in the House of Assembly last night.

Mrs. Grace Bell UBP said she had suspicions that the Bermuda Telephone Company was "cheating'' the public. Either that, or there was a malfunction in Telco's line system, she said.

Mrs. Bell said her business had received one too many mis-diallings. And the recent incident where someone called a ZBM News call-in segment and asked for Four Star Pizza was a classic example of a mis-dialling, she said.

She also noted that when she called numbers left on her Telco answering service, she often reached people claiming they had never called her.

She said she was not the only person to experience such problems.

"I know of many others who have experienced similar problems, including with their Maestro systems (a digital telephone appliance that records the numbers of callers). They have called numbers on their machines of people who say they never called.

"The system may not be working right -- or (Telco) is cheating the general public by overcharging them,'' she charged.

Mr. Nelson Bascome PLP commented on a recent letter to the Editor of The Royal Gazette thanking Youth and Sport Minister the Hon. Pamela Gordon for improvements to the Port Royal children's playground.

He said while the new basketball court and playground equipment were impressive, Sen. Gordon had ignored the playground in Pembroke East, which was used by "a large segment of our community''.

The playground was in a "devastating'' condition, with the slide missing steps and "jagged'' edges on other equipment.

"Do we have to wait until something serious happens before there are improvements?,'' he asked.

Mr. Bascome said residents were fed up with the condition of the playground.

"Sen. Gordon should not be showing bias to the constituency she adopted,'' he charged.

He added constituents with UBP representatives had "immaculate roads'' that were "well-lit and well-paved''.

Dr. David Dyer UBP brought up the subject of car seat-belts.

He said a recent test in the United Kingdom had shown a person could be thrown out of their seat going as slow as 12 mph.

"Perhaps the time has come for Bermuda to consider seat-belts,'' he said. Dr.

Dyer added it may also be time the Transport Ministry developed a safety scheme for boat users.

"Not one year goes by that some unfortunate resident is not lost in some way at sea,'' he said.

Dr. Dyer suggested that before boat owners were allowed on the water, they should be tested on how to handle their vessels and how to use the emergency equipment on board.

He further suggested boaters be required to have EPIRB emergency beacons on board when travelling outside the reef line.

Bermuda had to rely on US Navy helicopters and planes to search for missing boats, he pointed out. But if boats were fitted with EPIRBs -- which pinpoint a vessel's location, a local boat could go out and tow them in.

Mr. Stuart Hayward Ind. knocked Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan for calling "esteemed scientist'' Dr. Helen Silbergale a lobbyist.

He said she was respected around the world for her work in the field of toxicology and had been praised by the DAB for her contributions on the incinerator.

He said it was wrong of Sir John to say Dr. Silbergale had "made a lot of noise and caused a lot of damage'' when she had alerted Government to problems with incinerator ash.

Mrs. Lois Browne Evans PLP, returning to the issue of traffic problems, said there was no space to turn left at the three-way traffic lights near the stop sign at the Pembroke Tennis Stadium.

She said she was raising the problem in the House because Government had failed to address it.

Transport Minister the Hon. Ralph Marshall , on the subject of seat-belts, said he feared that making them mandatory would be over-regulation.

They would also be inconvenient given the speed limit and short distance residents travel.

Works and Engineering the Hon. Clarence Terceira said he was already looking into the problem of the three-way traffic lights at the Tennis Stadium and his technical staff had been to the area.