Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thought I would lure him in with a bit of positivity. I left west Cork early this morning to speak at this committee and at the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which is discussing the fodder crisis. There are two crises going on in west Cork at the moment. As the Minister knows, the post office is the nucleus of any community. There are now four communities in west Cork out of which the heart has been taken; Allihies, Ballineen, Desertserges and Drinagh. There is also village in the eastern part of the constituency whose post office building is in another constituency, but people in Cork South-West are obviously affected. There are, therefore, five such communities, and there are 12 in total in Cork.

I had the unique honour of working in the post office many moons ago. To say it was an education in life would be putting it mildly. It has always stood to me, and I have very happy memories from that time. I have seen the importance of the post office to a community first-hand, both to the economy of the community and to its social well-being. I would not for one minute sit here and ask the Minister to keep open post offices that are not viable because of their social aspect. However, because of rural isolation, etc., the post office network is of huge importance. When I was working on the counter in the post office, I did a course on how to deal with a customer. We were told that we might be the only person that an older person would meet in a week, so it was vital to be nice to them. Even this contact could stop. People will stay at home, getting their pensions paid into the bank. They may never leave their houses. I am not trying to be dramatic, but it can come down to that.

This Government made a commitment to rural life and to the post office network, and in my opinion it has failed on both commitments. In fact, there was an active campaign by the Government to get people to have their social welfare payments paid into the bank instead of the post office. I have letters to that effect.