Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and Mr. McRedmond for attending. I also thank the Chairman for giving me the opportunity to speak because, while I am not a member of the committee, I feel very deeply about this issue. I understand that Mr. McRedmond and the Minister have a job to do to make An Post viable. However, as public representatives, our job is to represent our communities, particularly those that are going to lose their post offices. As previous speakers indicated, there is a cascade of effects on a local community that loses a post office. If one goes to a village five or ten years after it lost its post office, one finds that it has become a shell of its former self. The financial viability and sustainability of the community involved is gone. That is our perspective as the people elected to represent such communities.

It is not just 159 communities which will lose their post offices. In fact, 390 and perhaps more of the 670 post offices that will be offered new contracts will find they do not have a viable future. There will be a ripple effect in the communities that will lose their post offices immediately, but also in many communities that have not yet lost them. The State must intervene to support rural Ireland. That is the point Deputy Eamon Ryan and others have been making. There must be some form of support for rural Ireland, which must not be abandoned. There is an abandonment. Do the Minister and Mr. McRedmond they appreciate the depth of abandonment felt by these communities that are going to lose their post offices now or that will lose them in the near future? There is real anger among people. Deputy Dooley referred to public meetings. We have had six in Clare and six out of 14 took the option. The other eight in Clare will, undoubtedly, have to close in the near future because the An Post is not going to invest in post offices in communities of fewer than 500 people. The effect on these communities will be akin to that of Brexit. It will tear the heart out of their economic viability. In fact, it will be far greater than the effect of a hard Brexit nationally.

There is a commitment in the programme for Government to the effect that new Government services be devolved to the post office network and that consideration be given to a public banking system. In the two and a half years since the programme was introduced, none of those Government services has been transferred to post offices and it appears the concept of a public banking system has been abandoned by the Government and will not be introduced. The banking system being introduced through post offices is a pillar bank model. As such, we are going to support our pillar banks rather than introduce community banking, which would return profits to local communities. I want the Minister to explain why the public banking system been abandoned.

I refer to possible solutions. We have held six public meetings in Clare in the past two weeks and a number of solutions have been put forward by communities. The first of these would involve a public service obligation to allow essential post office services to continue. There should be an option of salaried positions, part-time positions and a special contract for those who wish to co-locate operations to another business in the area. Postmasters and postmistresses should be appointed as peace commissioners in order that they might provide meaningful services to our post offices. There is random selection regarding post office closures in view of the fact that 159 people have taken packages while 231 have not. That is just a random selection based on the particular circumstances of the postmasters in those areas. It is not fair to a community that it comes down to a random selection like that.

There is a silo mentality in this Government. Departments operate in silos and fail to take into account the effects their decisions will have the sustainability of communities. The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment may make a decision which results in the Department of Rural and Community Development trying to pick up the pieces following the destruction of local communities. The closure of post offices is an example. Why has this not been rural-proofed to protect those rural communities which are going to lose these services?