Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will let Mr. McRedmond answer that. In respect of the Deputy's comment on "some or all" of the business, I have said - and the company has agreed to this - that this will be a voluntary decision by individual postmasters and there will be an opportunity for the community to have An Post review the decision. Mr. McRedmond has given an example of one area where An Post has decided to advertise again for a postmaster. That will be an independent review and every community that wants to can make a submission.

There is also an opportunity for retailers in that community to make an offer to An Post to take on enhanced PostPoint service, as Mr. McRedmond said, or to have the post office in their retail business. This is an individual decision for retailers and they may or may not want to do that for one reason or another. I do not think, any more than postmasters being forced to take a redundancy package, that retailers should be forced to take on something that may not suit their business model. There are several options open to them if they want to take on some or all of that business.

The PSO has been kicked around for many years, long before I came into this Department. The consistent policy of Government has been not to introduce a levy.

If a PSO were introduced, do we give the same level to the post office that has taken the package where there are 12 transactions a week as the post office that has 700 transactions a week? Should that be considered the same? There is a huge level of community support for one compared with the other and that is the challenge we have at the moment. We need to make sure that as many post offices as possible have as many transactions as possible and we need to expand the type and number of services available.