Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for appearing before the committee. We have been doing a large volume of work in recent weeks. The clock is against us, so the Minister might return to my questions in the allocated time. The most important thing is that the national development plan review will see strategic infrastructural programmes delivered, moved out of the doldrums and achieved and realised. That is what everyone is hoping for. We need to see this as a means of addressing regional imbalance, which has become ingrained in this country for many decades. The national development plan should enable some of the infrastructure that will be delivered to rebalance and recalibrate that.

Other mechanisms, too, facilitate that kind of regional rebalancing and they come within the Deputy Ryan's Ministry. I would like to ask about the post office network. Since the start of this year, 14 or 15 of them nationally have closed. One of them, in Broadford, was in my constituency, a 190-year-old post office, and there have been many more. It is not just a rural problem; 13 post offices in Dublin have handed back their keys. The Minister's party and other parties in government, including my party, are considering ways to free up the post office network and to give it some viability going forward, including through the examination of a public service obligation option to sustain it in part with €17 million per annum, or through a community banking model like Sparkasse, or Kiwibank in New Zealand. The Minister might consider that and respond to it. Furthermore, will he consider intervening, as Minister, in the post offices that have closed during Covid? An Post has used the Covid stick to close post offices that should not have closed at this time.

My final question relates to Shannon Airport, which is strategic and key to the Minister's Ministry but, overall, to the west and mid-west. Will he enlighten us on the appointment of a chairperson of the board and what process will get under way? There have been calls for sector-specific supports for aviation. It will be one of the last sectors to recover post Covid and will need more than just the supports that have been in place up to now, such as capital investment in national regional airports. It will need something more long term, an adrenaline shot, to keep it going. Will the Minister respond to that?

He gave the green light to the Limerick northern distributor road last month. Are there plans to progress phase 2?