Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are a few questions that I would like to put arising out of the presentations. I found them very helpful on all fronts. I think the idea that the post office should be a local State office is a good one. It should also be a portal for online services, even with the State. The idea that it could be used for medical consultations and other suggestions is really inventive thinking.

It occurs to me that local authorities might be able to use post offices also, not just the central State. If one wants to get some service from the local authority or to report something to the local authority, the local post office could be the means of communication with county councils and the like. That is a fairly vague proposal but if one wants to have some business with the local authority, it seems to me that is a way of doing it.

On financial services, I was listening recently to an advertisement on the radio for life policies being used to cover funeral expenses. They are being marketed at the moment for people over 55. It struck me that at the end of it there were about five or six sentences added to it saying who it was organised by, that the Central Bank had licensed it and all of these complexities. A State agency was promoting a financial service and half of the advertisement was spent trying to comply with the Central Bank or other regulatory requirements. It made the advertisement unpleasant to listen to and diluted the impact almost completely. Will the Central Bank give the witnesses a much simpler type of logo, word or phrase which gets one past all of this garbage? We do not want to hear people blathering and almost too fast to hear all sorts of stuff which ruins every advertisement.

On parcels, I happen to get them because of a hobby I have. Rathmines post office is not open on a Saturday. That is the one time I want to go and collect a parcel but they do not want to give it to me. A parcel motel service is needed if one wants to be serious about that service. One wants to be able to collect it when working people, what the Taoiseach called people who get up early in the morning, can come and collect their parcels. There is no point in telling a working person who is sitting in an apartment somewhere that they can take hours off work to hunt down their parcel.

An old hobbyhorse of mine is getting stamps to send letters. I know it is easier now, but I cannot believe that something like a franking machine cannot be put on the outside of post offices. One could stick one's letter in and use a credit card. One does not need cash. If one wants to frank a letter, one can frank it there and then and send it off. Many people say they will send a letter without a stamp because it is too complicated. They will avoid the witness's system. It is difficult to access the postal delivery service. I know most of An Post's business now is coming from large institutions which have franking machines. However, for the ordinary Joe and Josephine Soap, the hassle of getting a stamp is big. If there are parking machines that spit out little adhesive labels, it must be possible to have something equivalent for a letter. The other option is to stick the letter into a slot and do it that way. I feel there are difficulties in using An Post's services.

Mention was made of the television licence fee and that €3 million was going to be lost from post offices' revenue. We launched a report today on that subject. The idea we put forward is to have the Revenue Commissioners collect this on the basis that every house has to pay it. It is already collecting money from every house in the form of the local property tax. It is fair to raise the point that this is a revenue stream which it is proposed to be curtailed. However, it is not going to happen immediately. When it does, it will be up to the State and local authorities to think of other revenue streams which can be used.

Is it possible for a post office, reimagined as the local State, local authority, parcel and financial services office, to provide agency services for the broader private sector?