asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (a) the amount of money which has been borrowed by his Department for capital developments during the last two years (b) the sources from which it has been borrowed (c) the developments on which it has been spent and (d) the total expenditure to date.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - P.O. Capital Development.
7.
(a) My Department borrowed £24 million in the financial year ended 31st March, 1974 and £23 million in the nine-months' period ended 31st December, 1974 for capital developments.
(b) All the borrowing was from the Exchequer.
(c) The money was used for development of the telephone system and the main achievements during the period of 21 months ended 31st December, 1974 were: connection of 53,000 subscribers' lines; installation of 61,000 exchange line terminations at automatic exchanges; conversion of 37 manual exchanges to automatic working; provision of 4,300 extra trunk circuits between larger centres and 6,000 local circuits between larger centres and their dependants.
The expenditure also covered new and extended exchange buildings and local underground and overhead cabling schemes. A development of major significance during the period was the opening of the new international telephone exchange in Dublin.
(d) The total expenditure on telephone development from the inception of the State to 31st December 1974 was £158 million.