Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 24 May 1973

Vol. 265 No. 13

Committee on Finance. - Vote 42: Posts and Telegraphs (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a sum not exceeding £54,086,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1974, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and of certain other services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain grants-in-aid.

—(Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.)

Mr. G. Collins

Since we were debating this Estimate on the last occasion, we have had the announcement by the Minister for Finance in his budget of increased postal and telephone charges. The increases announced are very steep and will cause an appreciable amount of concern to those who will have to bear them. I understand they have become necessary to pay increases in wages and salaries to Departmental staff. Of course, the customer will feel aggrieved at being told he must pay more for the existing services without any apparent improvement in the services. Naturally, the businessman, who will bear most of the increased cost, will be very aggrieved.

Many of the services being provided by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs are of a social rather than an economic nature and this gives rise once again to the very important question of whether it is fair to expect the ordinary customer to subsidise an uneconomic service. I should like to read an extract from my opening statement on the Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs introduced on 9th November last. It is reported at column 1257 of the Official Report for that date:

I wish to mention that another matter which is receiving my consideration is whether we should continue to lump in totally uneconomic services provided for social reasons with normal commercial services. For example, the telegraph service has been a financial burden on the Post Office continuously since 1922-23, and indeed for long before. Any ordinary business organisation would long since have dispensed with such an uneconomic service, provided solely for the benefit of the community and not for commercial reasons.

Similarly, there are extensive sections of the postal service in rural areas which are hopelessly uneconomic, and should be modified substantially if commercial considerations were to prevail. Many totally uneconomic telephone lines also are provided at heavy cost. I do not suggest that the Department should discontinue any of these services but I must consider, and am doing so, whether services needed more for social than economic reasons should be financed by the taxpayer rather than carried by the Department at the expense of economic services.

As a result of these further increases in charges, the time is now with us again when the Government must decide whether the cost of these uneconomic services should be borne by the taxpayer rather than the customer who will suffer from these increased charges. The customer knows that these costs will keep going up and up without any appreciable improvement in the services.

On the question of programming on television and radio, let me say clearly that I am content to have this left to the professionals. However, one or two personal matters come to mind and I might be forgiven if I mention them at this stage. I know there will be a tremendous welcome, particularly in the single-channel television areas, for late night films at weekends. I have in mind films that would start at 11 p.m. or 11.30 p.m. and run for the full length of the films. I understand this practice operates in other countries and is greatly appreciated by the viewers. I hope this will be considered as soon as possible, bearing in mind, of course, that as we all know there are difficulties in regard to keeping our television station open after midnight, difficulties for trade unions and so on. Seeing that we have now a trade unionist Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, perhaps he would use his influence with his colleagues in this respect. We would be very thankful to him if he would help us out in this way.

In relation to public affairs broadcasting, it is fair to say that RTE have come a long way in the recent past, a very long way indeed from the days of the secret microphones and the hidden cameras, but they still have a long distance to go. This is a pity. It should not be so. I am reminded of two recent interviews which I chanced to listen to. About two weeks ago, the present Tánaiste and Minister for Social Welfare was being interviewed in a news bulletin, and the question put to him on the payment of social welfare benefits was as follows:

Up to now, Mr. Corish, increases have only been a few shillings. Are you going to do better?

I imagine this was a genuine error on the part of the interviewer. Of course the fact is that the statement in the question is completely misleading, completely incorrect. We had another interview recently with Messrs. Nevin, Connellan and Bruton. The interviewer's question, which one might be tempted to refer to as loaded, was as follows:

Of course employment has been dropping through the last year.

That statement is of course untrue and I am glad to say it was immediately rejected by the panel member to whom it was directed. I am not saying that the interviewer had an ulterior motive in framing his question as he did, but I should like to say that interviewers on public affairs programmes have the responsibility to brief themselves fully on the facts as they are and not as they think they are before presenting programmes of this nature.

Mr. Kelly

The same applies to Ministers and ex-Ministers. I am sorry Deputy Colley is not here to listen to what the Deputy is saying.

Mr. G. Collins

The decision on this subject is one for Parliament and certainly not one for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Dr. Cruise-O'Brien)

I have said so.

Mr. G. Collins

There is an established practice for discussing subjects such as this through the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. This Committee, the Minister may not be aware, is made up of representatives from all parties. It appears from what the Minister said in his opening statement that he is not speaking for the Government on this particular matter. He said he was expressing a personal viewpoint. Yet he went on to say that the legal aspects of this question were being studied by the Attorney-General who is looking into the law and practices in other comparable democratic countries.

I presume that the Attorney-General, like the Minister, is playing a solo hand in this matter. It is obvious from this that here we have two people, one a member of the Government and the other the Government's law agent and a Member of the House, chasing their own tails in an effort to keep themselves in line with other front runners in the gimmicky business of the present Government.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Deputy is going up a blind alley there.

Mr. G. Collins

After two and a half months of Labour-Fine Gael Government they are scraping the bottom of the barrel in an effort to come up with some gimmicks, gimmicks such as the re-opening of Scoil Dún Chaoin. These are efforts of the individual members of the Government to outshine or outbid each other for personal publicity. One would be forgiven if one said that we have Government by gimmickry.

Mr. Governey

We would have to go a long way before we could catch up with the Fianna Fáil Party.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair is in some difficulty as to how one could relate the Deputy's most recent remarks to the subject matter of this debate, Posts and Telegraphs.

Mr. G. Collins

I am sorry that the Chair is having such difficulty but I cannot see how it should have. Speaking for my party, I do not object to the televising of Dáil proceedings. Naturally, there are difficulties, difficulties that could not be overcome by a speedy discussion during the course of this debate. These difficulties would have to be considered in great depth by an all-party group such as the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. Other Parliaments have examined this question and they also had to consider the problems and difficulties. They considered problems other than the legal ones which the Attorney-General is now examining.

Never having examined the legal problems in this matter I can only speak knowledgeably on some of the practical problems that would arise. Who, for instance would deny that all of what happens in Parliament is the business of the people and not an edited version of this? Who would do the editing of these debates? Extreme caution would have to be exercised here because under no condition would we allow anybody for any reason to be in a position to take power from this Parliament. It could be said that an edited version could lead to the downgrading of Parliament. I say to those who are starving for headline-grasping gimmicks to beware because we will not be pushed or rushed into anything that will undermine our Parliament.

Mr. Coogan

Does the Deputy wish to censor Parliament?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may not ask a question at this juncture.

Mr. G. Collins

I am afraid it is probably over the Deputy's head. Who would do the editing of these debates to be broadcast to the nation? Would they be the same people who, on the 23rd May last, reported the then Taoiseach, Deputy Lynch, in the late news summary as having said that private armies would not be allowed to operate here and that anybody breaking the law would be pursued vigorously and that if part of the law proved ineffectual he would ask the Government to consider how it might be strengthened. This statement was immediately followed by the comments of a Mr. O'Brady who said it was hard to imagine what further strengthening could be done on the Offences Against the State Act. This man went on to say that any extension of coercive legislation would not be accepted passively by so-called Republicans.

The substance of the two statements was reported in similar juxtaposition on the 11.20 p.m. news headlines on television. Would we in this House be satisfied, having witnessed incidents such as I have related over the years, that there would be nothing to worry about in the editing of our Dáil debates for broacasting? Mistakes happen in all fields of human endeavour, but can they be corrected satisfactorily? Of course we have lack of balance on some of our programmes. This is due, no doubt, to human error; but how often does it happen in present day reporting of events that many are dissatisfied with the errors being made? If satisfaction with the present day editing and reporting is not forthcoming there is room for unease on all sides of this House with the suggestion of editing for broadcasting the Dáil proceedings. How, for instance, do we deal with the problem of Members who talk for hours on everything and anything?

Mr. Kelly

Or quote extensively from newspapers.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Or from their own speeches.

Mr. G. Collins

Could we, for instance, imagine the panic and chaos that would develop among the general public when Members, like the present Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Garret FitzGerald, would offer to make their contributions? Would people in single channel areas be forced to listen to a four or five hour contribution by people such as I have mentioned? If so, then the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs would have a problem in collecting television licence fees and advertising revenue would be unlikely to increase either.

If we had extra channels available this particular problem might be overcome, but until such time as we have extra channels we must hasten very slowly in this regard. Another problem in this regard is whether we should limit Members' speeches to facilitate television. Should we have a limit of ten minutes for each speaker? My view is that the Members of this House would not agree to this. I would suggest to the Minister that, if he can bring the Government around to his point of view on this matter, then the Government should instruct their Chief Whip to raise the matter at an early meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. Any recommendation from this body would be considered and debated by Parliament at a later stage.

I come now to the direction under section 31 of the Broadcasting Act. Some have criticised the Minister for not immediately rescinding the direction given to RTE under section 31, subsection (1), of the Broadcasting Authority Bill of 1960, upon which the Minister heaped so much abuse last November. I will not criticise the Minister for leaving it alone. Rather, I admire the clever and, perhaps, devious manner in which he has attempted to explain his acceptance of what he now admits was the legitimate purpose of the directive. The Minister bases his new-found belief in the legitimacy of the directive and its continuing usefulness and necessity on his satisfaction with the internal guidelines drawn up by the RTE Authority which I appointed last December. Bully for the Minister; bully for me, too. The Minister says he regards the operation of these guidelines, drawn up by this authority, as "constituting compliance with the legitimate purpose of the directive". Bully for the Minister; bully for me, too. The Minister adds that, because of dissatisfaction with the internal guidelines drawn up by the authority appointed by me last December, "There is, therefore, no longer any vagueness about what the directive now means, nor does the dangerous possibility any longer exist that the Minister and RTE may be interpreting the directive in different ways."

I must thank the Minister for so generously, if unintentionally, thanking me for appointing an authority who now save the nation from the dangerous possibility any longer existing that the Minister and RTE may be interpreting directives in different ways.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but it was my approval of the guidelines that clarified the situation and not the guidelines themselves.

Mr. Crowley

How pompous can you get?

Mr. G. Collins

I must express my gratitude to the Minister for being so frank even at this late stage because, by making clear that he is now satisfied with the declared objectives and operation of the guidelines for the implementation of the directive drawn up, as I say, by the authority whom I appointed last December, in the face of a barrage of abuse and warnings of threats to democracy and freedom of speech, he is admitting that there was the vital weakness in the authority whose appointment I found it necessary to terminate, in that they failed to do their job. They failed to draw up such guidelines as were necessary to implement the legitimate directive. They failed to draw up guidelines to satisfy the Minister—any Minister— and so justified my action in terminating their appointment. I am happy, indeed, that the Minister is happy that the authority appointed by me last December did their job to his satisfaction.

The broadcasting of the recent Fine Gael presidential campaign rally in the Mansion House, under the guise of an Ard-Fheis, naturally enough has caused controversy, and so well it should. If agreement had been reached to broadcast the Ard-Fheiseanna of all recognised political parties that is fair enough, provided that section 18 of the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, dealing with balance and fair play, is fully observed. By their actions last weekend, Fine Gael have shown their complete and total disregard for balance and fair play. Anybody who knows anything whatsoever about Ard-Fheiseanna will know that the Fine Gael effort on Saturday last was nothing but a cheap and sordid ready-up for the propaganda purposes of the Fine Gael presidential candidate, Mr. O'Higgins. Of course, Fine Gael billed their presidential campaign rally for Mr. O'Higgins as an Ard-Fheis to qualify for RTE radio and television coverage. Indeed, we all heard and saw what went on in the Mansion House on that occasion, thanks to RTE. It was glaringly obvious to all that what went on in no way whatever resembled an Ard-Fheis but was, in fact, as was said in The Irish Times, very similar to a Blue Shirt fascist rally of the thirties, and that is something they ought to be proud of.

Mr. Kelly

The Blue Shirts dealt in ashplants, not bags of guns.

Mr. G. Collins

Well may the Taoiseach feel utterly ashamed of his own personal conduct in his definition of Aras an Uachtaráin as being a cross between a museum and a morgue. He hoped it would not be a funeral parlour. That sort of talk coming from our Taoiseach is to be deplored. It is totally unworthy of a Taoiseach and, no doubt, will be interpreted by the people as debasing the highest office in this State.

Mr. Kelly

You cannot sink any lower than Fianna Fáil did in the past few years.

Mr. G. Collins

The public at large were horrified at the conduct of the Taoiseach and his Fine Gael Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, and at the way they deliberately deceived and misled RTE into believing that their O'Higgins rally was a mini-Ard-Fheis. Indeed, RTE executives who believed this occasion to be an Ard-Fheis were certainly duped and conned and fooled by Fine Gael. If proof of this duping or conning is necessary it can be had from the fact that Erskine Childers was chased on Sunday and given television time in an effort to restore some sort of balance and fair play. Whether a balance was restored is another matter. The important factor is that an indication of complete lack of balance was admitted, which shows plainly and clearly that the Fine Gael Party, with the blessing of their leader, Deputy Cosgrave, will descend to any level to manipulate our broadcasting service for their own party political purposes, as if it were their own personal property. I might add that all fair-minded and independently-minded people were sickened to the marrow at this cheap gimmick of the Taoiseach and his Fine Gael colleagues.

Mr. Kelly

It was widely advertised. Why did the Deputy not protest before the Ard-Fheis?

Mr. G. Collins

I learned, in reply to a parliamentary question to the Minister for Finance on Thursday, May 3rd, and from a recent statement by the Taoiseach, that the new head of the Government Information Bureau, who was so generously rewarded with the rank and title of an assistant secretary at £5,800 per year, is responsible to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

Mr. Crowley

Very significant.

Mr. G. Collins

At that salary and rank one would be hopeful for the success of this arrangement. Indeed, it was said that team work would be very evident from an early stage in this arrangement because of the very close co-operation which existed in the past between the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the new director of the GIB. I know that certain difficulties will have to be overcome in the GIB but, having the faith in human nature which I have, I have no doubt but that an attempt at success will be made without secret hidden microphones or cameras for the dissemination of coalition propaganda.

Mr. Crowley

Telescopic lenses.

Mr. G. Collins

I also learned in reply to a parliamentary question which I put down to the Minister for Finance on Thursday, May 3rd, that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has got himself a special assistant on broadcasting and related matters. Even though many people were taken unawares by this appointment and still cannot understand it, particularly the ex-colleague in RTE of this special assistant, I must confess that I was not surprised at all. My reasons for not being surprised are based on the Minister's contribution to the debate on the Estimate for this Department which was taken before Christmas. As reported at column 2500, Volume 263 of the Official Report of Thursday, 23rd November, 1972, he said:

In the old days before the existence of radio and television it might not much matter which body in the Government was put in charge of Posts and Telegraphs. It was treated as a relatively routine post, as it had been in many Cabinets. This is no longer the case. Some of the most delicate responsibilities in Government rest on the shoulders of this Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He has responsibility for dealing with an autonomous or semi-autonomous body. This is very delicate because if a Minister is speaking for his Department only his civil servants can draft speeches for him and he can come into the House and deliver those speeches and sound as good as the next man. They also draft his answers to questions and unless he is pressed too hard on supplementaries he will still sound reasonably well. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is in a slightly different position. It is not enough for him to rely on the wisdom, such as it is, of his civil servants on their experience and so on. Civil servants will be of very little help to him in guiding him as to how he deals with an autonomous organisation working under different rules. That organisation is as alien to the Minister's civil servants in its habits, outlook, its ground rules, the mentality of those who make it up, as it is to the Minister himself. The Minister, therefore, can only rely to a lesser extent than his colleagues on civil servants' advice here. It is one area where the civil servants cannot much help the Minister. He has set up the authority. He is under, perhaps, some pressure from some of his colleagues to do something about them. He, therefore, cannot rely on the authority either, so he is to a great extent alone. He has to rely on his own wisdom, such wisdom as he has, to handle so delicate a matter.

In view of that stated attitude by the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs towards his civil servants in matters concerning RTE, it follows that he considers he has the right to appoint a special assistant on broadcasting and related matters, if he feels that such an appointment is necessary and, of course, he feels the appointment is necessary.

Many people, very many people, would think that the civil servants in his Department who, I hasten to add, are tried and proven men and women over the years, would have between them more than adequate experience on which they could draw in advising the Minister with regard to his duties and functions in broadcasting affairs, which are very, very clearly defined and specifically laid out for him in the Broadcasting Authority Act of 1960. I sincerely hope that the civil servants concerned will not consider this special assistant's appointment in broadcasting, and related matters, as an indirect and veiled "vote of no confidence" in their ability as advisers on these matters. I would not think that there is any reason for concern within the Department at all, but I suppose the question is probably being asked there, as I know it is within Radio Telefís Éireann, as to what exactly this special assistant on broadcasting and related matters will advise the Minister on. Will he, this special assistant, be called on to draw from his experience in audience research to advise on matters in which the Minister, under the Broadcasting Authority Act, has no role whatsoever? Perhaps the Minister will tell the House why he feels he should be advised on audience research. We all know that he has no legal right to interfere in any way with the day-to-day running of the RTE organisation except in very, very special circumstances. It might be said by those who would be unkind to the Minister that he himself has latent talents and probably sees in himself a future director of broadcasting—that is, of course, when the present Coalition have been brought to their knees. I am not sure whether or not the Minister would entertain such ideas, or ever had them in the past, but, if such is the case, then he might declare his hand to the general public who would certainly be more than interested.

I am not sure whether the Minister will agree with me when I say that it is always better to come out in the open in the beginning rather than be smoked out like the infamous "mongrel foxes" that we heard so much about and, indeed, I would have admired the Minister if, in his statement on this particular appointment, he specifically spelled out the unknown fact of his being the father-in-law of his special assistant——

An Ceann Comhairle

It is not in order, as the Deputy must fully know, to reflect upon a Member, or upon a member of his family, in this fashion.

Mr. G. Collins

I am not reflecting in any way whatsoever on the person involved here.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is not in order. I have given the Deputy a great deal of latitude. This is also, in a veiled way, an attack upon public servants and, again, that is not in order, as the Deputy well knows. It is not in order to attack people who cannot defend themselves in this House. I must ask the Deputy not to advert in any way to the family associations of a Member of this House.

Mr. Crowley

It is a reflection on Mr. Simms having a father-in-law——

An Ceann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Collins.

Mr. G. Collins

Before leaving this particular point, I would like the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to know that I do not necessarily share the view of the many in Radio Telefís Éireann and elsewhere that the Minister would indulge in nepotism. Indeed, I have hopes that time will prove me right, particularly if we ever hear from the Minister in this vast field of audience research, in which he, as Minister, has no role to play.

I move:

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. Kelly)

One of the most important functions which the Minister has is that contained in section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act. A thing which is not sufficiently understood is the fact that this Act was presented in Bill form to this House in either 1959 or 1960 by the then Minister, Mr. Hilliard, and, when the debate on section 31 took the form of certain apprehensions by the then Opposition that the section might be used to muzzle the new broadcasting service, Mr. Hilliard assured the House that the section was only to be used in extreme cases and it was the way in which the concern of the Government in a matter of public importance would be brought to the attention of the Broadcasting Authority.

The significance of section 31 is that a direction given by the Minister under the section remains on the record. It has to be a written direction and there is no way afterwards of denying that it was given. There is no way of denying afterwards that an interference, a legitimate interference envisaged and provided for by statue, actually took place. It is not. I think, sufficiently understood by the public that this section has got two subsections; one of these provides for the prohibition of the broadcasting of certain material and the other deals with the situation in which the Minister can direct, also in writing, that certain material be actually broadcast. It is common knowledge that under the last Government interferences of various kinds, or directions of various kinds, were given to the Broadcasting Authority; some of them had what one might call perfectly legitimate public purposes, such as the statements made by a Minister in order to alert public opinion to the danger of foot and mouth disease. Others were not legitimate—for example, the killing of programmes which had already been made. This is the significant point; on several occasions——

Ruairí Brugha

May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question? What programmes does he suggest the previous Government directed should not be used?

Mr. Kelly

I will tell the Deputy. The reason why I can be positive about it is because I myself took part in one of these programmes and I am still waiting to see it screened.

Ruairí Brugha

What programme was it?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order. This is not Question Time. Deputies will get an ample opportunity to ventilate their views on this Estimate.

Mr. Kelly

The Minister knows about this and I will leave it to him to deal with it. The point about section 31 is that, on several occasions, the previous Government were asked by way of parliamentary question how often that section had been invoked, and until that section was invoked last year, or late in 1971, in regard to publicity being given to subversive organisations, it never had been used; in other words, the only statutory way in which the Broadcasting Authority could be lawfully interfered with never was actually used. Telephone calls were used, whispers in the ear, directions given in every and any form other than the form prescribed and recognised by the statute, and represented to this House and to the Seanad as the only way in which the Government could give directions to the Authority either by way of prohibition or by way of directing the broadcasting of particular material. The only instance, so far as I am aware, if the answers to parliamentary questions are to be believed, in which this section was used as it should have been used—I mean by that used for the purpose for which it was intended—was in the instance in regard to subversive organisations.

That led to the building up of a certain degree of suspicion. If it exists today—and clearly it does if we are to judge by what Deputy Colley had the outrageous impertinence to say last Saturday—it is entirely due to the behaviour of the former Government. They interfered with RTE sometimes in ways which were perfectly legitimate and unobjectionable in the sense that the object was a fair public object—I instance the time of the foot and mouth scare—and in other cases in which the object was not legitimate. There may be instances of interference of which no record remains and of which there is no public knowledge. If there is an air of suspicion around the situation of RTE and their relations with the Government, the former Government are to blame. They were in office for 16 years and during that time there was only one single instance, if we are to judge from the replies given from members of the previous Government, of an interference being clothed in the proper, and only proper, statutory form. That has led to an atmosphere of suspicion in which it is now possible for Deputy Colley to grab a headline alleging, as he did last Saturday, that RTE had misbehaved not just in a general way but in direct breach of their statutory duties and that the Government, who also have a name to keep up and who attach some value to their own honour, had permitted and he said, almost certainly demanded this breach.

I recognise political comment which takes the form of an opinion. I do not mind the Government being called gimmick-mongers by Deputy G. Collins. The Deputy knows as well as I do that this is an unjustified accusation. It is an expression of opinion issued in a currency which is recognised in political life. To make a specific accusation is a quite separate matter. It is a serious matter. When the professional statutory duty of identifiable individuals is concerned, as is the case here, and when the honour of the Government is at stake, as it is here, I consider that the Deputy has at least the same duty to look into the facts before he makes a statement, as the broadcast editors, to which Deputy Collins referred, have. He has a greater responsibility because he is a man who, if not exactly canonised, has been held out somewhat as the official Fianna Fáil saint. The Deputy may not be regarded actually a saint but he is well up among the Blesseds and the Venerables. When Deputy Colley makes a statement like that he is being absolutely reckless in not ensuring whether the statement was true or false. This is disgraceful beyond words.

There were two quite separate issues here in regard to the Broadcasting Authority and what happened on the occasion to which Deputy Colley referred. Deputy G. Collins referred to this matter again this morning. It may be that the Fianna Fáil Government were not sensitive to allegations that they interfered with RTE officials or executives. This Government are sensitive to allegations of this kind. I am not a member of the Government, but I am sensitive because I am an officer and supporter of the Government, and I dislike having allegations made, even though these allegations are ones which the Fianna Fáil hide is thick enough to be able to ignore.

We dislike having misstatements of fact made up by people who have been held up by the Fianna Fáil Party as monuments of respectability and particularly when an invitation to withdraw a misstatement of fact is treated with prevarication and contempt. That is the only adequate description for what Deputy Colley has done over the last few days.

There are a couple of separate issues here. I would like to try to disentangle them. We will be getting this later on in the debate and I would like to keep the issues separate. So far as I can understand Deputy Colley's allegation in regard to the broadcast of the Fine Gael Ard Fheis, it falls into two parts. First, Deputy Colley's argument seems to run like this: that to represent this meeting as an Ard Fheis at all was a fraud. Secondly, to allow it, accordingly, to go out under the terms of the agreement reached between the parties was a fraud on the part of RTE, not to speak of the public.

There are a few things to be said about that. They are relevant in the larger frame of the question of the alleged interference with RTE. I would like to disentangle these two questions by saying a few words about the Ard Fheis. Did Deputy Colley seriously expect that when the Ard Fheis was held on a date fixed very shortly after the last Ard Fheis, we should avoid all reference to the presidential contest which was going to take place a fortnight later? Alternatively, did Deputy Colley expect that we might have postponed our Ard Fheis until after the presidential contest to free ourselves from the faintest shadow of suspicion that we were using the Ard Fheis as a platform for our presidential candidate? These are rhetorical questions. Deputy Colley could not have expected such a thing. Did Fianna Fáil ever choose such quixotry? Did any political party on the earth ever choose such quixotry? Does Deputy Colley seriously suppose that the Fine Gael Party ought not to have used the opportunity of their Ard Fheis, which was planned months before the presidential election was announced, and even before the general election was announced, and the date widely known, to further our presidential candidate? Does he seriously think the Irish public would have regarded us as anything other than a pack of children if we had not done so? It is disingenuous of Deputy Colley to tell the public that in some way we are at fault for having used the occasion in the way we did.

I would like to know what the Fianna Fáil position would have been had they not cancelled their Ard Fheis and had the Presidential Election coincided with it. Would they have scrubbed from the programme any and all references to their presidential candidate? I have lived in Ireland practically all my life and anything I know of Fianna Fáil leads me to believe that they, too, would have done their best to ensure that their Ard Fheis would have been a platform for their presidential candidate. I believe the Labour Party would have done the same.

I freely admit—and it would be disingenuous on my part if I did not do so—that the proceedings were shorter than those of the ordinary Ard Fheis because we did not want to interrupt the presidential campaign, and were somewhat built around the presidential candidate. I do not see that that deprived the meeting of its character of an Ard Fheis. I do not see that it in any way invalidates the arrangement made with RTE last January and known to all three parties. It was widely advertised as soon as the presidential whistle blew that the Fine Gael Ard Fheis was going to be used in part as a platform for the presidential candidate of the National Coalition—not a Fine Gael candidate or a Labour Party candidate, but a National Coalition candidate. Deputy Colley could not have been in ignorance of that beforehand. Deputy G. Collins could not have been in ignorance of it beforehand. Their party organisation could not have been in ignorance beforehand. Why did they not go to RTE and say: "We cannot now go along with this arrangement for live coverage by RTE even though it was arranged last January, because it now appears that the Fine Gael Ard Fheis will no longer belong in the category of party conference as ordinarily understood, and accordingly the basis of the agreement falls to the ground." Why did that not happen? Why was there no protest then?

Ruairí Brugha

Would that not be more interference?

Mr. Kelly

There would be nothing to stop the Fianna Fáil Party from communicating with the Director General of RTE or the party secretary and saying: "In reference to our agreement reached last January it now appears to us that the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis no longer partakes of the quality of a party conference; it is going to be used for a different purpose, and we consider that either the arrangement should be off or some other arrangement should be substituted which will give our candidate a fair share of the balance." That was not done and, in my opinion, it was not done because Deputy Colley, saint though he be, wished to have it to say afterwards that the Government had committed a gross abuse of power. He wished to have it to say afterwards that the RTE Authority had grossly abused their statutory obligations. He wished to have it to say afterwards that the honour both of the Government and the Broadcasting Authority was in the mud, not beforehand.

Ruairí Brugha

That is a biased assumption.

Mr. Kelly

Beidh deis ag an Teachta Brugha a chuid tuairimí a nochtadh amach anseo.

Ruairí Brugha

Is tuairim chlaonta í.

Mr. Kelly

Níl comparáid ar bith idir an claonadh atá mé féin ag cur ar na rudaí agus an méid a bhí á rá ag Gerry Collins.

Deputy Colley, Deputy Collins, anybody on the Fianna Fáil side, could have made a public protest about the fact that was widely advertised. There was no misunderstanding about it. Everyone who took an interest in politics knew that the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis was going to be used, in part, for the advertisement of the Coalition candidate. No whisper of protest was made beforehand even though that party knew that those proceedings were going to be broadcast because they wanted to be able to say something low about the Government and about RTE afterwards.

What they did do, apart from saying something about the Government and RTE, which was untrue, was to immediately ask RTE for a balancing-up operation which would display their own candidate at peak viewing time and they duly got it. I want to make it clear that I am not alleging that in the matter of the balancing-up or so-called balancing-up programme RTE behaved improperly in submitting to Fianna Fáil pressure because my understanding is that RTE themselves had considered, even before the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis, that a problem of balance might arise. That is my understanding. It is second or third hand admittedly and I do not mean to make it authoritative. I have no right to do so. I merely want to say that, although I understand Fianna Fáil did contact RTE I am not alleging that what happened on the Sunday night was the result of the Fianna Fáil pressure. It may have been but I understand that the question of balance was in the minds of RTE even beforehand.

It seems to me that if RTE, whether as a result of Fianna Fáil pressure or not, have conceded now some form of what might be called balance, although I am not accepting that it was right to do so, that is setting a precedent which the other side, which any side, may find an embarrassment in the future. Let us look back to 1966. On that occasion of the presidential election there was the coincidence that it was the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. The Fianna Fáil presidential candidate, even though he occupied the office of President and was supposed to be above politics, was announced at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis from the platform by the then Taoiseach. That was the context in which his candidacy was first definitely announced.

Mr. Briscoe

Was that televised?

Mr. Kelly

There was a nice distinction which everyone in the country is familiar with. In his role of President, and perfectly justifiably the most conspicuous survivor of the Rising, the occupier of the Presidential office got enormous coverage in the period covering Easter and thereafter. He was never off the television screen. The Fine Gael candidate got no such coverage. The question of balance did not seem to occupy Deputy Colley then as anxiously as it does now. There was no question then on the part of Deputy Colley about a gross abuse by the authority of this or that and there were no allegations by him then that the Government, which was quite separate from the party, I hope, had in any way soiled their honour by bringing pressure to bear.

That performance of RTE in 1966 may easily have cost the Fine Gael candidate the office of President in that year. Every Deputy on the far side of the House knows that. No balancing programmes were put out then but a precedent seems to have been established now. It may not have been as the result of the pressure but it certainly was accompanied by pressure brought by Fianna Fáil whereby if the coincidence occurs of a pending election with something which is, in any case, going to give a particular political interest some publicity there must be a balancing-up. I would like to ask the Deputies opposite this question. Suppose it happens that their next Ard-Fheis coincides with a bye-election; suppose Fianna Fáil hold their next Ard-Fheis in February and suppose there is a bye-election on 1st March, I will be watching very carefully, if I am still here, to see what goes on. If I find their bye-election candidate given coverage at the Ard-Fheis beyond what a normal delegate or a normal Deputy would get, we will be looking for a balancing-up programme. Make no mistake about that. It will not be a question of the Government bringing pressure to bear, it will be a question of the Party Whip, the Government Whip or whoever is occupying the job I now have, looking for a balancing-up. Bear that in mind. It is the Opposition that have created that precedent.

Even if they have not been responsible for creating it, they have acquiesced in it and its creation was accompanied by their pressure in that direction. Accordingly, I reject as absolutely disingenuous, absolutely unfair, less than worthy of a man with qualities entitling him to be the official saint of the Fianna Fáil Party, the allegation that in some way the Government or even the Fine Gael Party were to blame in running their Ard-Fheis as they saw fit particularly because that fact was widely known and could have been protested about, not by bringing pressure to bear but by ordinary communication with the Whips and RTE beforehand. That was not done and it was not done, in my belief, because Mr. Colley, Deputy Childers's director of elections, and although I do not wish to say anything about Deputy Childers he cannot entirely escape from the reproach which Mr. Colley must submit to——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Colley.

Mr. Kelly

——and from which he has not succeeded in extricating himself. It was a disingenuous attitude to take about the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis and in so far as that was tied up with an arrangement to broadcast the meeting live it was doubly disingenuous because the whole thing could have been thrashed out beforehand.

Not two weeks ago I had in my office in this House two gentlemen from RTE and the Fianna Fáil Whip and we were discussing broadcasts for the Presidential election. This was before the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis. It may have been three weeks ago, but not more. We had an amicable and civilised discussion and we reached agreement in regard to the broadcast on behalf of Presidential candidates. Not one word was said by the Fianna Fáil Whip about any question of extra broadcasts or extra balance which might arise in consequence of the pending Fine Gael Ard-Fheis, the content and nature of which was well-known in the country. Not a word. It would have been open to him then, in my office, 20 yards away from here, to say: "We will have a problem of balance arising from the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis, if you are to use it to give coverage to the National Coalition candidate."

Mr. Briscoe

Is the Parliamentary Secretary saying that it is well known that the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis was to be a rally for the presidential candidate.

Mr. Kelly

Deputy Briscoe knows the score very well. The Ard-Fheis was much more than a rally for the Presidential candidate. It consisted of a long presidential address which did not refer at all to the presidential election. There were speeches made in which the presidential candidacy got only very little mention but I admit freely that it was planned and known that the Ard-Fheis would be used, not purely as a presidential rally, but as a platform for the presidential candidate. If the Fianna Fáil Whip were doing his job, it ought to have been known to him that the Ard-Fheis would be given TV coverage. I consider that it would have been decent and proper to have raised the matter then rather than to have waited until afterwards. Even before then it would have been better to have raised any question of balance there might have been and not to have waited for ten days to give Deputy Colley the opportunity of making a low and disgraceful accusation not only about the Government but about the RTE Authority also.

I want to deal now with the more concrete question of the supposed interference by the Government as distinct from the impropriety of Fine Gael treating the Ard-Fheis the way they did. In the Sunday Independent of 20th May, 1973, Deputy Colley is quoted as having said that RTE had flagrantly breached their legal and moral responsibilities by the coverage which they gave to the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis and he then said, as reported, that the Government had displayed an absolute lack of integrity by not only permitting, but almost certainly demanding, this breach of RTE's solemn obligations.

I do not mind Deputy Colley saying that the Government had no integrity. Such language is common political abuse or, as a lawyer would call it, vulgar abuse, abuse which is not actionable because nobody pays any heed to it. But I mind very much when Deputy Colley says that the Government had almost certainly demanded this breach. Even assuming that there was a breach, which I do not accept, I mind very much hearing him make this accusation without having a shred of evidence to back it up. Maybe he thought he had evidence. Certainly, he has had two opportunities in response to statements issued by me to produce that evidence but it has not been forthcoming. I asked him specifically to withdraw the allegation he had made that the Government had permitted this breach. I am not sure about the word "permitted" but the only way one cannot permit something is to forbid it and I admit freely that under section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, the Government did not forbid the live broadcasting of their Ard-Fheis. Where is the evidence for the almost certain demand? That is a very serious and deliberate allegation and is quite seperate from saying that we are a crowd of hypocrites and scoundrels. This is a distinct allegation by an ex-Minister, by the director of elections for Deputy Childers, an allegation made, presumably, with Deputy Childers's knowledge although, I hope, without his knowledge and still less without his approval. Whether the broadcast was a breach is a separate question. I do not believe it was.

RTE promptly issued a statement explaining that the arrangements in regard to this coverage had been made with the concurrence of the parties in January last and that the first beneficiary of the arrangement would have been Fianna Fáil if they had gone ahead with their Ard-Fheis in February. It is usual for us to hold our Ard-Fheis during the weekend of the second or third week in May. RTE did not deny specifically the Minister's allegation but I denied it the next day. I had authority for denying it. No such demand was made. I call on Deputy Colley to withdraw the allegation. It is discreditable to tell a lie and more discreditable when, on being told that it is an untruth, to persist in it. That discredit must attach not only to Deputy Colley but to the presidential candidate whose election he is running. I am sorry to have to say that because in my short experience in public life I have never had any reason to believe that Deputy Childers was anything but an honourable man. Deputy Colley owes it not only to Deputy Childers but to his own party to withdraw the allegation. In his persistence in the allegation he is allowing the public to conclude that he is willing that Deputy Childers should win votes on the strength of a lie.

No demand, intervention or interference of any kind came from the Government to RTE in regard to the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis. Deputy Colley's reaction to my first statement as reported in The Irish Times, was that if the Taoiseach's Parliamentary Secretary could assure him publicly either that the Government were not aware that the Mansion House proceedings would be in the form of a rally for the Fine Gael candidate for the presidential election, or that the Government were not aware that the proceedings were being broadcast, he would withdraw his statement regarding the Government's lack of integrity and abuse of power. The Minister is reported also in the same paper as saying that until the Parliamentary Secretary gives such assurance, his statement stands. He knows the answer to both questions he raised. It is disingenuous of him to be asking me to say that the Government were not aware of what was going to happen. Of course individual members of the Government knew what would happen. “Disingenuous” is a word not far removed from the word “dishonest”. As it happens I did not know about the live coverage and that ignorance may possibly have been shared by gentlemen who are members of the Government but I would not deny that the knowledge existed among most, if not all, members of the Government.

Why ask me to deny something which the Deputy knows I cannot deny and, in particular, why attach these conditions to the withdrawal of a statement which he knows is false? Why should I say: "I will admit that there are two Deputies on the front bench over there if you admit that there are brass handles on the door on the top of the lobby?" I am sorry that the Deputy is not here. I must say that in any dealings I have ever had with him, I have never found him to be crooked but I am disappointed with him on this occasion. I must say, by way of warning to the other side, that any discredit which Deputy Colley has collected from this episode is in danger of rebounding on his own candidate. I will shed no tears about that aspect of it.

Mr. Dowling

The Parliamentary Secretary must have a guilty conscience or he would not have gone to such extremes to explain himself. A few words would have explained that. I pity the man sitting in front of him.

Mr. Kelly

He is well able to look after himself.

Mr. Dowling

The "clap-in" of Saturday last has made an immense amount of difference.

Mr. Kelly

In my first statement I said that Deputy Colley must have known about the broadcast in advance because the Chief Whip of his party had been privy to the arrangements made in January last. Deputy Colley, who is the front window man for the Fianna Fáil Party, in his reply to my statement said that I had said he must have been informed by the Chief Whip of Fianna Fáil about arrangements made by RTE in relation to the proposed coverage of annual party conferences and he said that since the Chief Whip was never consulted about any such matters, he could hardly have informed him. Technically, that is correct and I was wrong, therefore, in mentioning the Chief Whip. I had been told that arrangements were made with the party and I assumed that meant, with the Whips. However, I discovered afterwards that the arrangements were made through the party secretaries, and I was technically wrong in imputing to Deputy Colley knowledge which Deputy Andrews must have had.

But is this an answer? Is this not what we were told as children was a prevarication, the next thing to a lie? If Deputy Andrews did not know, Senator Ó Maoláin knew, and if Senator Ó Maoláin knew, am I to suppose the rest of the Fianna Fáil Party did not know. Imagine a man who was Minister for Finance three months ago and who is running the Fianna Fáil presidential campaign, sheltering behind a miserable prevarication like that. Why could he not have the guts to say: "Yes, I did. Even through Mr. Kelly is wrong in saying it was the Chief Whip, I knew because the party secretary told me." I regard that as unworthy beyond words. If it came from somebody else I might have had less to say about it, but I am amazed at a man with the stature of Deputy Colley putting out or being advised to put out a reply of that kind to what I said. He refused to withdraw a statement which he knows is false and which he has been repeatedly told is false, and he is allowing his candidate to get the benefit, if there is any benefit, of that untruth.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would the Parliamentary Secretary give the source of the last quotation?

Mr. Kelly

It comes from the same source. It is further on in the same statement in The Irish Times of 22nd May. These now are my remarks about this episode. I will not have an opportunity to speak again except in a disorderly way, by way of interruption, and I do not want to have to do that unless provoked. I regard this entire episode as reflecting three things that are significant in the whole context of the sphere of national life under the care of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It reflects, firstly, the atmosphere of intense distrust in regard to relations between RTE and the Government for which the previous Government are entirely to blame. Secondly, it reflects an apparent and, to me, very surprising insensitivity on the part of Deputy Colley and, I am sorry to say, of the candidate whom he is sponsoring, to the damaging nature of a falsehood, and their insensitivity to the moral position in which the two of them are now placed by their persistent refusal to withdraw that falsehood and to acknowledge that it was made, perhaps, by mistake. If Deputy Colley says: “I was mistaken in thinking the Government had demanded or almost certainly demanded interference with RTE.” If he says: “I was acting on impulse or suspicion”. I will accept that gracefully, and I am sure the Government will as well. Unless and until Deputy Colley does that, nothing but the worst construction can be placed on his part in this entire episode.

Mr. Briscoe

I shall leave it to my colleague, Deputy Brugha, to deal with the nitty gritty of what the Parliamentary Secretary has been saying in relation to the presidential broadcast. As a former member of the RTE Authority he would be more au fait with the rules and regulations that apply to that body in relation to broadcasting certain items.

I think the best judges of whether or not a television station is acting in a biased manner are the public. The public can tell by the kind of presentation and the way matters are presented whether it is biased or not. While the Parliamentary Secretary is still here let me say I thought it was a pity that many times, before the Parliamentary Secretary was even a member of the Seanad, he was invited as a professor of constitutional law and as a supposedly unbiased commentator to take part in programmes and comment on various things. I used to burn at this, because I knew that Professor Kelly was a member of the Fine Gael Party and I felt that the public had the right to know that anyone who was put on any talk show or public affairs programme to give his comments on a situation should at least be able to tell the public: "I am a member of a political party, but I am speaking objectively on this." At least the people should be let know and judge for themselves, and I think they would think far more of a man——

Professor Kelly

It might interest the Deputy to know—and it is one of my more treasured memories—that I was once personally congratulated by Deputy Lynch for the fairminded way in which I had commented on the Criminal Justice Bill.

Mr. Moore

It shows how fairminded Deputy Lynch is.

Mr. Briscoe

I do not want to damn the Parliamentary Secretary with praise either by saying he has the ability to be objective, but there were many times when I felt, looking on, that he was not always that objective, and if he disagreed he certainly disagreed much more energetically than if he had not had a vested interest in disagreeing on a particular topic. However, I am not pointing directly at the Parliamentary Secretary, but there are many people who have appeared from time to time on programmes about whom these remarks could be made. To come back to the television service, the increase in the television fee is something which will be of considerable public concern. There is a large section of the community that feels it is not getting as good value as it might. The staff in RTE runs somewhere in the region of 1,400 to 1,500. The Minister, when he is replying, can give the precise figure, but that is roughly the number. A station catering for an equivalent number of people, or not even equivalent to our population, say, in England, where the midland region of the BBC would be catering for about ten million people, would have a staff of 800 or 900. There is a real need to examine the structure in RTE and the tremendoulsy high overheads we have. I am not sure whether the number of procedures is 150 or 400, but there is an enormous number of them, people who have contracts and who might do one programme in the course of a year. I would like to see an examination of the accounts for some years past. It would not have to be in the reign of this Government, say, 1967 or 1968. Some committee should examine the kind of expenditure that has been going on because I believe there are extravagances.

As regards films made abroad, for example in regard to entry to EEC, I saw only one of these, one from Norway, which voted against membership. This Norwegian film was excellent but it must have cost at least £25,000 for half an hour or an hour, but the length of the film is irrelevant. That is a lot of money for one programme. It may have cost less or it may have cost even more, but this is the kind of extravagance we cannot afford. I believe we could have gone to the Norwegian television service which must have some excellent films on Norway. If some foreign television service wanted to show a film on Ireland they might go to RTE and ask: "Have you got a film which we could show on Ireland?" and I am sure RTE could come up with an excellent film. There is too much trying to imitate what the big networks like the BBC, ABC, NBC, are doing. We are not in that league. We should be able to rely on their resources by renting films from these companies.

When we talk about increasing the television fee, the Irish people have a right to know if the money is being well spent. At the moment, RTE are getting not only the licence fee but advertising fees as well. In Britain, the Independent Television Authority have to rely on advertising and the BBC have to rely on license fees. As we cannot manage on licence fees and advertising it appears that something is radically wrong. The Minister might consider setting up a special committee to examine how the money is being spent. I do not mean to put people into a strait-jacket and to restrict them, but if the authority had regard to the fact that a Government committee could examine their accounts and see how money was being expended, I imagine there would be a certain reluctance to spend money extravagantly and that when authorising a film in a certain country they would examine the cost more carefully.

I heard the Minister stating on television that he personally thought about section 31 and also stating the Government's policy in this matter. It is not good enough for a Minister to say he has a personal opinion but that he must go against it. If he has strong personal convictions, he should be strong enough to say he cannot work within the restrictions if he is not able to exercise his rights over his Department as he considers they should be exercised. In such a situation he should accept he has no right to be a Minister. It is no use whatever for the Minister to say that although he personally may be against section 31 he will keep it until there is something else to replace it. That does not ring true. In any case, I think the people in RTE are aware that if they get out of line the Minister will probably descend on them with a greater savagery than any of his predecessors——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Did my predecessors show savagery? The Deputy said I would show a greater savagery —therefore they showed savagery?

Mr. Briscoe

I think the Minister would be more sensitive to criticism or to anyone going against his wishes. It is a fact of life that the greater the liberal in Opposition the greater the despot in office and I think these people will find this out pretty quickly, if they do not realise it already.

I should like to commend some of the programmes on RTE. The morning programme "Here and Now" is a popular programme but I should like to hear shorter interviews. In all radio and television programmes the purpose should be to entertain and inform. Primarily it is to entertain but if it can inform through entertainment that is very good. However, a number of people take themselves far too seriously in what they present and it tends to become too ponderous. When people turn on their radios in the morning they want to be cheered up. A three, four or five minute interview with an interesting person who comes to town is excellent but when we get someone each morning who has an axe to grind it makes hard listening for many people. There should be more thought given to the entertainment value of the programmes.

On the whole the interviewing standards are very good but the selection of subjects makes the programmes too heavy. The "Enterprise" programme on television is worthy of praise. The presenters are not out to do a hatchet job; they set out to show the facts and do an excellent job. I like their style and their presentation of the programme.

The "7 Days" programme now has far greater balance than it had some years ago. To me it is not such a mystery why it lacked balance in the past when one sees the manner in which the previous editor has been rewarded for his services——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Is it in order to attack a public servant in that manner?

Mr. Briscoe

I did not name him.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

He was identifiable.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister has certainly identified him positively——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

He was identifiable from the Deputy's statement, and the Deputy knows it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The normal procedure is that in this House we should not criticise anyone who is identifiable.

Mr. Briscoe

All I said was that the "7 Days" programme now has far more balance and that it is clear now why the previous programme lacked balance. I do not withdraw that.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Deputy got his innuendo in.

Mr. Briscoe

I should not be surprised to see if another contributor to a programme which I will not name at this juncture is rewarded shortly for his selectivity in what he puts out on the air. Objectivity should be precious to the profession of journalism but, unfortunately, there are a number of journalists who have lost their objectivity although they may not realise it. Sometimes they forget that Fianna Fáil are out of office, that they can relax a little and be more objective.

The programme "It Says in the Papers" was an excellent one but it has deteriorated because the same person presents it morning after morning. When they had a number of people presenting the programme it was very good but now that the same person presents it each morning, reading certain selected pieces, it has become a drag and has lost its impact.

RTE should invite different journalists to take part in this programme.

Everyone regrets that the programme presented by Tom MacCuaigh each morning has ceased. This was an excellent item which everyone enjoyed and, at least, one knew the time when this piece was broadcast. It appears from reports that too much work was involved in answering people's queries and, consequently, the programme was discontinued. This little programme should have been extended rather than taken off. It was unkind to take it off.

When there are as many producers in a service as there are in RTE at the moment many people with talent tend to get crushed. There is a tendency for established producers to be jealous of talent. When a new person appears on the scene, as it were, and begins to make his mark, immediately the forces line up against him—he has become a threat to the others. This is one of the unfortunate faults that exist in our society at large and not peculiarly in RTE.

One of the things I am glad about as far as the political programmes are concerned is that my party is no longer outnumbered two to one. We can now meet our opposite numbers on an equal basis. Heretofore there were one Fine Gael, one Labour and one Fianna Fáil representative. Of course Labour and Fine Gael always united against us and we had that to contend with as well as the additional air time they had. Particularly in programmes such as "Today in the Dáil", this in effect meant a tremendous bias in their favour. I am glad to see things are now equal, one Coalition and one Fianna Fáil. I was afraid at one stage they might still insist on having one per party. In a sense this helps the Coalition because people like fairness.

On the matter of censorship on television, one must remember that a newspaper is not paid for out of the taxpayers' money but radio and television are. Therefore, the taxpayer has a right and we as his representatives have a right to be able to comment on what is shown on radio and television.

I wish to pay a tribute to the outgoing members of the RTE Authority. There were some excellent people among them. In a sense it was regrettable that some of them had to participate in the circumstances that existed. The Minister in his opening speech said they were courageous to go in in such circumstances. Although I do not know all the new appointees to the new authority, I was delighted to see people like Mr. Charles McCarthy among them. He is a fine type of man. I was also glad to see the Editor of the Farmers' Journal among the new authority members. I have no doubt he will have an excellent contribution to make, as will Mr. John Robb, the surgeon.

We all look forward to the growth of talent within the station. For instance, at one time I was very critical of "The Late Late Show" because I felt that Gay Byrne was somewhat unfeeling towards some of the victims he had on the programme. I felt that the last thing I should like to do would be to go on to his programme.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy knows that the general procedure is not to attribute either blame or praise.

Mr. Briscoe

I should just like to say I think he has matured enormously in the last few years—he probably will not thank me for saying it. He now has a greater compassion and a greater kindness towards his guests. Whether people in the audience agree or disagree, he offers them some protection which they did not get earlier. The show has matured noticeably and has become an excellent programme, as good as any talking show I have seen in the US. I am sure it will continue along those lines.

I have more or less covered the points I wish to make. I hope the journalists in RTE, particularly in the public affairs programmes, will be able to maintain their objectivity. On this side we are not over-sensitive to criticism—it is the stuff of which politics is made—but we like the criticism to be fair and we like to be given an opportunity to put our case. The debate on this Estimate is the one occasion in the year when politicians can have "a go” at the broadcasting media. During the rest of the year we are their victims and they can treat us kindly or unkindly. Of course we should not be treated too kindly. It is a fact of life that a person who is a nice fellow does not succeed as well as the fellow who is not so nice.

I wish the Minister luck in his work and I hope he will get the kind of co-operation he hopes for from the authority without having to be called on to interfere, a word which is used so frequently today.

Mr. Bermingham

There are only a few points I want to make. I congratulate the Minister on bringing a new dimension to the Department. I look to him to make this a cultural Ministry. I wish to congratulate him also on his efforts to provide a multichannel television service. I hope his efforts will succeed in a short time because, if our TV service is to develop properly, it must have competition with other services throughout the entire State. The other services may have better opportunities to present programmes than our national service, which is financed by such a small community comparatively. That is why I say that the proper development of our television service will be assured if it is in competition with those outside stations.

I have very little knowledge of the TV service or of the radio service except as a limited viewer and listener. In that capacity it seems to me that the radio and television services do not seem to work in co-operation with one another. I accept that there are many tastes to be catered for and that it is a difficulty in running a television service.

If an effort is made to cater for one type of audience complaints follow from other people. I think, however, that when a particular type of programme is being shown on television something of a different nature should be broadcast on the radio. In the matter of sport, in particular, where an event is being televised the radio should be used to cater for those people who have no interest in that event. I am aware that the Minister is working hard to improve the service. I wish him luck in doing so and I have no doubt he will be successful.

On the Post Office services I have a number of comments to make. It might be said that these would be better voiced by a trade unionist and I am not trying to take from any trade union in making these comments. Travelling through the country in the early hours of the morning one sees a number of people working in rural post offices. These people seem to take up duty as early as 5 o'clock in the morning. I cannot grasp the necessity for such an early start, particularly in rural areas. In the areas I have in mind nobody would be up for three or four hours later. It must be possible, therefore, to operate a more humane kind of service in those areas.

While on Post Office services I should like to raise the question of auxiliary postmen. These officials work all their lives for the Post Office but the standards laid down to remunerate them are a disgrace. I look to the new Minister to do something to improve their conditions. There are people in this grade who are working for a miserable wage despite the fact that they work up to six hours each day. These men are doing the same type of work as those who qualify for full pension rights and gratuity. After 40 years of service they retire without pension and on a very small gratuity. There should be better social thinking in this regard. The treatment of such officials has been a disgrace to the postal service and to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs down the years. The same standards of efficiency are required of these officials as of the people who have a different standard when it comes to pension and gratuity.

There is also the question—and this is something which the trade unions have been fighting for many years—of the right of postal officials to take part in the normal political life of the country. In rural areas the postman is, naturally, a politician because he meets the people every day on his delivery rounds. For this reason it is a pity that he is debarred from taking part in the normal party political operations within his society. Some of these postmen are engaged in this type of work behind closed doors and I am sure the Minister appreciates that.

It is a pity that these men do not have the right to express themselves and play a normal part in the political life of the country. Something should be done to give them an opportunity of being candidates for local authority elections. This would be a progressive move for the men in the Post Office and for the country, particularly in the rural areas where talent is at a premium. I believe that postmen and junior postal officials have this right in Northern Ireland and, that being the case, I cannot see any reason why the same should not apply here.

In small post offices in rural areas there is the question of understaffing. Positions, such as that of postmaster, are left vacant for long periods. The present Minister is not to blame for this because he is taking over a service which has not been looked after in previous years. Postmen should also be given the opportunity of promotion in their own area. There should be postal sorters in all offices. This would create an outlet and a step of promotion for postmen. Postmen, after many years on bicycle rounds, should be given an opportunity of reaching the position of postal sorter in their own area in later life.

In dealing with the telephone service I will not be as critical as a number of people have been. There are a lot of faults but this service has been developing very rapidly and the use of the telephone has developed out of all proportion. There is the matter, however, of rural areas without a public telephone service. It is possible that they do not comply with the standards laid down by the Department to qualify for a telephone kiosk. I believe that, where a county council states that a telephone kiosk is needed in a certain area, a telephone should be provided.

That is not a bad idea. I think it is reasonable.

The county council in my county asked the Department last year to supply five telephones. They understood that the guarantee was for one year. They were not doing too badly in guaranteeing the Post Office for one year but the Post Office said it would have to be for five years. That is a bit unreasonable because, eventually, all these places will have to be served with telephones and telephone kiosks. If we are to give the rural community the kind of opportunity and the kind of protection in times of stress to which they are entitled, eventually they will have to be provided with these services. There is some demand for them or the county council would not be prepared to give any guarantee. They hold, and rightly so, that the operation of the telephone service is a matter for the Department but, in deference to the people in those areas, they were prepared to go some distance and, in the case I mentioned they were prepared to guarantee one year free of loss to the Department. In some cases there would have been no loss but the Department still demanded a five-year guarantee. That is too long.

I appreciate that the Minister has problems and no one expects him to solve them all at once. The places I am talking about are small communities. but they are not all that small. At night-time if there is an accident and a doctor is needed, the people have no way of communicating with anybody. This is owed to the people as a social service, apart from the economic aspect of it. Generally the Post Office has been regarded as providing a social service and, if there is a certain amount of loss, it is still the function of the Post Office to provide that service. I would ask the Minister to reduce the guaranteed time to one year.

I would also ask the Minister to have a look at the problems I have mentioned and see can he do anything about them. I know that he will make an effort to give us a better service in the Post Office than that to which we have been used for some time.

Mr. Moore

I welcome the Minister who is introducing his first Estimate in the House. He has reminded us that it was prepared by his predecessor. I do not propose to deal with the financial aspects of the Estimate beyond noting that it is up by about £6 million. I hope this will be put to very good use.

The Minister has vast experience of communications. His is a rather difficult Ministry. Some of the activities of his Department are on the television screens and the radio sets for many hours of the day and attract quite a number of critics. At the same time, it would be disingenuous of me, as Deputy Kelly would say, having recognised the difficulties facing the Minister, if I were to suggest that we should not be vigilant at all times, and if we did not let him have the benefit of our ideas on how the RTE services should be run.

This morning the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Kelly, went to great lengths to explain what happened last Saturday at the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis and in connection with the Presidential Election. He also went on at length to point out that the Ard-Fheis was fixed many months ago, and that it was accidental that it should coincide with the Presidential Election. The period during which the Presidential Election would be held, if not the date, was fixed a long time ago and the Fine Gael Party, no doubt, were aware of that.

I want to be careful about what I say because the election campaign should be fought with the greatest dignity, and nothing should be said against the characters of the two candidates. Both are well-known men who have given public service. Therefore, I deplore the fact that last Saturday the Fine Gael Party used the Ard-Fheis to boost the prospects of the Fine Gael candidate. It might be said that this is politics and, of course, politics like many other aspects of life is an honest endeavour. If the Fine Gael Party used that occasion to boost their candidate let them say so, and let us have no hypocritical suggestion that we are fouling because we are criticising them. Very little business was done for the Fine Gael Party last Saturday. They did not have a very long session, but that was their own decision. It would have served the interests of RTE and the Fine Gael candidate had the occasion not been turned into a type of American convention. We had on our screens the not very dignified spectacle of what was alleged to be the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis but what was, in fact, extra time for their Presidential candidate. I am quite prepared to leave it to the people next Wednesday to record their decision on last Saturday's happenings.

As the Minister said, this Estimate was prepared by his predecessor and therefore the Minister has been saved a lot of work. I do not suggest that he would shirk his work but the fact is that he was not in office at that time. He has almost a year to effect some of the changes we hope to see in the broadcasting services. The Minister said that he will introduce new legislation and that he will not introduce anything anarchic or—I forget the second word he used.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Arbitrary.

Mr. Moore

Whatever about the second word, I hope he does not try the first one. It looks odd in the Minister's statement, but I have the greatest confidence that the Minister will not encourage anarchy.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I thank the Deputy.

Mr. Moore

Each year when we discuss this Estimate we are inclined to put all the emphasis on the television service. That is a pity. Generally I find that a radio programme is far more absorbing. One has to use one's imagination to picture the scene which the players or the speakers are trying to portray. I hope the Minister will bear in mind that in future the radio service should be expanded.

Reception generally is quite good, which is more than can be said for vision. It is, of course, a technical matter. People looked to piped television for better results, but that has not been the experience in my area. The Minister will appreciate that Members of this House get little time except late at night to watch or listen to programmes. They should be given the best possible service.

The Minister asked what kind of programme people want. A very fair question. The Minister mentioned the various components of our society. We are, I suppose, no more or no less mixed than most races. We may differ in certain ways and in certain views and it should be incumbent on both radio and television to hold the mirror up to the national scene and not give us the kind of programmes which would make one believe we are keeping up with the cross-channel Joneses. We should not be slavishly devoted to their standards. This would be disastrous.

The medium is a very important and a very powerful one and it should reflect our aspirations. This is not an easy task. The playwright and the author do not please everyone. Neither of these reaches such a wide viewing or listening public as do television and broadcasting. Tremendous strides are made each year in the presentation of programmes and the bigger the strides the more powerful the medium becomes. The pen is not exclusive to the author or the playwright; it also figures largely in the broadcasting and television service and we must, therefore, be very careful about what goes out to the viewing or listening public. I do not mean this in any prudish way. It is quite true that no man is an island, as John Donne said. We are not an island any longer because we cannot shut out foreign influences. We cannot any longer hold on to our insularity, if we in fact are insular.

Our broadcasting services must be a potent weapon in the fight against false ideologies and false prophets. The people will not thank either the Department or the RTE Authority if they are constantly confronted with programmes which, to say the least of it, are quite appalling at times. I know the aim is to give as good programmes as possible within the resources available. People are often very unfair when they compare RTE with some of the multi-channel stations across the water. RTE has not got unlimited financial resources and the temptation is to import cheap material. Films portraying violence must influence young people. Long before the Minister took office there was a French film shown in one of our cinemas portraying an ingenious method of committing burglary. I am told that the pattern of that burglary was copied in burglaries all over this city. We cannot blame the Government or RTE for that, but I make the point to show how potent can be the influence of a television programme where crime or vice is concerned.

Many western films are shown and there are those who enjoy these films. At least in these films the "goodies" always win and the "baddies" always lose. It is unsophisticated stuff, but it is entertaining. We cannot say the same about other films. It may be argued that mentally mature people do not suffer any harm as a result of seeing these films. The effect grows less as one grows older. Children are not compelled to look at these programmes, but the young are very curious and, if the parents do not keep a check on them, they will stare at "the box" for hours on end. Very often the television set is in the living room and so it is difficult for parents to prevent children looking at material which may not be quite nice. Possibly most of the films are shown at a time when the children are in bed but, in that connection, I support the plea made recently by the Archbishop, Dr. Ryan, when he said that children were not getting enough sleep and should go to bed earlier. I do not suggest they should be sent to bed to prevent them seeing programmes unsuitable to their years but we must take every step we can to ensure that our national television service will not be the means of degrading our young people in any way.

I have one fault to find. Very often, especially on programmes dealing with religious matters, the most extraordinary statements are made by people whom one feels ought to know what they are talking about. Perhaps they do, but they should remember that they have to put up with people like me, people who are not theologians and who find it difficult to follow some of the arguments put forward. I do not know if the authority is the final arbiter in religious or sociological programmes, but I would appeal to those taking part to speak to us in words we can understand.

Another point in regard to home produced programmes is the bias portrayed against people living in some of our housing estates. A few weeks ago there was a discussion on crime. Various people gave their views and experiences. I noticed a bias against some of the new housing estates. The interviewer mentioned one estate and then he said: "Let us take a look at another part of the city", a much more affluent part. The implication was that nothing went wrong in the affluent areas, that those living in them were all law-abiding citizens, but the boy or girl, man or woman coming from some of the new housing estates was not quite the model of propriety as his counterpart living in "Snob Hill".

I wrote to that person and pointed out to him the damage he was doing to these young people from the estates who would have to seek employment. I said that I hoped that the captains of industry and the people with power who give employment would not show prejudice towards these people. I did not receive an answer to the letter but, having listened to the programme and noticed the ignorance displayed towards the housing estates, I was not surprised at the discourtesy of not receiving a reply. It is easy to criticise. Some people may often say the wrong thing. It is lucky that we are not on television or have microphones in front of us all the time.

There is an onus on the people who serve in such organisations to be fair to all. In future I hope that we shall not have this kind of snobbery which suggests that people from one part of the city or country are in any way second-class citizens. The authority should keep an eye on these programmes and ensure that the future of young people from any one area is not injured in any way by some silly programme on RTE.

The State broadcasting service has put on some excellent material. The Davis lectures have been going on for years. They have a big audience. I found them educational and entertaining. I must pay tribute to the newspapers who, the morning after each broadcast, gave a précis of the previous night's programme. These lectures could be used in any programme for young people as a means of educating them in an attractive way.

Generally speaking, I have some sympathy with the whole service of RTE. I get annoyed when I hear people criticising it, not on its merits or demerits, but because RTE are not able to give the same levels of programme and the extended hours which the channels in the UK can achieve. There is no reason why we should not strive all the time to improve the service. The people in RTE try to do this. At times one is annoyed when looking at the programmes. This is all part of the broadcasting scene.

The Minister in the future will probably increase the licence fees. He has made a good case for doing so. RTE will then face the greatest challenge they have faced since they were instituted because wired television will become a fact. Those who live on the East coast receive "Match of the Day" on Saturday nights. This programme is viewed in most houses and in practically all publichouses. This is a soccer match in England. I notice that this viewing is having a tremendous influence on our youth. When I was young we spoke about the home teams such as Shelbourne, Shamrock Rovers and the Bohemians. They were our favourite teams. Youth today wear blazers and sports outfits with the names of English soccer teams on them, and speak about the First Division clubs. The media generally may have some influence in this respect but the television is the biggest factor in influencing the youth towards watching a certain game. If we had Gaelic football or hurling being played at the same level many youngsters who play all games now, and some who play exclusively Gaelic games, would watch it. If the cross-channel and continental television stations show people who are popular these matches will be viewed.

RTE broadcasts many of the big cross-channel and continental soccer matches. Unless we can improve the whole service and ensure that people think of RTE first and not of some overseas programme, RTE will lose its viewers. Once they lose their viewers they will lose their revenue from advertising. I would like to see the day when we could have a service which was not dependent on advertising. This may be a utopian idea. It would be great to be able to say that the Irish people are supporting the RTE service simply by the fees they pay, and to know that we were not depending to any great extent on advertising. Perhaps that is not a realistic approach. We have to depend on advertising and we may have to try to attract more and more viewers.

Unless we can produce the best possible service we will lose viewers, especially with the introduction of wired television, which is coming anyway. We will have fewer viewers on the local station and more on foreign stations. RTE in some respects, and in many of its personnel, has tried hard to preserve our culture as we know it. When the Minister spoke last week about an all-Ireland television service we were aware that this will come anyway in the future. It is all tied up with the financial aspects of RTE. RTE staff have expertise which is at least comparable with that of their cross-channel competitors. At the same time the cross-channel people, with their colossal resources, find it easier to meet the wishes of their viewers.

I should like to refer to the postal service. I know that sub-post offices are not the direct concern of the Minister, but I think many of them are drab and could be brightened up. It may be that the business they do does not pay enough to enable them to renovate their premises. A previous Minister decided to change the colour of Post Office vans. I do not like the colour but there is something to be said for the fact that when you see the van you know it is a P and T van. Would the Minister consider having all post offices painted the same colour? This would be helpful, especially to visitors.

CIE and the Defence Forces from time to time provide a different type of uniform. Would the Minister consider some change in the Post Office uniform, which has not been changed for years, to make it a little more attractive and more comfortable.

The Minister knows that each day people come to Deputies asking to have telephones installed. We know that the capital programme of the Department will ensure that they will get service as soon as possible but for a business concern starting off that is sometimes not soon enough. I honestly do not know what can be done to speed up matters because the provision of telephones is a colossal drain on the resources of the State. I am not criticising people who are seeking telephones. The telephone today is a very important part of the household furniture. This tremendous demand, which is increasing all the time, will have to be met by perhaps more capital. It may be that the Post Office is overburdened with work at the moment. There was a suggestion many years ago that the Post Office might be given over to private enterprise. This is an idea which could be probed and examined. While I would not mind seeing the Post Office, after examination, being made a separate Department and having the benefit of outside expertise I would not like to see the television or broadcasting service given over to private enterprise.

I have refrained from criticising anything put forward in this Estimate. As the Minister said, it was prepared before he took office. I am sure he has found that his predecessor prepared a very good Estimate. The Minister has many months before he must begin to prepare his own Estimate. In the meantime, there is a lot to be done, particularly as regards the broadcasting service. I will watch the Minister during the year to see whether he will have to intervene at times with the broadcasting authority to ensure that they are keeping to the articles laid down for their guidance. If the Minister does that someone may disagree with him; but I do not think anyone will disagree with him if he intervenes to ensure that the station is being used for the purpose for which it was set up, and that is to provide entertainment and, in some aspects, education and to ensure that the democratic principles in which we believe will always be upheld.

This is only a young service. It will be many years before it has the experience of some of its rivals and it cannot have their finance. When the Minister asks what the people want I hope he will find out, and, when he does so, I hope he will act to give them what they have asked for. I have enough faith in the Irish people to know that their answer will be to cherish the beliefs of our people. This country, a country with a long and sad history, has always believed in the principles of freedom and fair play. That is what the Irish people will want for our broadcasting service.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. Begley)

I should like to congratulate the Minister on his appointment and on the initiative he has shown since getting the portfolio. He has created a new dimension. I hope he will continue on the lines on which he is going. I should like to say "Well done" to him in regard to the authority he has appointed. This country was long overdue such refreshing names on such an authority.

Discussions on Estimates are usually occasions for rural Deputies to make points which may not be of national interest but are often a source of irritation to Deputies. I hope the Minister will look at the points I have to make with a certain amount of sympathy. It is appalling that there are so many people awaiting telephones. I suppose the Minister every day gets four or five letters from each Deputy asking for telephones for certain people in a fairly short time because they are businessmen or have some very important positions in society. The person seeking the telephone thinks that, because he goes to a Deputy, the Deputy will go to the Minister and he will get his telephone.

I would recommend the introduction of a crash programme for the provision of more telephone kiosks in rural Ireland with particular emphasis on the Gaeltacht areas. The Gaeltacht areas today are very different from what they were, say, ten years ago, because each year now many people attend the Irish colleges in these areas. It is only natural that young boys and girls attending these colleges would wish to telephone their parents in the various parts of the country and, perhaps, hear a re-assuring word from them because in many cases it would be the first time for these young people to be away from home. I know that the Minister spends his holidays in a Gaeltacht area and that he will be aware of this lack of telephone facilities.

In this context I would mention especially the Gap of Dungloe area. This area is in the mountains above Killarney and great credit is due to the people there for remaining in the place and in being able to get a livelihood there, whether they be pony men or whether they be depending on sheep rearing for a living. This area is one that has been bandied about politically for years. It is a sad reflection on successive governments that the people there have no telephone service. They are about ten miles from the nearest public telephone. When it is necessary for them to seek the aid of a doctor, a priest or a veterinary surgeon, they must travel along a very bad road which is dangerous for motor traffic and, as the Minister knows, in an emergency people, whether they are travelling by bicycle, by pony or by car, tend to travel faster than usual.

Before the last general election the people of the Gap of Dungloe were promised a telephone immediately but that promise has been made to them at the time of many other elections in the past. There are 70 people on the electoral register there but in order to register their protest at the lack of telephone facilities, only fourteen of them voted. Incidentally, the voting pattern was Fianna Fáil 9, Fine Gael, 3 and Labour, 2. They registered their protest in the only way that it was valid and possible for them to do so. I told them at the time that I thought they should go out and vote according to their preferences. I hope the Minister will consider this matter seriously and that the people concerned will consider themselves justified in voting at the next election.

Deputy Moore referred to the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis held last week. Was the Deputy not being somewhat naive when he said that the Ard-Fheis was a put-up job for our Presidential candidate? It is well known that it is usual for the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis to be held in the month of May. It is well known also that RTE give generous coverage to the conferences of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party and that on this occasion they were only acting in accordance with established practice. If Fianna Fáil had so wished, they could have arranged their Ard-Fheis for May also. They were in government in January last and they knew there would be a Presidential election this year so that had they wished to get all the coverage possible, they could have held on to office and not have had a general election. However, the people are mature enough to judge for themselves and to treat with contempt the underserved criticism that has been made of the RTE Authority.

Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a ráa ar Radio na Gaeltachta. Dúras ó chianaibh anseo go raibh tosnú maith déanta ag Radio na Gaeltacha. Tá sé soiléir fosta go raibh mianach fónta i bpearsanra an Radio. Is cúis áthais dom a rá go mb'fhearr ar fad le muintir na Gaeltachta bheith ag éisteacht le Radio na Gaeltachta ná bheith ag féachaint ar Thelefís Éireann.

Ní h-ionann sin is a rá go bhfuil gach rud thar barr leis. Measann iriseoirí áirithe—nílim chun aon ainm a chur orthu;—tá sean-fhocal ann gur leor nod don eolach—nach bhfuil srian ar bith orthu agus iad ar Radio na Gaeltachta. Tar éis an toghacháin bhí díospóireacht ann idir iriseoirí agus cuid de na h-iriseoirí a bhfuil mé ag caint orthu anois—tá siad ag obair freisin i dTelefís Éireann; it was not their first day out mar adéarfá. Dúirt ceann acu toisc gur chuaigh Dream an Lucht Oibre isteach le Fine Gael sa Chomhrialtas go raibh deireadh ar fad le Dream an Lucht Oibre agus go raibh an tslí oscailte anois do Sinn Féin— Official nó Provisional—agus go mbeadh an dream sin mar Fhreasúra as seo amach. Tá muintir na Gaeltachta i bhfad nios cliste ná sin agus na daoine a bhfuil an ráiméis sin ar siúl acu ar Radio na Gaeltachta ba cheart níos mo céille a bheith acu mar ná dúirt siad an rud céanna ar an dtelifís. Thit an lug ar an lag acu.

Nílim á rá anois gur ceart cinsireacht a bheith ann. Tá seans ann anois go mbeidh Radio na Gaeltachta le cloisteáil ar fud na tíre. Measaim féin —b'fhéidir nach bhfuil an ceart agam —go bhfuil baol ann go mbeidh na cláracha dírithe ar mhuintir na hÉireann ar fad. Anois ní foláir do Ghaeilgeoirí Radio na Gaeltachta cuimhneamh gur cuireadh an Radio ar dtús ann i gcóir mhuintir na Gaeltachta.

Measaim go mba cheart cuimhniú air sin i gcónaí mar tá baol ann go dtiocfaidh intleachtóirí Bhaile Átha Cliath ar an radio anois agus beidh siad ag craolú ar son na tíre ar fad. Iarraim ar an Aire an radio, go mór mhór Radio na Gaeltachta, a fhágaint ar oscailt go dtí a 10 nó a 11 a chlog anois, mar na daoine atá ag maireachtaint san Ghaeltacht, san samhradh bíonn siad ag baint móna nó ag iascaireacht, agus tá sé an-lua an radio a dhúnadh ar a 9 a chlog nuair a bhíonn daoine ag obair.

Os rud é go bhfuil Radio na Gaeltachta le cloisint ar fud na tíre anois, b'fhéidir go mba cheart don Aire cúpla focal a rá leis an Aire Oideachais agus an Ghaeilge a chraoladh i rith an lae go léir do na páistí atá ag dul ar scoil. Tá seans an-mhaith anois an Ghaeilge a mhúscailt agus a ghríosadh ins an aos óg ar fud na tíre má tá an tonnfhad ann anois chun an Ghaeilge a chur amach do na páistí scoile. Ní minic a gheibheann daltaí meán-teistiméireachta nó árd teistiméireachta seans éisteacht le daoine a bhfuil an Ghaeilge ón chliabhán acu. B'fhéidir go dtógfaidh sé tamall é sin a dhéanamh ach luaim an scéal leis an Aire le súil go bhféachfaidh sé isteach ann, go mór mhór os rud é go bhfuil sé beartaithe ag an Comhrialtais anois "two honours" i leith na Gaeilge a daltaí meán-teistiméireachta nó ard na h-árd teistiméirachta. Tá seans an-mhaith ag na d-áltaí anois an Gaeilge a fhoghlaim ni ó na leabhair ach ó na cainteoirí dúchais.

Radio na Gaeltachta is giving a very good service to the Gaeltacht and it reflects the highest credit on the reporters, the producers, the directors and possibly on the Department. However, in case the point I made in Irish was missed, let me say now I think the Minister has a golden opportunity, an opportunity that was never given to any Minister before, to broadcast the Irish language all during the day on the special wavelength that is allowed for Radio na Gaeltachta. This is very important now in the light of the policy decision of the National Coalition to allow two honours for Irish in the leaving certificate. If a boy or girl sitting for the leaving certificate turns on Radio na Gaeltachta when there is an educational programme in Irish and can listen to native speakers using the language, they will find it is far different from the book Irish they are trying to study at school. They have a golden opportunity of improving their Irish, and I hope the Minister will meet the Minister for Education and come up with a policy for giving that opportunity to the boys and girls all over Ireland.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

Mr. Begley

I would like to ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to issue a stamp to commemorate Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith. The last Government were certainly very small in their thinking when they refused to recognise the part Collins and Griffith played in the making of this country. Now, 50 years later, I hope the Minister will use the first opportunity he gets to remedy that wrong to these two great Irishmen by issuing a stamp so that their names will go down in the history of this country. There are stamps issued for men of far less stature. People on all sides of the House should realise that Collins and Griffith should be recognised by having an official stamp to commemorate them.

Although I have not the knowledge of a television critic, I should like to express some views on television in general. Many people in rural Ireland have the impression that Gaelic games are getting less coverage on TV. It seems to be the age of Shelbourne, Shamrock Rovers, Finn Harps, or Cork Hibernians but we do not hear so much about Gaelic games, for instance in countries such as Galway or Kerry. Gaelic games should get a certain amount of coverage in RTE. I am not being greedy about this but it appears the percentage of time given to Gaelic games is getting less. I hope the RTE Authority will give these games equal viewing time to that accorded other sports. I should like to add that I consider it is only right that games such as soccer and rugby should be shown on television; all I ask is that each game is given an even break.

People in the south-west have been badly neglected by RTE; they appear to be regarded as the poor relation so far as TV reception is concerned. I have heard from a reliable source that the station at Cahirciveen was first erected in Donegal some years ago. However, it was such a contraption that the powers that be in Donegal— we must remember Donegal had many Ministers at one time—got new equipment and sent the old station to Cahirciveen. This has not been denied by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

Ruairí Brugha

I suppose anything is good enough for Kerry.

Mr. Begley

I believe the Deputy was speculating a little down there. I would ask the Minister to ensure that proper equipment is installed in Cahirciveen in order to give us fair television reception. We deserve it as well as people in Dublin.

Mr. Donnellan

I am sure the IRA lads would do the job.

Mr. Andrews

Get a few of the lads from the Ard-Fheis last Saturday and Deputy Ahern with them if you like.

Mr. Begley

As Deputy Andrews has mentioned the Ard-Fheis, may I say it was great to see so many happy faces at an Ard-Fheis. It was certainly a change from the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis when we had the man shouting: "You can have Kevin Boland but we have Fianna Fáil". What a contrast.

Mr. Donnellan

It was different from the time Kevin Boland was pulled from the platform.

Mr. Begley

It was a welcome change to viewers to see a happy Ard-Fheis—not a sordid, squalid event with the first 12 rows booked since 8 a.m. in case the boys would get anywhere near the platform.

Mr. Andrews

It was a rally.

Mr. Begley

Our Ard-Fheis was open to every man, woman and child in Dublin who wished to attend. We did not disappoint them.

Mr. Donnellan

Even the Donegal people were at it. The problem with regard to our Ard-Fheis was that it got too much publicity.

Mr. Andrews

We are trying to get a balance.

An Ceann Comhairle

We have had a most orderly debate during the morning and the Chair would like that to continue.

Mr. Begley

I would ask the Minister to arrange that a booster station be erected in the Dingle peninsula. There are areas in West Kerry—I think Dunquin is one of them, and I know the Minister spends some time there—where they cannot get any picture and this may apply to other areas also. I would ask the Minister to give serious consideration to having a booster station erected in Dingle.

There are too many canned programmes on RTE. Personally I should like to see more programmes like "Tangents". This is a first-class programme; it is refreshing and natural and RTE are to be commended. I would ask the Minister to see if it is possible to have more of this kind of programme where people can state their point of view in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere.

Adult education programmes have been neglected completely and I should like to hear the Minister's comments on this matter. I was amused recently to read that 11 RTE reporters attended an interview. I think it is too much to send 11 people to cover an event. It was somewhat like the Taoiseach's 11—they were all doing their own thing. The less we have of this kind of operation the better.

I should like to see the "7 Days" programme as it was formally—30 minutes on Tuesday and 30 minutes on Friday. An hour-long current affairs programme on Friday is a bit much, even though the programme is usually interesting and stimulating. Friday is pay night as far as the ordinary worker is concerned. He usually takes his wife out or he goes with friends to "the dogs" or for a few drinks. Therefore, Friday is not the best night for that programme. I think it would be preferable to have it for half an hour on Thursday night. Others may disagree with me.

The Minister has brought a new dimension to RTE and I hope he will get the necessary encouragement from everybody in the House. He took his courage in his hands when he went to Britain to see his counterpart there. It would be an excellent thing to have multichannel television. It is difficult at times to get any reception in parts of Kerry and if there was a variety of programmes it would enable our people to see how other people live and vice versa. After all, this is the age of communication. I hope it will be done by 2nd June.

Ruairí Brugha

First of all I compliment the Minister on his opening statement and on the ideas he has put forward for consideration and discussion. There are a few things I wish to say about the telephone system and it is not a criticism of the staff but on the need for better technical equipment. As I am sure the Minister is aware, in Dublin there is a feeling of irritation and frustration in offices throughout the city because of difficulty in getting through, getting wrong numbers and so on. It is mainly a technical problem. The staffs are ready and willing to look after the defects but the whole thing gives a bad name to the capital city. In numerous offices it is often easier to get a cross-Channel or a US call through than to get one through to a subscriber threequarters of a mile away.

Another aspect of the telephone system which merits comment is the continuous destruction of kiosks in different parts of the city. The Minister is involved also with RTE and he might request them to put on features showing what is happening, in an endeavour to encourage communities in different parts of the city to look after their own telephone boxes. At times more than half the number of telephone boxes one goes to are either damaged or have the instrument completely destroyed. The Minister might ask his technical advisers and experts in RTE whether it might be possible to instal some sort of strident alarm system. I am thinking of the sort of thing one sees occasionally on television, like an attache case which has a spring attached to it which shoots out a rod. Although it would be better to encourage people to discourage the destruction of kiosks, I think there would be an interesting reaction if we had some sort of apparatus which would spurt red powder on somebody attempting to damage a telephone kiosk.

There is another frustrating aspect to this destruction of telephone boxes. If one is applying to have a kiosk erected in a growing community and one is told that there are kiosks within a certain distance of the place one is interested in, one has the feeling that the place has a bad name and is rejected for this reason. In this connection I should like to mention the problem of small communities. I will not mention place-names but I have applied for kiosks on occasions and have been told that the number of possible users would not justify their provision. I suggest that where there are communities of between 150 and 300 people the Minister might find some means of providing a public telephone service. People suffer sometimes because of inability to telephone a doctor or some such person late at night.

During the past 12 to 18 months I have drawn attention to the need for expansion of the postal service in expanding urban areas. We know which urban areas are expanding and we all receive complaints about the inadequacy of the postal facilities.

I do not know if it is in order to refer to the increase in charges announced in the budget. As I have said in another place, the increased cost of services such as those provided by the Post Office are a matter of grave concern. These costs apply to a monopoly service. I am sure the service being given is a good one in itself but the fact that one has no competitive measuring rod to explain increases is a matter for special concern.

The last speaker mentioned commemorative stamps and it reminds me to suggest to the Minister that he might consider the issue of a commemorative stamp for the 200th anniversary of the founding of the US, 1776. This would be an appropriate sort of stamp for us to issue.

On the question of radio and television licences, when I was a member of the RTE Authority I was keen to have television licences collected through a semi-State body such as the ESB. Although I got nowhere with that suggestion I was conscious of the cost of collecting these licences, somewhere in the region of £300,000. The reason may have been a reluctance on the part of one semi-State body or, perhaps, the effect on the Department of Posts and Telegraphs finances. However, it seems to be a simple way of collecting licences and a method of doing so on easier lines. The ESB bill, for example, is payable every two months.

I notice that the Minister, when dealing with Radio Éireann, made no reference to the fact that the new Radio Éireann building, which is almost completed, is about to be occupied. The completion of this building is very welcome. Many efforts were made during the last six or seven years to bring this into being so as to raise Radio Éireann into a better situation, vis-à-vis television. As Members are aware, Radio Éireann is at present scattered throughout the city.

The staff have been working under difficult conditions and I hope, for this reason, that the occupation of this new building will take place shortly.

In the long term the radio aspect of broadcasting is more important from the point of view of education, in many respects entertainment, and in its stimulation of thought and the promotion of intellectual discussions. It is a more significant element of our broadcasting life.

I regret very much the reference in the Minister's speech to the fact that the new transmitter will not be available until early next year. We always seem to run into difficulties in this area. When I was a member of the RTE Authority, I would say in 1968, this particular transmitter was ordered following pressure, mainly because Radio Éireann could not be received in some parts of Britain. Many requests were received over the years for an improvement in the transmission.

This bring me to the fact that our television system is not available in the Northern part of the country. I believe that the original reason was that it had to do with some form of international agreement. I made many efforts to have a change made in this situation. As far as I can ascertain the Radio Éireann signal in the Northern part of this country is only available in 13 or 14 per cent of the households. In the mid-sixties this was an important question and going back to the fifties, when I became acquainted with the problem, the population of the Six Countries, both sections, had a very distorted picture of the sort of people we are and the sort of life we lead. They were unaware of the freedom available to us on the television.

If our signal had been available in that part of the country perhaps many lives would not have been lost during the past four years. It is important that some arrangement is arrived at in order to get across to the population in that part of the country a true picture of what the people down here are really like. I do not mean that in a propaganda sense, simply in the terms of the reality of the situation here.

There is freedom of discussion on religious matters and criticism of the Government and Opposition on television and radio. This is something which is a closed book to the majority of people in the North and, I believe, the consequences have been disastrous. Those people might have been less biased and less afraid of us if they had any knowledge of us.

The question of an RTE signal to the whole of this island is essential for the development of some kind of sane consensus in Ireland. I hope to see, with the help of television and radio, a merging of a common identity on the island, a merging of the traditions or what one could describe as the "Orange and Green". However, we are faced with the problem of the RTE signal and the question which the Minister has raised in relation to cable transmission.

This raises some problems. Should we expose ourselves to outside television broadcasts? I do not think we have any great choice in the matter. Geographically we are situated only 60 miles from the neighbouring island. The situation in the North of Ireland has to be resolved. Some sections of our community might be reluctant to have open transmission. Nevertheless, one must have regard not only to the realities of the situation but also to the fact that more than 1,000,000 people on the east coast have open reception. The population in the Six Counties also has open reception from BBC, UTV and Welsh TV.

There may be reluctance on the part of some people to extend outside coverage to the remainder of the island. RTE coverage to all the people on our island, side by side with the BBC, can only be for the good of the people. If we were living 500 or 600 miles away from Great Britain, we could strengthen our common identity, independent of good or bad influences from overseas radio and television. However, the reality is there. We are exposed to outside networks. This ought to strengthen our common sense of identity rather than weaken it.

The Minister raised the question of discussions on section 17. There were discussions during the 1960s as to how best one could describe what one felt was wanted. At that time there probably was as much discussion as now about how best to put things. "Preserve" might not be held to be the best word. "Encourage" might be better, or "strengthen". It is not easy to find the right words. I do not propose to take long over this because I am sure we will be discussing the television commission's report at a later stage. We have to bear in mind that we live in Ireland and that, irrespective of what I might hope are short-term divisions—short-term in terms of years, at any rate—we have a natural loyalty to what is seen as Ireland by all Irish people, and part of that loyalty is to all the traditions, and to the language which was in use here and which many of us would like to see encouraged.

This brings me to the discussion on section 31 and the arguments and controversies which have gone on about the use of the section. As I understand it, the British Government have, at least in theory, and I suppose if necessary in practice, equal or even stronger powers. They have never needed to exercise them. Our problem in relation to radio and television particularly, is that I do not think that a national broadcasting system which belongs to the State could be independent of Parliament. That is not to say that Parliament or the Government should interfere with it, but I see a situation here where a section, such as section 31, which would not be used unless it had to be used, is bound to be necessary so long as the disastrous situation of Partition exists.

I am sorry I interrupted the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach when he mentioned interference with RTE on the part of the previous administration. My reason for doing so was that I felt, if one was referring to interference, one should be specific rather than general. When I was a member of the RTE Authority, representations were made from time to time but, during that period, direction was given by the authority only in relation to the non-broadcasting of a particular film. I can see that one is in an area which is pretty sensitive, not alone in relation to the political problem of Partition, but also in relation to the responsibility of Ministers and their Departments for public policy.

While one would like—and, in fact, it is done—to give freedom to programmers on RTE to criticise policy, as such, of any Department, nevertheless not alone Ministers but senior civil servants of Departments such as Agriculture, Education or Industry and Commerce, are entitled to and might often be obliged to draw attention to what they regard as unbalanced or unfair criticism of public policy being followed by their Departments.

I would say that impartiality or balance is not achieved by giving undue weight or prominence to some unrepresentative element just for the sake of appearing to try to achieve balance. Public policy in relation to any Department is something that is thought out by people, including the Minister, giving their full time to the job and trying to do as good a job as they can. To me—I am not getting involved in party politics here—giving objectivity to a type of policy can in itself become an unbalancing exercise.

When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach and I were having words, the Minister indicated that he would give some examples of interference with RTE at different stages. I would be very interested to know of such interference. May I stress here that I do not mean, as happened on a number of occasions over the past two years, the Taoiseach or the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs making representations in relation to what he regarded as being an infringement in the national sense.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I will give the Deputy examples of what I have in mind and he can then make up his own mind.

Ruairí Brugha

That brings me to the rather heated question of the recent transmissions of the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis. The effort by the Fine Gael Party to use this "get together" in order to promote one of the presidential candidates was a reasonable, normal party political operation, if they want to go in for that sort of thing.

Mr. Donnellan

But if Fianna Fáil had their Ard-Fheis would it not have been broadcast also?

Ruairí Brugha

The Deputy will appreciate that I have only just begun to make my argument and I have not had enough time to deal with all aspects.

Mr. Donnellan

I would prefer if the Deputy would start at the beginning rather than half way through.

An Leass-Ceann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Brugha.

Ruairí Brugha

Perhaps the Deputy would listen.

Mr. Donnellan

I am listening. I must be listening or I would not be asking the Deputy questions.

An Leass-Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Ruairí Brugha

First of all, this was intended to be a Fine Gael Ard-Fheis and not, as I understand it, a Fine Gael-Labour Ard-Fheis. I understand there was agreement on the broadcasting of the proceedings on VHF. I must admit I can see a difference as between Ard-Fheiseanna, as we have understood them in the past where, perhaps, 100 or 200 resolutions are dealt with, and an Ard-Fheis in which there are no resolutions.

Mr. Esmonde

We did have the election of officers and there was no difficulty about that.

Mr. Dowling

It was more like a penny dinner.

Mr. Esmonde

Do not be jealous of it.

Ruairí Brugha

What I am trying to show is that it was not an ordinary Ard-Fheis.

Mr. Donnellan

It certainly was not. It was an extraordinary Ard-Fheis.

An Leass-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Ruairí Brugha

I do not think I need go much further because the public in general are, I think, intelligent enough to realise it was not an ordinary Ard-Fheis. I know most of the people in the authority well enough, and they probably know me well enough to appreciate my point when I say that there was here some departure from ordinary practice.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

May I ask the Deputy a question? May I ask him whether he agrees with Deputy Colley's statement that the Government almost certainly demanded cover.

Ruairí Brugha

I will leave it to Deputy Colley to speak for himself.

Mr. Kelly

The Deputy is a wise man not to get involved in that.

Ruairí Brugha

I am not necessarily a wise man, but I will fight my battles and I will let Deputy Colley fight his.

Mr. Donnellan

I thought in Fianna Fáil it was one for all and all for one. It is a very united battle.

An Leass-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Ruairí Brugha

I am trying to deal in a reasonable way with what I think is a fairly important matter. I think RTE departed from their normal role here because, irrespective of whether the Fianna Fáil Party had their Ard-Fheis or did not have it, there was the distinction that this was not an Ard-Fheis, unless we are going to change all our Ard-Fheiseanna and hold them for purposes other than the discussion of resolutions covering Departments.

Mr. Donnellan

Surely it is up to any political party to run their Ard-Fheis any way they like.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Brugha should be allowed to make his statement.

Ruairí Brugha

I am not talking about political parties. I am talking about the treatment by the national broadcasting system of a gathering such as the Deputy had. I am not doing it in an over-critical way. I think that it is not easy, certainly in my experience, in RTE to decide exactly what to do. What I am trying to pinpoint here is that it must have been obvious that this Ard-Fheis, in inverted commas, was going to be used to promote——

Mr. Kelly

It was perfectly obvious and the world and his wife knew it.

Ruairí Brugha

I am still talking to RTE.

Mr. Dowling

It was not an Ard-Fheis. It was a penny dinner.

Ruairí Brugha

——to promote one of the presidential candidates.

Mr. Kelly

It was not a bull-fight like the Deputy's was.

Mr. Dowling

The delegates were given a free meal. It was a Fine Gael penny dinner.

Mr. Donnellan

The next penny dinner the Deputy has will be small.

Mr. Dowling

And so will the loaf.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Brugha.

Ruairí Brugha

In interpreting the Act what should have been done by RTE was to transmit any business done at the gathering other than business relating to the presidential election. That would have meant that the RTE Authority would be fulfilling their function of impartiality.

Mr. Kelly

Would Deputy Brugha allow me to ask a question? Leaving aside the question of RTE, it was perfectly obvious what was going to happen, and would he, please, tell us why, if the procedure was so objectionable, representations were not made before rather than after by the Deputy's party?

Ruairí Brugha

I think I will let Deputy Colley answer that question.

Mr. Kelly

The Deputy is very wise.

Ruairí Brugha

Just a moment. If I were dealing with it I would answer it.

Mr. Kelly

The Deputy should get out from under Deputy Colley's situation altogether.

Ruairí Brugha

I will leave it to Deputy Colley to deal with that.

Mr. Donnellan

The Deputy forgets we held an Ard-Fheis prior to the last general election and used it to promote our presidential candidate on that occasion, but there was no objection then. There is now. Why? What is the Deputy crying about?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Ruairí Brugha

I said I wanted to deal with this matter nicely and quietly but some of the Deputies on both sides do not seem to want that.

Mr. Donnellan

I hate to see the Deputy misrepresenting.

Ruairí Brugha

I am not misrepresenting anybody. I am trying to see how RTE were acting and not any political party. The question is how RTE acted.

Mr. Andrews

On a point of order, I believe I was misrepresented this morning by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach in this whole problem. It was suggested by him that I, in my capacity as Government Chief Whip, knew something about this arrangement. I would like to put on the record of the House that I knew nothing about this.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This is not in order.

Mr. Andrews

The Deputy misrepresented me.

Mr. Kelly

I did not.

Ruairí Brugha

I have covered the aspect of the matter which I wished to cover. The decision of RTE to put on a special broadcast for the Fianna Fáil presidential candidate was correct. RTE felt that they had departed from the spirit of the Act.

I must say I agree with some of the remarks made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government in regard to Radio na Gaeltachta. I have not had an opportunity of listening to many programmes from that station. From the programmes I heard I feel that there were two important aspects to be mentioned. There are as many people living in the city of Dublin who are able to understand Irish as there are in the Gaeltacht, so far as I know. This new station is in its infancy. It should be given every possible encouragement. I have only heard a couple of the programmes when I was in a part of the country where they were available to me. I liked the programmes, and I hope that the people dealing with them will not feel that I am being unfair when I say that, so far, they are not up to the standard which one would like. This may be caused by lack of equipment or finance. The Minister should bear this point in mind. This is the first effort to have an Irish radio transmission across the whole country. We should try to ensure that it is as successful as possible. I wish the Minister in his Department and the new authority well in dealing with their wide responsibilities.

Mr. Esmonde

My contribution to this debate will be very short. When the new Minister was appointed and the announcement made in this House there was a peculiarly noisy reaction from the other side of the House. That suggested to me that in the opinion of the Opposition the present Minister had been given a downgraded Department. It showed the reaction of Fianna Fáil to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. They had treated that Department as a cinderella Department. It is one of the most important Departments of State. It has control of the media and of telling the outside world of our attitudes. It is also useful for the purpose of showing what our cultural way of thinking and way of life are. It is a mirror in sight and sound of the Irish way of life.

Speaking of telephones, it would be correct to say that the present Minister has inherited a system that can be described as "snap, crackle and pop". In certain areas in the country if one takes up a telephone it is hard not alone to get through, but to hear any human voice. It appears to the average man in the street that the telephone is a practically unworkable instrument. People in business offices in certain parts of Dublin city have adopted the habit of taking the phone off the hook when they go in in the morning and putting it on the table because of the racket it creates. In some instances one can neither get in nor get out on the lines. This has created serious problems. It is not unusual to hear Deputies in this House ringing on the automatic phone and having to dial twice, three times or four times before getting any reaction. This also happens on telephones outside this House. If I want to get through to one of my constituents, using a phone outside this House, I am lucky if, on average, I can get through on the third or fourth attempt. That is why I have described the system as "snap, crackle and pop".

A Deputy has raised a point about telephone services in villages and small hamlets where there was a post office and a telephone exchange which has been closed down under a rationalisation scheme. The Minister should seriously consider bringing in a system whereby there will be a telephone kiosk in every village. Emergencies arise during off-hours and late at night, particularly illness and accidents. People do not like having to knock up a next door neighbour a quarter-of-a-mile away in order to use the telephone. Many people in the lower-income group would never have private telephones if there were sufficient kiosks. I am thinking of the people in cottages who would not want to have telephones installed because of the charges and the expenses for their use, which they would feel were not warranted. These people should have proper telephone facilities in their villages. This might have the effect of bringing in an undue amount of cost per unit of telephone installed, but I am concerned about the human problems involved. If there is to be a State telephone service, the telephone should be available to all.

In relation to RTE I would like to see more educational material on the screen. I have in mind a programme that was popularly acclaimed and universally acknowledged as being a very fine programme. I refer to "Amuigh Faoin Spéir". That programme provided the tired and weary person from an office with a fresh outlook. It brought people in urban areas to rural areas and told them things about their country which they were not previously aware of. It had the effect of interesting people in conservation, a matter which is of some importance in present-day terms. I mention that in passing because anybody I have spoken to about that programme had the highest praise for it. Programmes of that nature could be extended for the benefit of all age groups.

I am glad of the Minister's approach to, and his general statements about the Department. He has given us all new hope that there will be a new approach, a strong and forward-going approach, and this is a Department which requires such handling. His approach to date will do a great deal to remove a certain air of disenchantment that one found in matters dealing with television and radio. That should be all for the good of the country. I wish the Minister every success and he will get all help, so far as I and other Deputies are concerned, for his new approach to the important duties of his Department.

Mr. Colley

I am intervening in this debate in order to rebut some of the more outrageous statements made in this debate this morning by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy John Kelly. I have noted from what he said that for portion of his argument he has been trying to pretend that Fine Gael's alleged Ard-Fheis was, in fact, a rally for the Fine Gael presidential candidate and he is doing this for the purpose of saying that we knew all about it beforehand. But then, in another part of his argument, he says it was not just a rally, although he goes on then to admit that there were certain features of it that amounted to that and then he implied that it was almost a normal Ard-Fheis.

It seems to me that even the members of the Fine Gael Party would hardly call an Ard-Fheis a gathering in which no criticism was allowed from the floor and in which the only role of the delegates was to engage in applause at suitable intervals. Indeed, I would doubt, even though I am not familiar with the rules and constitution of the Fine Gael Party, if such rules and constitution, in dealing with their annual Ard-Fheis, would prescribe conditions which would remotely approximate to what happened in the Mansion House last Saturday.

The Parliamentary Secretary spent a great deal of time arguing that it is the right of the Fine Gael Party to hold their Ard-Fheis in any form they wish and of course it is and he need not have spent so much time arguing about that. That is not a matter for anybody outside Fine Gael. The real point, and the Parliamentary Secretary knows it, is the use or abuse of the public broadcasting monopoly for the purpose of broadcasting a rally for the Fine Gael presidential election candidate and at the same time the failure to offer similar facilities to Fianna Fáil. That is the real point.

Mr. Kelly

I hope the Deputy will justify what he said about the Government.

Mr. Colley

I am coming to that. I am surprised at the Parliamentary Secretary and his performance this morning. Perhaps I should not be.

Mr. Kelly

I would have said more if the Deputy had been present.

Mr. Colley

Now that the Parliamentary Secretary is here I will not feel inhibited, I am glad to say.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Did the Government demand it or did they not?

Mr. Colley

Would the Minister wait and allow me to make my speech? I will deal with the points raised by the Parliamentary Secretary and I will deal with them in the way I choose to do.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Deputy has been dodging them so far.

Mr. Colley

If the Minister does not choose to listen he knows he has a remedy. The Parliamentary Secretary, having spent a considerable time alleging interference with RTE by Fianna Fáil in the past, went on to argue that on this occasion we should have protested beforehand to RTE. There are a number of objections to that suggestion but the very first one I would make is: Does the Parliamentary Secretary not know very well that if we had protested the very first thing we would have heard from over there would be that Fianna Fáil were trying to interfere with RTE? He knows that very well.

Mr. Kelly

Not if it was done openly. It is the "uisce fé thalamh" we object to.

Mr. Colley

I want to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that the Government are responsible to this House and to the public for the conduct of RTE. It is the Government's responsibility, it is not the Opposition's responsibility. I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary of that.

For the record, because it was implied in something that was said by the Parliamentary Secretary—he did not go the whole hog in saying it— that there was pressure brought to bear on RTE in regard to this matter recently, I want to say that what happened was that there was a telephone call by me to RTE on Saturday afternoon last to inquire whether or not similar facilities were being offered to Fianna Fáil as had been made available to Fine Gael. The only other action taken by or on behalf of Fianna Fáil was the issuing of my public statement.

Mr. Kelly

I will accept publicly here and now the Deputy's words that that is the extent of the interference. What I would like to know is why it did not occur to him to do this weeks previously when what was going to happen was fully known.

Mr. Colley

I am coming to that, if the Parliamentary Secretary would have enough patience to wait for it. The fact is that if there was any pressure on RTE it was solely the pressure that might have arisen from my public statement issued last Saturday. No other pressure whatever was brought to bear for on behalf of Fianna Fáil on RTE in this regard.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

What about the Government?

Mr. Colley

The Minister is very impatient. He should not be so impatient to have exposed the tactics to which he and other members or representatives of the Government parties have resorted.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Deputy is going to brazen it out, is he?

Mr. Lalor

He did not bring in his son-in-law.

Mr. Colley

The Parliamentary Secretary found himself unable, some people would say that he was not man enough, to admit that there had been a breach by RTE of their statutory and moral obligations.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.