Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

With over 1,100 branches, the post office network is the largest physical infrastructure in Ireland and is a vital strategic asset. The Government needs to recognise the unique and vital role of the post office, particularly in rural Ireland, as a means of communication, an essential economic tool and an intrinsic part of the fabric of the community. It has social and economic values and functions as an integral part of the social fabric of rural Ireland.

In the programme for Government, the Government made a commitment to maintain the network but in the past three years, we have not seen any strategic plan or action to accompany and deliver on this aspiration. Up to now, it has only been a pious platitude. If it is not delivered on immediately, it will be the death knell for many of our post offices. The recent decision to set up 34 centres for driving licence application processing was an ideal opportunity for the Government. The post office structure was the ideal local centre of convenience for the general public but instead many people have to spend up a half a day and sometimes a full day travelling long distances to central venues that are many miles from their homes.

Social welfare payments are the mainstay of post offices' business. On average, it amounts to about one third of gross income but, ironically, following the Department of Social Protection signing up to a new two-year contract with An Post, a representative from the Irish Postmasters' Union who attended a meeting of the Oireachtas committee gave us a copy of a document sent to a social welfare recipient by the Department. The document asked the recipient to sign up for payments made by electronic systems through the bank. This was to the exclusion of the option of going to a post office. This needs to be addressed in the short term and post offices need to be immediately equipped through the provision of a full banking infrastructure operated by An Post that would enable the network to facilitate the Department of Social Protection strategy to move to e-payments. Now that An Post is involved in a consortium dispensing national lottery tickets, that facility needs to be available in all post offices. It would help their viability.

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