asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will arrange to have the telephone in Fybagh, Castlemaine, County Kerry, transferred to a kiosk outside the post office as it would then be available to the public at all times.

The use made of the call office telephone in the post office is not sufficient to warrant provision of a kiosk at Fybagh.

The telephone concerned is in the post office and is not used because the post office is a business premises. There is a lack of privacy and telephone conversations can be heard. If the telephone was transferred to a kiosk outside the post office it would facilitate people who need to make calls at night.

I am afraid that the case is a fairly clear one. This case is often made where there is a suggestion that a new kiosk be installed. My Department have to decide on the priorities. We have to decide if the kiosk is warranted and the criterion of £300 has been set. The revenue from this telephone falls far below that. It is £58.62 which is much too low. All I can suggest is that a kiosk could be provided at Fybagh under a scheme whereby the local authority enter into an agreement to make good the loss involved in the maintenance of the kiosk. If I get such an undertaking from the local authority, my Department will be happy to provide it.

If the kiosk was provided outside the post office the revenue would be much greater. People do not like using the telephone kiosk inside the post office when there is a lack of privacy. Would the Minister please look into this again?

I will have my Department consider this but I cannot give any guarantee.

This is the answer we get to all questions about telephone kiosks outside post offices. People do not make use of the telephone inside those post offices when their conversations cannot be confidential. They prefer to travel up to two miles to a private house to make a call.

This is not a question.

I am pointing out that this is the type of excuse we get when we ask questions about telephone kiosks outside post offices.

This is a specific question. Question No. 11.

I would like to comment on what Deputy Callanan has said because I appreciate his concern. This policy which my Department is carrying out now is a longestablished one——

Change it.

——which I have considered and which I think is a just way of allocating priorities. I am sorry if sometimes inconvenience is caused, but I cannot provide kiosks absolutely——

Since, according to the Minister for Finance's statement yesterday, a substantial loss has been incurred on the telephone service, it is obvious that the yardstick by which the Minister says he has been operating in regard to the telephone service has not been adhered to.

This is a question concerning a specific telephone kiosk.

In view of that fact, would the Minister not consider that the monopolistic nature of our telephone service carries with it the responsibility to provide a service for all of our people within——

This is a serious deviation from the subject matter of the question.

The deficit on the telephone service and the increase in telephone charges and the related question of telephone development are matters on which I intend to make a full statement in the course of the budget debate. I would only point out here that a main ingredient of that deficit is the very high cost of the capital which has had to be borrowed for the major telephone development schemes which have been going into operation.

11.