Ms Patricia Cronin:

I have left the detail of the mails business to Mr. McRedmond. The €30 million loan from Government will be paid this year. It is a loan from Government so there will be some level of conditionality on it which will be set out in a term sheet.

The conditionality is around maintaining the five-day-week delivery service for mail. Clearly the Government is keen that there would be progress on the sorts of initiatives that have been outlined by Mr. McRedmond. That is what the money will be spent on at a very high level. I should mention that we are working on the detail of that.

The money comes from the Department of Finance rather than the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, because that is how the An Post legislation was written. As such, there are quite a number of players involved in managing the process, but we are committing to get €30 million to An Post this year. As I have said, the conditionality is around the sort of initiatives Mr. McRedmond has mentioned and the statutory obligations of An Post.

In response to other points raised by members, the Minister is obviously extremely committed to the post office network, and he recognises the value of it. Another issue around allocating the sum of €30 million is that the Minister has also asked for a protocol to be put in place between An Post and the postmasters. This protocol will be facilitated by an external facilitator. It will deal with the opening of new post offices, extra business and opening hours. As the Irish Postmasters' Union, IPU, has indicated, when a postmaster leaves, it is important that that business transfers to another postmaster. There are a whole range of issues that it is important would be finalised, both for the IPU and An Post, before the next phase of the reform can start in the post office network.