Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of the committee and am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words. I come from east County Galway. Nobody is happy about the closure of post offices, albeit through a redundancy scheme. In County Galway 18 post offices are closing; I do not know the exact number in my constituency. Funnily enough, the people who have contacted me since the announcement of the closures - this is probably something for both Mr. McRedmond and the Minister, Deputy Naughten - are business people in the village who are asking whether they can get involved in running this post office by bringing it into their shops. They need to know who to contact to do that.

I understand that An Post and the Department are open to placing the post office in a shop in a village or whatever. While that might be considered, who has the final say on whether it would be done? Is it An Post, the Department or someone else who might look it and decide this would work? In the case of four post offices in my constituency that have closed, I have received phone calls from people, mainly shopkeepers, who have stated the post offices were adjacent to their premises and they were willing I am to take on the post office and place it in their shops. If we can do that, we will be increasing the post office network in these areas. My concern is about scenarios in which such post offices are closed because like every other facility, when something closes it is damn hard to get it reopened. Is there a timeframe from when someone puts in an application such that it would be considered fairly swiftly and a "Yea" or "Nay" would be given on it?

While I welcome that all these additional services are being considered for the post offices, one point is blatantly obvious to me.

If I did a survey in my village, I expect I would find that many people do not know what is available in the local post office. The marketing of the post office network in local areas is weak. If the post office is going to be great again, we need to educate the young people about whom Deputy Eugene Murphy spoke. We need to encourage them to come in with their savings books to put in a couple of euro to save for their holidays. This will make them aware that the post office is there to be used. We need to get them used to going into the post office. Every aspect of the retail industry in Ireland is changing because of the Internet and online shopping, etc. The retail business has to change. The post office network needs to change as well. It is okay for Mr. McRedmond to say that An Post will do this, that and the other. I hear about the changes that are made, but I know most of the public does not know what services are available in post offices. As we go forward, we need to be able to get that information out if our efforts are to be worthwhile.