This Bill has been duly certified as a Money Bill.
SECTION 1.
TELEPHONE CAPITAL BILL, 1924—COMMITTEE.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
I wish to raise a matter in connection with this Bill. I take it that this £500,000 is only provision for a year or thereabouts. I imagine that a capital expenditure of £500,000 will not be sufficient to provide an efficient telephone service here and that something like two or three million pounds will have to be spent in the next four or five years as capital expenditure. I think I am correct in stating that the reason why we have continuous complaints as to the telephone service is not because of the inefficiency of the staff but owing to inefficient instruments in a very large number of exchanges. I know that to be the case. I think the circumstances are that the Exchanges belonged to a private company who for some time knew they were likely to be taken over by the Government and did the minimum amount of repairs and made practically no renewals. They were taken over by a Government which, I think, had a kind of feeling that they were going to be taken over by another Government, and, therefore, did the minimum amount of repairs and renewals. The result has been that the Post Office has been faced with a really serious problem, and I am glad to see that steps are being taken to make provision for it. A good deal of the information I ascertained in this matter arose out of evidence given at the Postal Commission.
There is one matter which I would like to urge upon the Minister. In view of the fact—I take it to be a fact—that further expenditure will be necessary, if not at an early date, at any rate during the next four or five years, a bona fide effort should be made to induce some leading firm, manufacturing telephone apparatus, to set up a factory here. To my own knowledge a firm made a proposal that they were prepared to discuss the setting up of such a factory—I think it was a British firm—and that they were prepared, if they could get an agreement that Government supplies would be taken from them for three years, to enter into a guarantee that charges made by them would not be greater than those which they were charging the British or any other Government they have contracts with. There may be excellent reasons why nothing came of that proposal. I am not here to say that there were not, but I suggest that if that was possible as regards one firm it might be possible with other firms, possibly from the Continent. Steps should be taken to see if we could not make the fact that we will have considerable orders to give from the State during the next year or two sufficient reason to induce such a firm to come over here. The difficulty in setting a factory of that kind up is that for a number of years the firm would have to face a loss. When the State has orders of the magnitude which it obviously will have under this Bill alone, without any reference to the future, it ought to be possible to persuade some firm to set up a factory here or some Irish firm in alliance with some leading telephone firm of experience. I do not ask the Minister to make a declaration on the subject, but simply throw out the suggestion so that it may be considered.
I am interested in rural party lines which are very much used in other countries and provide a very cheap form of telephone facilities in agricultural districts. A number of people use the one circuit. One can, of course, hear what other people are saying, but it is not usual in a well-conducted community to listen-in. The system is used largely in Canada and other places. I would like to know whether something of the kind could not be done here in order to provide telephone facilities. One is not satisfied to feel that possibly the whole of this expenditure will be in urban districts, because telephone communication is a great necessity to farmers. We do not feel that the Government are doing all that they might to develop telephone communication in districts which are not now served, rather than improving the services in the more populous areas.
I would like to support Senator Sir John Keane's suggestion. In Western America all the farm-houses are connected by telephone. The lines are put up along the road and quite small houses are connected. It is possible to speak to most houses in a district, and to the nearest town. Something of that sort should be done here. In view of the developments indicated, I would like to point out that there are parts of Ireland where there is no telephone service. There is a telephone service to Galway, but there is none in any part of Mayo. I do not see why western districts should be cut off from that service.
I am at a loss to answer some of the questions put to me about this particular Bill, as I am taking the place of the Minister for Finance. In this respect his duty is simply to provide capital for necessary extensions of the telephone service in the country. The policy of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is not Government policy. He is an Extern Minister, and it is his responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the Government. With regard to this Bill, we are providing capital up to half a million. The Bill is retrospective. Something like £64,500 was issued in respect of capital expenditure for 1922-1923. The issue for 1923-1924 was £70,000. These two sums of £134,500 will be covered by the half-million grant in this Bill. There will still remain something like £360,000 available for capital extensions up to March 31st, 1926. The Bill covers all that has been borrowed since we came into control of Government affairs.
The actual sum of capital expenditure on telephone plant within the Saorstát up to the 31st March, 1923, amounts to £312,000. The responsibility of the Minister for Finance is to provide the money. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs arranges that on the capital expenditure, granted there is a corresponding income guaranteed in respect of any extensions. Developments through the country depend upon the number of subscribers in particular areas, which would secure that the payment of interest would be guaranteed by those persons. We are in much the same position in this matter as a municipality which has an electricity undertaking. All the residents and ratepayers along a line of several miles will ask that the road be lighted by electric lamps. In that case the municipality is limited in its expenditure on the cables and on the construction of the posts for lighting the district with electricity. It is limited by the fact that any such capital expenditure must have a return from other sources. In the same way any capital expenditure under this Bill must be justified by subscribers in various places. If there is a desire for telephone connection, I do not think there is any limit to the amount of money that will be made available by the Government for that purpose. The limitation is not there. It depends entirely upon the number of subscribers in a particular district, so as to make it an economic proposition.
Arising out of what the Minister stated, the position is that I have some personal experience. A certain number of people made an application for a telephone service and got back an intimation that the annual subscription would be £21. Of course, that was quite impossible. We got no figures to show how the £21 was calculated. No doubt, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs included in that capital outlay what he considered was justifiable, but, naturally, that was not satisfactory to us. We did not know how the charge was made up. There is nothing more elusive and tricky than capital expenditure. In this case it might involve, to an extent, a charge for trunk services on the area and an apportionment of the costs of the main trunk line. Many technical questions would arise, but we were in the dark. We were told that the annual subscription would be £21. In Canada people can enjoy the telephones for sums within their means. Certainly £21 a year would not be considered in that light.
Section put and agreed to.
Remaining sections ordered to be added to the Bill.
Bill ordered to be Reported without amendment.