Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Before I came into the Chamber I went outside and spoke to some of the protesters. Some of them seem to have fallen for the line that perhaps their problem is solved but fortunately there were a few people there who, when I was talking to them, I reminded them that the Government has done this in the past. That is what it does in an election and in the run-up to an election. At this stage I am seriously wondering are we going to get a promise of world peace from the Government on 24 May because it has promised us everything else. When I was outside I met protesters who previously had protested outside this House on the issue of turfcutting and I did not have to convince them that the Government was not telling the truth. As one of them reminded me, on 7 March two years ago the Government supported the turfcutters and in a couple of months time I will be helping a few of them in court because the Government has criminalised them. People are not going to be fooled by this, no more than they do not believe that the Government is going to deliver on world peace, which I expect it to announce any time soon.

Only a fool cannot see the value in a seed and that is what the post office is for rural Ireland and for many towns that are not in rural Ireland. A seed does not look like much, it is generally small, it is not very impressive but what is inside it and what comes out of it when one activates it is what is phenomenal about it. I pity people who cannot see the value in the obvious. Post offices where I come from are like a seed. They are not just about delivering letters or the core services that the post office provides. They are also a seed that can be built on, no more than the small schools (amendment) Bill that I introduced about two ears ago, which is another seed for these areas. Without them they cannot survive. Sadly, nowadays we are told that X place cannot have a small school and Y place cannot have a post office because there are not enough people living there. This has been my argument in the past on schools and it will my argument tonight on post offices. Instead of Governments focusing on why there are so few people in an area and deciding to close the post office or schools, we have got to turn that on its head and ask why are there not more people there and create policies and decisions that make it possible for more to live there.

It interesting to hear that the Labour Party had to be convinced by Fine Gael to support the people. Well done to the people of Roscommon down through the years because we were never fooled by Labour. We worked it out a long time ago. We knew that it was never were going to do anything for rural Ireland. We elected a man to Dáil Éireann who won two all-Ireland medals in Roscommon in the 1940s and guess what - he joined Labour and we would not elect him. We are very smart. The reality is that the Labour Party does not give a damn about the post offices. It does not give a damn about rural Ireland.

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