asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the amount paid by the Dublin motor section of the Post Office each week for the hire of private vans to make good the shortage in his Department's own fleet.

The present weekly cost of van hireage in the Dublin postal district is £978.09.

Have the Department examined the cost involved in purchasing a number of replacement vehicles to obviate the need to hire private vehicles which are unsuitable for the work? Has he also examined the costing of new vehicle purchase schemes now available which allow customers to buy vehicles on lease or hire purchase? According to information publically available, some motor manufacturers are now offering brand new vehicles under such schemes for far less than it is costing to rent them from car hire firms.

I am not particularly in favour of the Government hiring vans from individual or private firms. I see something wrong with a system which would allow that. The fact is that insufficient moneys were made available by the previous Administration.

Deputies may laugh. The policy of hiring vans was introduced as a substitute to meet the need. I had the personal experience of going to the Sheriff Street sorting office a fortnight ago because of the strike — for want of a better word — the withdrawal of labour by the van drivers, and as a public representative I was ashamed that men should be asked to drive the vans that those men were asked to drive. It is a total disgrace.

Why do you not buy them? Why come in here complaining? Go and buy the vans if you want them.

May I finish the answer?

Go and buy the vans.

As a token of our intentions——

Oh, very good.

——to get the men back to work, for Deputy Killilea's information, the meeting took place at 9 o'clock and the strike was over at 10 o'clock. I want to put on the record the very good service that the mechanics in Sheriff Street carried out to keep road worthy vans that should have been off the road ten years ago.

Deputy Sherlock, a supplementary.

Regarding the second part of my question, would the Minister examine the costings for the new vehicle purchase scheme now available?

That is being considered.

Is the Minister of State accusing the previous Administration on the one hand of over-spending and over-borrowing and, on the other hand, saying that we did not spend enough and did not borrow enough? Can he clarify that?

I am not suggesting anything that Deputy Burke is trying to put into my mind. I am stating merely that I was confronted with the situation where ordinary working men trying to earn a living were expected to drive vehicles that were a disgrace to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and I will not defend it.

What is the total amount spent in 1979, 1980 and 1981 for the purchase of new vehicles for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs?

Almost nothing.

Would the Minister of State agree with me that he is trying to insinuate to this House that the state of the vans six, nine, 12 months ago was such that the problem would not have arisen then? It is clear that because of the cutbacks, restrictions and everything else he imposed down in Sheriff Street, the problem arose.

Nonsense.

You would say the same about CIE buses.

Deputy Reynolds is trying to ask a supplementary question.

If Deputy McMahon was aware of the capital estimates in this House he would be aware that £49.5 million was provided for CIE last year.

We are talking about the Post Office, not CIE.

Would the Minister of State agree that, had he pursued the policy that I instigated earlier this year of a transfer of items out of his current account into his capital account, for which I put a Bill through this House this year, he would have little or no need to bring any Supplementary Estimate in to this House, and that that is no excuse for not buying vans when he should have bought them, before the strike took place and before he has to ban parcel service for three or four weeks in the city? These are facts on the record.

Question No. 19.

Some of the vans which I refuse to allow them to drive are ten and eleven years old.

A Ceann Comhairle, you did not call Question No. 18.

That was my fault. I am calling Question No. 18. I thought we might get 20 questions done in the hour.