Mr. Brian McGann:

I will respond to the points made by Deputy Colreavy. We were in the House last night to listen to the Minister. He referred to the phenomenon of retail concentration with businesses based in larger county and provincial centres, but that raises the issue of what will happen to small towns and villages throughout the country. From what we heard last night it seems the Minister and the Government are presiding over the death of communities in the country.

We have no problem locating post offices wherever they are needed. What we will not accept is the establishment of an alternative network that will destroy the current network. That is our problem.

The Deputy is correct when he said that we are not trying to stop the tide and are not unrealistic in that regard. We want the tools to offer the services that people want. If we are given the tools to do the job we believe that people will come in the door because we are valuable, useful, helpful and reliable. We want to be able to compete on a fair and level playing field. The Government, when it looks at the awarding of over the counter contracts, etc., needs to recognise that there are 1,150 outlets in the network and not 30 outlets. It must also recognise the social policy value and aspect of the post office network.

The Deputy is correct that An Post must come up with a business plan. The major Government shareholders are the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister for Finance. They decide at a strategic policy level the sort of approach that An Post should take. Recently Deputy Rabbitte, in response to Deputy Healy-Rae, said that An Post must be commercially viable. The fact of the matter is 48% of the network does 11% of the business and the Minister referred to this point last night.

There is a need to put a value on the social policy element of the network. The Government needs to tell An Post to come up with a business model or plan that meets the future needs of the people of this country. We will play our part by making sure that there is a value put on the social policy element and that a contribution, somewhere along the way, is made either through driving Government to make it more economically viable or using some other mechanism in support of that aim. There has been no change to the national lottery because we are paid as agents. The Minister had guaranteed that the current fee paid to agents will remain unchanged.

We are interested in the Irish League of Credit Unions. About a year and a half ago we sought a meeting with the league and met a number of its people who were very interested in what we had to say. We asked them to think about the venture and they said that they would get back to us but we never heard any more about it, which is a great pity.

One of the questions asked was did Grant Thornton work out the figures with An Post. Grant Thornton received some information from An Post but An Post would be very cautious about me giving out information that it regards as commercially sensitive. We have argued that, as partners in the business, we should be proper and full partners The people that I represent are business people, they have good business ideas and know how to make the business work so their voice should be listened to. That is why we have gone to Grant Thornton ourselves to get proposals costs. It is why we are trying to make a difference because we know how important our service is to people.