Mr. Ned O'Hara:

On Bank of Ireland, we have not had discussions with An Post yet; such discussions are scheduled for next Tuesday. We did have some preliminary discussions. We had heard something on the grapevine and were told that An Post had signed a non-disclosure agreement with Bank of Ireland and was not in a position to discuss anything with us. The short answer is that there has been no negotiation with postmasters but discussions are scheduled to take place next week.

On the number of closures, we conducted a review last year that was chaired by Mr. Turlough O'Donnell who is a senior counsel. He asked me questions, in the way a senior counsel would , about the number of post offices that we expected to close and where they are located. His interpretation of my answer was that there would be "unrestrained closures". We do not know who, what or how many but we suspect it will be the offices that are closest to the economic margins. We expect the post offices with the highest costs to close, including post offices in our cities. One such office in Barrackton in Cork closed recently. The postmaster was there for a long time and had done the State some service. The post offices that are most on the margins of profitability are most at risk. It is unlikely to be the smaller post offices and is more likely to be the bigger ones in the cities because they have higher costs, including rents and maintenance costs. As I said, the term "unrestrained closures" was Mr. O'Donnell's interpretation of my answers but I cannot elaborate further on that.