I, too, have reservations about the proposal before us, but overriding those concerns we should make it clear that there is need for updating and improving the postal and telecommunications services. It is quite clear that for many years there has been a degeneration of the standard of service, both in the quality of service, its responsiveness to the public and its degree of relative waste of public finances. Therefore, this measure affords us an opportunity to face the issues. No one will claim that this is the total answer. I presume the Minister does not either. However, there are many commendable aspects to it. I would not like to discourage any Government or Minister from tackling this huge monolith or any of the other huge corporations we have at present by unduly pessimistic forecasts about the expected failure rate or otherwise of the proposal. The concept of breaking up a corporation of the magnitude of 25,000 or 30,000 people is a good one. It is perfectly clear — and the literature is very extensive on it — that the larger the corporation the less likely it is to be efficient, satisfying to the workers and to the public it is expected to serve. I am a believer that in this, as in many other instances, small is beautiful and that we should do all posssible to increase efficency and improve the working conditions of people by ensuring that there is a satisfactory size to the operation involved.
Before going on to deal with that I should like to make this observation. The real reason this Bill is being introduced is the increasing failure of Governments to be able to bring our present postal and telecommunications services to a standard satisfactory to us all. This inability to act, this kind of mesmerism which has faced us all with the burgeoning growth of the public service — in many respects it is very satisfactory but in many others it is appallingly bad — may cause us to take action such as this for the wrong reasons. I would argue very strongly that the standards we expect are comparable with those in other semi-State bodies or even in areas of the private sector. There should be no inherent reason why the staff in the public service should not be able to reach such standards if given the leadership. The real reason they have not is because the public service for years has had no goal or target. No member of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, no member active in the postal and telecommunications services has any idea whatever of where they are going, what is their work and what is expected of them. They operate within no framework, no parameter of the public service, no goal, no target, no objective of any kind. Nobody can work in that environment.
The overriding rule in the public service is to act in accordance with precedent, on the basis that safety comes first. No initiative is encouraged or rewarded. Too often lack of initiative goes unsanctioned and unreproved. A much more imaginative, flexible, innovative approach to the public service, acting in accordance with a clear comprehensive policy for that area of the public service, devised and laid down by a wise and courageous Government, would mean that we do not have to go into this kind of escape hatch for areas of the public service such as this. Why is it that it is now expected by the public at large, and widely perceived, that if it is anything to do with Government, local authorities or the Office of Public Works it is automatically lazy, less productive than the private sector, wasteful and inefficient? The reason is that it is probably all of those things in part or in whole and that we have allowed that to happen. I want to make it quite clear that I not at all blaming the workers involved. None of the workers involved has the slightest idea of what standards are expected of him or her. Nobody has given them any indication of their target personally, or as a Department, or as a section of a Department.
Therefore, this approach to the postal and telecommunications services may well work, but not unless there is a comprehensive, national communications development policy, one which embraces all of those areas of communications now and for the foreseeable future. That is a very exciting area of technological innovation, one which we have not even begun to face up to in this House or in the country yet — except of course for some enterprising people in the private area who have some idea of what is going on in fields further afield than this and who have readily embraced new technology, using it wisely and sensibly, though there are dangers in that also, as was hinted at yesterday by my colleague, Deputy J. Mitchell.
The challenges of the future may well be met by something like this Bill. I should like the Minister to say whether or not this is something that was conceived as a genuine mechanism for tackling the challenges of the future in this area or as some kind of a device for evading responsibility arising out of the disastrous strike which occurred in this area some years ago — that this is in a sense a way of saying: "Lord, if it be Thy will, let this chalice pass from me"? That is not the kind of approach we should take to what is a most essential and economic need and what is also, as it happens, a financially very viable area.
If the service is given, the public are willing to pay. At present they are expected to pay and the service is not being provided. This basic idea — and I shall not dwell any longer on it — that State bodies by definition are now accepted to be wasteful, less conscious of standards is something we will have to face up to. The growth of the public service, operating outside the framework of any national policy of goals, targets or objectives, short, medium or long term, constitutes an enormous threat — in my view, one of the very major threats facing the future of this country. It will simply be impossible to carry this burgeoning, wasteful system. Not only that, but the workers within that service are being under-used and their resources left untapped.
I happen to believe fervently that there are very many fine public servants involved in the public service who, if given the chance, have something very fine indeed to contribute and that they should not be used as the but of public ridicule or abuse. At the same time they should be able to face up to honest criticism when given. However, the basic failure is not one of public servants but of Governments, Governments who have consistently failed to say to the public service what they expect from them. Nobody can operate in that environment.
The postal and telecommunications area is obviously in need of modernisation and updating. It is quite extraordinary that in an age of micro-technology, of instant communication, in some cases crossing continents, it now takes four and five times longer to have delivered a simple letter than it took some years ago and that, relatively speaking, we are paying a lot more for it. I have been struck very often by pleas from people in the commercial area — whether in business in this country, whether in importing, setting up new businesses, tourism — for telephone services. I shall not go into constituency details but all of us have mounds of correspondence from people who are endeavouring to provide jobs. Basically they say: look, we cannot get a telephone, we cannot get a telex and, according to the Department, we shall not have it for the next two years. I appreciate also that there is no point in expecting this Minister to wave a magic wand, that the kind of capital and infrastructural investment necessary to bring about that kind of service virtually on tap is something that must be planned. In all honesty I do not see in this Bill any great concern about that kind of fundamental investment; it is a restructuring arrangement for the administration of the existing network. That troubles me a little. I would like to see much more commitment to a fundamental appreciation that a quantum leap forward is necessary if we are to have services, as we need them, for jobs, tourism, indeed for the ordinary citizen.
One thing also is clear and it is this: if this proposal is to succeed — and I think in itself it can succeed — it can do so only with goodwill and co-operation all round. There is evidence to show that up to now there has not been the concern with meeting the reasonable requests of staff at this stage in the manner which will guarantee that success. I am not one of those who subscribes to the view that consultation is a process whereby discussions continue until one comes around to the other chap's point of view. At the same time there is at present fairly scant respect shown to the 25,000 to 30,000 workers involved. Their unions have expressed dissatisfaction. Of course unions do that regularly, in some cases without it necessarily being warranted. In this case, however, it is warranted. The Minister will have a major hurdle to overcome if the inexorable slide towards industrial confrontation continues. It is in his hands to defuse that, if it is not already too late. That has to be done.
Indeed in that respect, just to give the House a specific idea of what I am talking about, I should like to give an indication of how this potentially disastrous industrial relations problem has developed. Apparently, despite requests from the unions, I am told that the only figures which were ever published or made available to the workers in the telephone operator grades by the management were buried in a small section of the National Board for Science and Technology's publication in July 1981 on micro-electronics and the implications for Ireland. This showed that the present five-year telephone development plan is expected to reduce the jobs for telephone operators from 5,600 to approximately 1,000.
I do not believe we should artificially sustain areas of the public service or the private sector merely to take the gloss off the unfortunate unemployment figures or somehow to impede progress. If change is necessary and if that means redundancies the Government and all of us have a duty to face up to and say: "That is the way it has to be". If we did not pursue that logic we would presumably be putting children up chimneys to keep them clean. However, it does not mean that we should ignore or neglect the needs of people who are liable to be made redundant in this way or ignore their request for information at this stage in the belief that the less we tell them the better. I have been getting requests from people in this areas for assurances and information.
The loss of about 4,500 jobs is three times the number lost in Ferenka about which there was a national debate. That loss does not cover other grades apart from the actual operators and their supervisors. At a lecture in TCD on Digitalisation of the Telecommunication Network in December 1981 Mr. A. J. Mullen the director of Development, Planning and Personnel confirmed that there was no prospect of absorbing this huge number of telephone operators whose jobs were to go. The growth in lines and subscribers will not offset cutbacks in operators needed. In fact, the improvement in the quality of the automatic service will speed up these cuts. All manual exchanges are eventually to be closed, the old style coin boxes are to be converted to direct dial and the failure of the ISD and STD leading to calls through operators will, hopefully, shortly be eliminated by the drop in network failure. With the target rate of 3 per cent failure per 100 direct dial calls being reached, as we are told, by the middle of next year, the calls which still need an operator should be put through much more quickly obviously, since the operator would have access also to a much improved fully automatic network. It is reasonable to expect that, if we are to ensure that technology applies to this area, there will be job losses. I do not believe that in itself is a disaster provided we deal properly and honestly with the consequences and tell people now rather than have this thing develop secretly and in stealth behind the backs of the people involved.
The number of operators expected to be needed at the end of the present five-year plan will be about 1,500, which is a huge decrease. Mr. Smurfit, the chairman of one of the boards involved, in a letter to the staff involved said at one stage: "I will shortly be sending you more detailed information explaining the potential opportunities for all levels of staff which the new service will offer." That letter has never reached the staff. Mr. Tom Byrne, the proposed chief executive of Bord Telecom was quoted in the official Posts and Telegraphs staff magazine Pagust as saying:
We would like to create a situation where each member of the staff felt fully informed about the board's activities and plans.
Later in the same communication he stated:
The staff have nothing to fear from change.
Mr. Smurfit in his publication to the Post Office staff "The Way Forward in our Telecommunications Services and Your Role in their Future" said:
New skills will be called upon, new jobs created, there will be changing programmes from which you can benefit. There is a great future in communications; these are exciting times for us all.
That is the right heady inspirational note. Unfortunately, however, these indications of goodwill, co-operation and honest dealing with workers have not yet been matched by action.
When Deputy Reynolds was Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, in his note to staff in the Green Paper on Re-organisation of the Postal and Telecommunications services he said:
The Government believe that the change to State-sponsored status will be in the best interests of the staff.
I share this view. That was never spelt out. If the best interests of staff are to be fully met some ground has got to be made up because there is a credibility gap at the present time. I am deeply troubled that an essential courageous attempt to face up to the huge problem involved in the postal and telecommunications services area could very well be left aside or obstructed indefinitely by virtue of possible avoidable delays which will occur inevitably if this issue at the industrial relations level is not dealt with honestly and openly.
I am a firm believer that it is much better to deal honestly and openly with industrial relations problems at their root rather than hoping that the problem will go away if we ignore it or that the weight of numbers in here or the weight of public opinion, as it could in this case, will steamroll people into eventual submission. That rarely works. Even if it did, as a device it is dishonest and dishonourable because it does not deal with people in the manner to which they are entitled.
Mr. Tom Byrne, the proposed chief executive of Bord Telecom in his second annual report said:
Clarification was frequently sought on the options to staff with regard to future areas of employment. Chapter 10 addressed this question and to my mind answered it fully.
However, Chapter 10 of the White Paper, "Implications for the Staff of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs" said:
Many unions and associations made submissions expressing concern about their prospects, loss of status etc.
It went on to say in paragraph 10 (2):
This White Paper does not purport to contain answers to these questions.
One can only conclude that Mr. Byrne or chapter 10 of this report is wrong. Regarding details on options to remain civil servants, return to that status or on permanency of employment, it merely says that all will be the subject of consultation with staff unions and associations. The present Minister, in a message on the publication of the Bill, told the staff:
You and your staff associations will be kept fully advised of further developments.
The staff involved note that this admits a duty to tell each of the staff. Unfortunately, it seems to come from the same management which intend to make a lot of people redundant without informing them that they will do so. There is at this stage very substantial distrust.
That little resume has surely enough straws in the wind, to put it mildly, to give an indication of a very dangerous pattern of probable behaviour, whereby a number of people charged with public responsibility, consistently attempt to reassure staff, apparently facing redundancy, while at the same time withholding the information and not honouring their intended action and genuine consultation. The result of that process is inevitable. Apart from the great distrust which exists, which I deeply regret, of the Minister and Bord Telecom, there will be serious industrial relations troubles unless an immediate change about comes in this particular area of dealing with the staff and their unions.
A more recent example of it occurred in The Irish Times of 29 May last when the staff discovered for the first time plans for the number of jobs for their operator grades, which was presented as an unpublished report, while apparently a spokesman for the Department was quoted as being unaware of any forward projections with figures for the number of operator positions outlined. There is reason to believe that a lot of ground has to be made up in this area. I appeal to the Minister, if he genuinely wants progress in this area, to come clean with the trade unions and the workers so that we can avert the inevitable industrial trouble which may very well put into the shade the strike which caused such hardship some years ago.
There is an obligation on all of us to try to improve our systems, be they of communications or otherwise, and, in that context, I believe there is a role not just for Governments and for vested interests but for the trade unions. I appeal to the trade unions to take an enlightened approach to this and, while solidly defending the rights of their workers, which I believe the Government have not up to date, honoured in the manner I would like to see, there is an obligation on them and an opportunity for them to say "This is an area in which we would like to make some positive contribution. We believe that good postal and telecommunications, and a proper network of telephones, telex, data systems, microtechnology, computers and so forth are all in the interests of the workers of this country, and we would like to make the following contribution —" and they can suggest improvements. It is not adequate for a trade union or a Member of the Opposition simply to stand apart from the situation and criticise the proposed development in a negative and destructive manner. Our obligation and that of the trade union supersede that. This is a role which probably has not yet been fully met by the unions involved. I would like them to be concerned with the issues at the heart of the improvements here and which surely point the way forward to a better and happier industrial development and job situation for people, perhaps not in the telecommunications area alone, but in other areas where economic progress has been inhibited by a very poor standard of service in this respect. That challenge is also with the unions.
We must be very careful indeed when these boards get off the ground that the criteria by which they operate are not merely or exclusively those of the commercial market place. Wherever a State service can be made viable or can offer a service which makes money, it should do so. I do not believe that the State should be the lame duck in this respect and need only be involved with what I may call the social area which nobody else will touch. It has every right to compete, to make money and be viable. It operates by virtue of public funds. As far as I am concerned, that is the same input and investment as the private individual makes to a company. There is no reason for the State to hang back in this respect. There are many areas in the telecommunications sphere which would be very remunerative financially and supportive of other areas which must exist by virtue of social need and which may not be financially attractive. In some cases, these areas may lose large amounts of money, but they must be sustained.
We must resist every attempt to remove services from or diminish them to people in our community, who are weaker, geographically at a disadvantage, or disadvantaged in one way or another and who, if such service were operated purely on criteria of the commercial sphere would not get a service at all. That caveat must be entered into when we move towards a more modern, more efficient it is hoped, and more viable telecommunications area. I would like the Minister to deal with this matter, if possible. It is right that the public should be involved in this Bill. The more public information there is, and the more explanation to the public in simple terms of what is happening, the better.
I mentioned earlier that we are in the age of microtechnology which has its dangers and difficulties. I have long felt that there is need for legislation protecting the availability of data on the private citizen and long been aware of the possibility and the practice of abuse in relation to phone tapping, invasion of privacy and lack of data protection. I was pleased when my colleague raised this issued yesterday about a specific case. However, it would be wrong to construe this was the only issue involved. The issue is much broader than that and involves a growing concern by members of the public that their privacy is being invaded regularly, that the right to privacy is not respected, that the telephone system can be used to abuse that right.
Obviously, the growth and development of microtechnology, which I welcome as a fine development, is something which must be guarded against possible abuses. Other countries have moved in that respect, but here at present we do not meet with the minimum standards required by the European Court of Human Rights as laid down by them in a judgment of 1973 in a case dealing with a German citizen. They clearly said then that the criteria operating in Germany in 1973 were the minimum to accord with the standards of the European Court of Human Rights. Here there are no criteria whatever.
I have explained in former Dáil Questions and in correspondence with successive Ministers the manner in which such abuses are perpetrated with great ease and facility of access by anyone involved, or with access and a little technological knowledge. That is an area with which these boards must be concerned. I note, in passing, that they are, naturally enough, to be given access to all the personal files of the personnel involved, that the Minister intends transferring to the proposed State company the existing files which would obviously deal with problems of staff over the years in a variety of respects, dealing with sick leave, late attendances, records of discipline and so on. However, the issue is bigger than that. It is about the right to privacy of the ordinary citizen. At present, it is true to say that many telephone calls begin with a statement from one person to another saying "Do not talk about it on the phone, I do not trust the telephones". That is a very bad situation.
In Britain, there is a very extensive network of eavesdropping equipment which has been well documented by the media there. Here, too, there is an extensive network which has not been well documented. In normal circumstances, in the United States and most European countries under the Freedom of Information Act it would be possible to get access. Here there is no such Act and there is a paranoia about secrecy, about very trite, minute details going back decades. This binds us all to ignorance.
I tried recently to get some very simple military historical data for a constituent who was interested for a thesis. It was impossible to obtain, even though the data went back 45 years. That is a shame. The right to privacy has been referred to widely in the literature dealing with this area and I will just quote from an article in The Economist of April 2 1977 entitled “The American Press and the Law.”
In 1890 Louis Brandice and Samuel Warren, disturbed by the flood of gossip and prurience in the American press, wrote an article for the Howard Law Review urging the creation of a legal right of privacy. The article had a remarkable impact. Over the years all States have established, by either judicial decision or statute, a right to sue for evasion of privacy. New technological methods of snooping have made privacy an even more cherished value. Brandice was on the Supreme Court in 1928 when it decided that police wire-tapping was not a search subject to constitutional restrictions. In the great dissent he recalled a phrase from his 1890 article "The right to be left alone, the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."
That happened in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Europe caught up rapidly with that. Britain and Ireland are at the bottom of the league and Britain is ahead of us in that respect. In the democratic world, we have the worst record in relation to legislation on the right of access by the citizen to information and protection of the right to privacy. Neither of these is protected by law. As far as I can judge, phonetapping is not an offence or a crime. Eavesdropping on a phone is not outlawed. In those circumstances, it is quite clear there will be and has been abuse. It is technically possible and many people accept that it occurs. I am not suggesting that there is an extensive network like the Tinkerbell network in Britain. I do not know if there is. I do know that repeated attempts to get information from successive Ministers in this House have failed. The answers have been couched in a manner which is certainly not calculated to reassure those of us concerned with this issue.
I do not believe that in a country like this rights can be eliminated overnight. They are probably nibbled at, diminished monthly by gradual inroads not clearly noticeable to people concerned about these issues. When we are speaking about the postal and telecommunications area we must appreciate that it is an area in which new technology is at its most effective. For example, most people are not aware that mail may now be read or scanned by fibre optic technology without the post being opened. Most people are not aware that it is easy to eavesdrop on telephones and that there is no protection for people in that respect, no right of inquiry or of appeal if comments arising from such eavesdropping are put on public record. People are not even aware of the existence of public records because they are not entitled to see them.
Therefore, we should have specific legislation to deal with the matters I will now refer to. There should be a law to deal with people's right to know: surely, the right to know the truth is a cornerstone of democracy which should be enshrined in the Statute Book. It is not there at present. Reports about citizens are garnered and developed and embelished over the years. Citizens are unaware that such files exist.
There is the right to privacy. The first major exemption from free disclosure of information is that of privacy. Personal information should not be divulged freely or disseminated if it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy, and a person should have the right to pursue that issue. There is the right to inspect. This will be very important in the context of this Bill because the unions will want, and they have my support in this, the right to inspect records which might be defamatory of their members about alleged performances. If a person is a malingerer, if he is unable to work in accordance with the standards on which he was employed, it should be noted and dealt with, but that man or woman should know what is being said about him or her by others. Such a person should have access consistent with his right to ensure that the record is accurate. That right is not available at present.
There should be the right to correct: an individual should have the right to correct information about himself if the information is demonstrably incorrect. Such a right does not now exist. At present, in this Department, personnel files are subject to footnotes about staff, added to and commented on by senior staff, going up the line to the Minister's desk, without any right of inspection, correction or comment by the workers, who in many cases are innocent parties in regard to comments which might very well harm them.
People should have the right to enjoy a situation in which only valid information may be disseminated and used by the administration. Here we are dealing with a vast technological area, and the unions make the point that if we are to have a change to these new arrangements it should be a change that will give a fresh start, fresh confidence and fresh trust from the point of view of employer-employee relations. Also there should be rapid action available in the courts to enforce these rights if people are reluctant to grant them.
This debate affords us the opportunity to make these observations about the extremely unsatisfactory position obtaining here. We do not honour even the minimum requirements of the European Court of Human Rights or the recent OECD guidelines on privacy, which are fairly minimal but which are at least a charter for action by Governments in civilised countries. None of those is observed and Deputies on the far side have not been expressing concern about this. On any occasion when this has been pointed out by this side it has been pooh-poohed and we have been discouraged from pursuing it. The Minister has ample opportunity through this Bill to ensure that we can take the step forward that is now necessary to protect the right to privacy of the public in regard to the extremely leaky telephone system that is operated: in some parts of the country it is almost impossible to get anything but a crossed line, if it posible to get service at all.
This opportunity should be taken to restructure the Department not merely in regard to the postal and telecommunications area. There should be a comprehensive communications plan, prepared with an open mind so that there would be an ability to deal with the exciting technological developments which augur very well for people who endure sheer drudgery, which passes for work but is more likely to be toil. We are on the edge of a great new frontier in this respect. Heavy jobs which can be eased by advanced technology will be diminished if not eliminated altogether. I welcome that, per se, but at the same time I appreciate the enormous social challenge involved in absorbing the vast amount of time that will become available to workers. There is a need to retrain workers, to look at job sharing implications and other matters that arise. The more efficient the postal and telecommunications services become the more likely it is that a substantial wastage of workers will arise. I hope the Minister will deal openly and honestly with it. That has not been done to date.
At the end, I will deal with a few points of a minor nature. For instance, people are continuously confronted with problems in relation to their telephone bills. I am not satisfied that people have an opportunity to check their bills. There is no court of appeal: if one writes back to say he does not agree with the bill, the response invariably is, "We have checked it out. I am sorry you owe the money and you will be cut off if the bill is not paid". I have known of cases, and I am sure the Minister will agree, in which individuals have been wronged in that way. I know two elderly people who are billed for a trunk call which they maintain they never made. They were billed for £6 or £7 for it but after representations the Department graciously agreed to let the thing slide. However these people were warned they would be cut off. I assume this occurs regularly.
Therefore, a metering facility should be provided for those who need it, as they have in regard to ESB, gas and other services. Such meters exist but on recent inquiry I found that apparently they are never in stock or are so far behind in stock that their existence is a myth for ordinary people. There does not seem to be any concern in the Department to get telephone meters for people who want them. This is particularly of concern to elderly people or to anyone who, like most of us has to live on a fixed income. I appeal to the Minister openly and honestly to deal with the accountability of the Posts and Telegraphs engineering department in regard to faults. It is almost impossible for a Deputy, not to mind a member of the public, to get a straight answer as to what technically has happened in relation to a fault that has developed. There appears to be a conspiracy of silence; there seems to be a view in certain sections of the Department that the public either are beneath such technical knowledge or are not entitled to it. I should like the Minister to tell us whether technical information is available concerning faults and if not what he will do to make it available.
I ask the Minister to look at the extremely unsightly impact of telegraph poles and wires on the landscape. There may be an easy answer to this. If such communications infrastructures, as it were, could be buried in the ground or borne on existing lamp standards or other standards, this could diminish the number of extremely unsightly perspectives in many parts of the country. I know places in which an appalling motley of poles and standards have to be maintained. Not only are they environmentally unaesthetic but they are costing a fortune.
On Committee Stage I will be referring to sections 39 and 42 in particular which deal with employment and labour questions. Labour is now my brief. I want to give the Minister notice of the difficulty I see. I am sure the unions have made it clear to him. I appeal to him to deal with it now rather than letting it fester and develop to a stage where we cannot enact this legislation because of intransigence on either side. The problem can be defused if people act responsibly now.
It would be wrong for speaker after speaker to appear to castigate areas of the public service without paying tribute to them as well. I was treated with great courtesy by many people in the Department. People went to great lengths above and beyond the call of duty to deal sympathetically with queries and complaints. I should like to to pay tribute to them. The same goes for the engineering section of the Department. On occasions they have had to brave extraordinary conditions and elements. They would probably welcome anything which would make their job more efficient, rewarding and satisfactory. The whole question of job satisfaction arises in Government services.
I want to ask the Minister a question which just came into my head. It will eliminate the need for me to put down a question which will probably not be reached. Recently, unfortunately, the Minister of State has fallen into the very irritating habit of replying to representations about likely telephone installations in a very bland and general way. I raised this matter with his office on three occasions so I am not jumping the gun. I have put down Dáil questions which I will now withdraw because I hope the Minister will answer me when he is replying.
I should like him to try to see the enormous volume of correspondence which I presume he gets from members of the public and from Deputies not as an irritant but as an indication of the need for proper information systems in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and, indeed, in other Government Departments. Would that we did not have to write these infernal letters. They are no more pleasure to write than to receive. If we had rapid access to information and good standards of reply there would not be a problem.
Perhaps the new boards will deal with that. Mr. Quinn and Mr. Smurfit are outstanding examples of how to achieve commercial and entrepreneurial success. They have given fine employment. We owe them a debt of gratitude for taking on this very thankless job. I hope it will not become a two-headed monster. I am sure they have given amply of their time to try to devise a modern and progressive postal and telecommunications service which will meet the challenge of the next two or three decades. If this is done it will be a cornerstone in tackling our economic problems. I have seen new industrial clusters in remote parts of the country without a telephone line available to them. That is a contradication in terms and shows we are not getting our priorities right.
I wish the Bill success. The principle of the Bill is good. The breaking up of big corporations is a good thing and should be followed up. The Bill is not likely to succeed unless there is a radical review of the way in which the industrial relations aspect has been handled to date. The Minister will give that priority if he believes we should proceed in this way.
