not always on the carpets.

Mr. B. Lenihan

As the Deputy mentions that matter and as there are only five minutes left, I might as well mention a little experience I had. I was in New York about a year ago and walked into many fashionable publichouses in the heart of New York City, in Broadway, and found them equipped with the old-fashioned furnishings that were in the Dublin pubs of 20 to 40 years ago, with the mirrors and "John Jameson" in gilt lettering and the mahogany counters and snugs, transported holus bolus from Dublin city to New York while our publichouses in Dublin were going over to chrome. More could be done about preserving certain traditional aspects in our publichouses and certainly, to be serious about it, on the catering aspect, I think it is very important—and Bord Fáilte are looking at the matter at the moment —that at various roadside centres on main motoring routes there should be properly standardised catering and meal facilities made available for motorists.

Mr. Coogan

And proper toilet facilities.

Mr. B. Lenihan

That is another very important aspect. I think I have said enough on that aspect which concerned a number of Deputies. I should say, by the way, that grants are available for developments in all these spheres now, of hotel and guesthouse and supplementary accommodation development. Grants are available for all three categories. This, again has been the cause of the phenomenal growth in bedroom accommodation in all three categories.

Mr. Cosgrave

Provided they measure up to the standards required are they entitled to get a grant irrespective of where the hotel is located?

Mr. B. Lenihan

The grants vary between east and west.

Mr. Cosgrave

I know, but there is no restriction here? Some years ago there were restrictions, certainly in parts of Dún Laoghaire, on the ground that the accommodation available in the area was sufficient.

Mr. B. Lenihan

That is general. That is applied even to hotels.

Mr. Cosgrave

Is it still applied to the hotels?

Mr. B. Lenihan

It is, yes. If Bord Fáilte give grants to A, B and C and feel that that fulfils the need in the area, as they forecast the need for the future, they will not give a grant then to D to start up. That is still the situation at all levels—the three categories I have mentioned. Deputies O'Kennedy and Tully spoke about camping sites. That is another field of development that is coming in and again linked with the motoring tourists I have mentioned. At the moment Bord Fáilte have embarked on a campaign to encourage the development of sites of this kind at strategic places along roads and they are willing to grant substantial moneys to provide caravan parks—up to the extent of 50 per cent grants—and these grants are available as well for camping sites. Both camping and caravan site grants are available to anybody who wishes to develop in this direction— grants of up to 50 per cent of the cost.

Deputy Donegan made a number of points. One particular point he raised, which is one that has been raised before, is an old point of disagreement, depending on how you look at it— the ESB and sales. I feel that this is very important. The ESB are there to sell power. They are an expanding organisation and I do not think there is any real conflict between them and private enterprise in this respect. In fact, the very promotion work by an organisation such as the ESB expands the whole consumer demand for electrical goods and equipment. This has a beneficial effect all round, if one takes a broad view of it. The presence of the ESB in this field and the activity on their sales side promotes business all round for private enterprise as well as for themselves.

A point was made in regard to the recent difficulties with the clerical staff of the ESB and the inability by reason of that of the ESB to send out bills to domestic consumers. The point was made that in a number of cases these bills have mounted and people will have substantial sums to meet. I appreciate the hardship involved in this and appreciate the remarks made by Deputies on this aspect. I understand the ESB are at the present time taking this very much into account and that one can expect some sort of graded or instalment method by which consumers can repay any outstanding accounts. That point was made in the House and the ESB are, at the present time, examining the position. The strike looks like ending, although one can never tell in the case of industrial disputes, and the ESB will have to find a way of collecting the accumulated bills in as fair a way as possible. I feel the best way would be to have payment made by graded instalments.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.