asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will furnish details of and make a statement on the present and proposed telephone development in County Mayo.

There are 66 manual telephone exchanges in County Mayo serving 5,800 subscribers. Under automatic conditions Castlebar will be the automanual and main trunk switching centre for practically the entire county.

Castlebar and Ballina manual exchanges are expected to be converted to automatic working in the latter half of next year. Conversion of Claremorris, Crossmolina and Kiltimagh exchanges is expected in 1978.

Is the Minister aware that there is an increasing demand for telephones in rural areas in the west? Is there any hope of speeding up the present scheme of installation of telephones?

As the Deputy is aware, there was a considerable backlog in relation to the west of Ireland and priority is being given to a great extent to the west in the major telephone developments that have been occurring since the very sizeable injections of capital into the system from 1973 on. The six exchanges to be converted in 1977-1978 will mean a major improvement in the service. There are plans also for conversion to automatic working of 15 other exchanges. In my view the future outlook is bright.

I am talking about rural areas where there is a great demand for public telephones. Is there any change in policy in relation to this or does the Minister propose to make funds available to provide phones in remote areas where there are no telephones?

I do not know whether the Deputy would like me to reverse the present priority which is that priority will be given to telephone centres serving approximately 80 per cent of the telephones and that the centres catering for less than 20 per cent of telephones will be catered for in later programmes. That seems a reasonable priority to me. I am sorry if it causes inconvenience to some people.

4.