Mr. Ned O'Hara:

A number of questions were raised about services, including the post mobile service. We welcome this new service which brings transactions to us. There were teething problems, which we addressed directly with An Post. We see it as a revenue line. Postmasters cannot decide what to sell. An Post or the Government decide. While we would and could feel we would offer different services, we are not in a position to do it. We are dependent on our masters to provide us with opportunities to earn money. The amount of money that can be made through motor tax and driving licences has been well publicised. An Post referred to our commercial mandate. We see the commercial mandate as in conflict with the social and community service An Post offices can provide and, to some extent, it can damage it. If An Post chooses to publicise its online billing, it damages postmasters' transactions. We are paid by transactions. There is a time lag in when we are paid. In 2016, some postmasters were paid for transactions they did in 2014. If a new transaction comes on in 2016, a postmaster will not be paid for it until 2018. It is slightly disingenuous. I do not want to get into a match. We are timelagged. The forecast for our transactions is that they will decrease during the next four or five years.

Deputies Ciarán Cannon and Martin Heydon referred to broadband and the opportunities and threats or challenges coming from technology. We recognise it more than anyone else. We are the people directly faced by them. Being involved in a five-year planning process allows us to address some of them. As part of the Bobby Kerr group, the first presentation we received on broadband was about everybody in the State having broadband by 2019. This has now been changed to 2023. This is 2016. We want a five year plan that takes us up to 2021. There are opportunities in those five years whereby people could use post offices to avail of broadband services in post offices. There are commercial opportunities with An Post's commercial mandate. We want this. While we recognise the challenges, we want an ongoing plan to address them. We do not know whether there will be a post office in 50 years time. We know it will be there in five years time and we need to plan for it, and it is a rolling plan.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae has left. He asked us about our involvement in the post office network renewal board. We are in there because our members decided we should be. We want the plan for our future and represent the interests of all our members, urban and rural. We have done our own research on what people want. People tell us. We have brought those to the Bobby Kerr group. We are responsible for some of the issues regarding the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring. Deputy Heydon referred to listening sessions. We conducted listening sessions in Ballymore Eustace, Fethard-on-Sea, Newbliss and other towns. We are listening to people and proposing what they are telling us they want. I am not sure what Deputy Michael Healy-Rae referred to. I am not aware of any criticism anybody in the Irish Postmasters Union has ever made of him.