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Dáil Éireann - Volume 322 - 11 June, 1980

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Telephone Service.

8. Mr. N. Andrews asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs when telephone service will be provided for a person (details supplied) in Dublin city; and if he will confirm that the installation fee payable in this case will be the rate prevailing on the date of the original application.

Mr. Killilea: It is expected that service will be provided within three months.

[249] The installation fee will be that current on the date service is offered to the applicant.

Mr. N. Andrews: Many people have waited for a considerable time for a telephone connection having applied for it five years previously. Would the Minister not consider it feasible that the connection fee should be at the rate prevailing when the people first apply?

Mr. Killilea: I could not agree.

Mr. N. Andrews: Through no fault of this applicant delays occurred in the installation and this seems to be a reasonable request.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy is making a statement.

Mr. Killilea: After 1 July the connection fee will be £100 and there is nothing I can do about this matter.

Mr. Harte: Does the Minister not acknowledge that an area such as County Donegal where it is almost impossible to get a telephone and where, as another question will indicate, people are discriminated against——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That is a separate question.

Mr. Harte: There is nothing separate about it. I am asking is it not discriminating against people who have long delays before their telephones are connected that they should now have to pay more than those other people who had not to wait so long to be connected?

Mr. N. Andrews: Further arising out of the reply——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: A final supplementary, Deputy, please.

Mr. Harte: The Minister is admitting that it is discriminating.

Mr. Killilea: I am not admitting that. For the installation of an article like a [250] telephone, the installation fee of £100 is cheap. No other organisation, the ESB or any other body, would be as cheap. It is value for money.

Mr. Harte: I do not agree with the Minister.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Deputy Andrews, a final supplementary.

Mr. N. Andrews: Could I ask the Minister, to reply to the first part of my question? While I accept that the value for money at today's rates is good, I do not accept that the fees should be charged at the current rate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy is now making a statement. Ask a question, please.

Mr. B. Desmond: The Deputy is correct. His facts are correct.

Mr. Harte: The Deputy is right.

Mr. N. Andrews: My question has not been fully answered.

Deputies: Hear, hear.

Mr. Kelly: Good man, well done.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Question No. 9, Deputy Barry Desmond.

Mr. N. Andrews: The Minister has not replied to the first part of my question.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Chair is not responsible for the Minister's reply.

Mr. N. Andrews: I am trying to get an answer to my question.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Harte: The people in County Donegal have been waiting for five or six years for a connection and now the Minister is asking them for more money.

[251] Mr. N. Andrews: On a point of order, I have received an answer to the second part of my question, but not the first.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Minister has answered three or four questions and the Chair is not responsible for the Minister's answering. I call Question No. 9.

Mr. N. Andrews: I put this question down on the Order Paper two weeks ago. I still have not received an answer to the first part of my question.

Mr. Killilea: It is expected that services will be provided within three months.

Mr. N. Andrews: Thank you.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That answer was given five minutes ago. Question No. 9, please.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick (Cavan-Monaghan): The Deputy must not be getting the nice letters that the Minister has written to me.

Mr. Harte: Deputy Fitzpatrick writes to the Minister, I do not. He keeps writing to me.

Mr. Kelly: You are anxious to stand up for Deputy Andrews's right in here.

9. Mr. B. Desmond asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the basis on which new equipment will operate in public telephone kiosks to secure an automatic cut-off after a prescribed time to ensure that people do not make excessively long local telephone calls; and if he will make a statement onthe matter.

Mr. Killilea: Special equipment is available which can limit local calls from coin box telephones in public kiosks to a predetermined length. Equipment of this kind is already in operation in some kiosks, particularly in Dublin and Cork. Where this equipment is in use, local calls are limited to five minutes, warning signals being given after four-and-a-half minutes.

[252] Supplies of new type coinboxes which it is expected will be brought into use later this year also have local call timing equipment fitted which can limit the time allowed for a local call fee. This equipment will, however, allow of the call being continued by payment of a further fee or fees. The question of timing the duration of local calls from these coinboxes and of extending their use to all telephone kiosks is under examination but decisions have not yet been taken on these matters.

Mr. B. Desmond: Can the Minister indicate offhand, the number of public telephone kiosks in the Dublin area which currently are fitted with those devices.

Mr. Killilea: Dublin 01 area, Merrion A, North Merrion A, Terenure, Ship Street area, Skerries and Dún Laoghaire. The facilities operate on only a portion of the last three. In the provinces, Cork central, Hettyfield with a warning pip sound each six seconds.

Mr. Kelly: Could the Minister say in what country the new pattern telephone machines he mentioned are being made?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That is surely a separate question.

Mr. Killilea: I have the answer to that question.

Mr. Kelly: Would the Minister make sure that if, as I strongly suspect, it is a British pattern, it will be at least the current British pattern——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy is making a statement which he should not do at Question Time.

Mr. Kelly: ——and not the last one or the one before that, because I would like us not to be one step behind.

Mr. B. Desmond: Not having had the delight of using these machines as yet, might I ask the Minister does one re-feed [253] them on the pips, or does one have to redial?

Mr. Killilea: No, one does not, one refeeds.

Mr. B. Desmond: Does one re-feed on the warning pips?

Mr. Killilea: Yes.

Mr. Horgan: Can the Minister of State say whether these new machines he is talking about will also have the facility, long lacking in this country, whereby it will be possible to make a trunk call without recourse to the operator?

Mr. Killilea: Yes.

Mr. Harte: Will the time signal in the new apparatus about which the Minister speaks do away with the objectionable time signal now obtaining on long-distance calls, sounds that are really an annoyance?

Mr. Killilea: Yes.

Mr. Harte: What has happened in the last two or three months since——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That is a separate question.

Mr. Harte: ——this objectionable noise has been occurring every so often, because it is downright objectionable?

Mr. Killilea: I was not aware of any objectionable noise. The Deputy did not ring me recently.

Mr. Harte: Just in case the Minister is disappointed, it is not my intention to telephone him.

10. Mr. Donnellan asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if his attention has been drawn to the lack of telephone service at Kinvara, County Galway; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

[254] Mr. Killilea: The answer is “no”. The standard of telephone service at this exchange is broadly the same as at other manual exchanges of this same size. The quality of service there will be improved when additional trunk circuits to Galway, at present in course of installation, are brought into use in the next fortnight or so. It is planned to convert the exchange at Kinvara to automatic working within the next year.

11. Mr. Donnellan asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if his attention has been drawn to the poor telephone service in the 091 area; and the action he proposes to take in the matter.

Mr. Killilea: The standard of service in the area at present is broadly the same as in other parts of the country, having been improved over the last year or so by the provision of new exchanges and additional trunk circuits and the introduction of International Subscriber Dialling. It will be further improved early next year when more trunk circuits to Dublin are installed following the opening of a new trunk exchange in Dublin.

The 091 telephone area consists of the following exchanges: Galway, Carraroe, Claregalway, Corrandulla, Costelloe, Kilcolgan, Inverin, Loughrea, Maam, Moycullen, Oranmore, Oughterard, Roscahill, Rosmuck, Shantalla, Spiddal, Tourloughmore, Teranee.

All these exchanges have automatic service with full subscriber trunk dialling (STD). International Subscriber Dialling (ISD) is also available at all these exchanges except Loughrea which is in a separate charge group.

The main switching and operator centre is at Galway.

Congested conditions are sometimes experienced during peak traffic periods. The position has improved over a period and while it is still not as good as one would like it to be it does, at the same time, compare broadly with other areas.

Several other schemes to improve service in the area are in progress or planned; these include: (1) a new switchroom which will be opening shortly in Galway; (2) plans are in hand to increase the [255] main trunk route between Galway and Loughrea, Athenry and Gort. These routes all go via Oranmore and extensive cabling is being undertaken in this area; (3) plans are also in hand to link Tuam to Galway by means of a high capacity microwave link which will later be extended on to Ballinrobe and Castlebar. This microwave link is expected to be in service around the middle of next year; (4) a new telecommunications complex is under construction at Mervue. This will house both a trunk and local exchange, a microwave terminal as well as an area engineering headquarters. The digital electronic exchange to be installed there is on order and it is expected to have this new exchange in use in early 1982; (5) long-term circuit capacity is being catered for by planned routes to Athlone, Dublin and Limerick. These high capacity microwave routes will ensure that the future needs of the Galway area are well catered for.

Mr. O'Toole: It is worth a few votes in West Galway.

12. Mr. Harte asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if his attention has been drawn to the delay, of up to six years, in the provision of telephone service for applicants in Letterkenny, County Donegal; and if he will outline his proposals to reduce these delays and remedy the matter.

Mr. Killilea: There has, regrettably, been delay in meeting numbers of applications for telephones in the Letterkenny area. The delay has been due to a shortage of the necessary resources in staff.

General clearance of the outstanding applications is already under way and it is planned to clear them progressively over the next year or so.

Mr. Harte: Does the Minister not now accept the injustice of keeping people waiting for up to six years for a telephone — the majority of them four years — and that now, because they have been deprived of a service available to [256] other people, the Minister proposes to increase the installation costs? Does the Minister not consider this to be a terrible injustice?

Mr. Killilea: No.

Mr. Harte: Would the Minister not consider that it is penalising people who have not had a telephone service to ask them to pay more having kept them waiting for so long——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: There is nothing about the cost of installation in this question.

Mr. Killilea: We are giving a service sooner to the people of Donegal and the North-West which will be equal to if not better than that in most other parts of the country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Question No. 13.

Mr. Harte: Does the Minister not consider it an injustice to keep people waiting for four to six years for telephones——

Mr. Killilea: Certainly.

Mr. Harte: ——and now that they are to be provided with telephones the Minister is penalising them by asking them to pay more?

Mr. Killilea: If the Deputy had listened to my reply he would have heard one significant line, which he might refer to his party when they were in Government. That was: “The delay has been due to a shortage of the necessary resources in staff.” That was due to an embargo put on by the Deputy's party when they were in office.

Mr. Harte: I heard that. Would the Minister not consider that his party——

Mr. Killilea: So the Deputy might go back and tell his constituents.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Deputies, please, this is argument.

[257] Mr. Creed: Has the Minister's party not been in office for the past three years?

Mr. Harte: And the Minister's party left a mess behind them in 1973.

Mr. Killilea: It is nothing like the mess the Deputy's party left behind them in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs.

(Interruptions).

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