Ms Debbie Byrne:

As Mr. McRedmond said, we recognise that the post office is a vital national infrastructure. We are committed to maintaining a strong network of co-located post offices. That is the strategy in every community of more than 500 people. We will also ensure there is at least one post office within 15 km of every such community in rural areas and within 3 km in an urban area. There will be areas such as the islands and other remote areas that will not have a population of 500 but will have a post office because those two parameters are working together.

Since 2018, we have been working on a transformation of the post office which involves significant investment and much work on new products and services, as well as assisting postmasters moving to co-location. We do not see the future of the network as small, stand-alone post offices because that is not a viable business. Some 63% of the network is now co-located. The pandemic got in the way of that expansion because we would have expected that figure to reach 70% last year. We are working to catch up. When we most recently analysed co-location, co-located offices were performing 11% better than their stand-alone counterparts. That shows co-location is working.

What is the post office of the future? It is a co-located post office with a new range of services. It will be focused around social welfare, which remains the raison d'être for post offices. We want to be that backbone. There have been many changes in social welfare, the bulk of which have been outside our control. Consumers have opted to have payments, whether the old age pension or children's allowance, paid into their bank accounts. That is a trend we cannot change. The PUP that was introduced during the pandemic has adversely affected footfall into post offices because the payment goes into people's bank accounts.

That has adversely affected footfall in post offices because the payment goes into people's bank accounts. There will come a time when there is a return to jobseeker's benefit, whatever the amount is. That will be scaled back from August. We need those recipients back in post offices. That is good for the State because it safeguards against fraud as recipients have to present and check that they are not working or residing abroad. It is a key change we need to reintroduce in order to increase footfall in post offices.

As Mr. McRedmond said, Covid has interrupted our transformation. One of the three things that have sadly been hit during Covid was social welfare. Last year double payments were introduced for a good reason in terms of the safety of citizens. We managed to get that reverted to single payments in November, but we now need to work with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection on the PUP and get that footfall back into post offices.

Another key business line that has been hit is BillPay. That is very much the social welfare customer who comes into a post office and pays €10 off a utility bill. There have been two business lines affected by Covid, but there is a fix for that. The other major hit has been foreign exchange which, as we all know, has been pretty much decimated. We are the largest provider of foreign exchange cash in the country and would have seen that as a key business line that would grow with the banks getting out of cash services. It can take time for that to return.

We are working closely with the Government at the moment to put in place a Covid pandemic fund for postmasters. That would benefit all offices. We put the proposal to Government. It should be approved any day now. It will be based on the individual mix of an individual post office, such as a post office with a high level of social welfare, foreign exchange, etc. It will be worked out based on the individual product mix of a business.

When the current transformation payments run out at the end of June, which has been the subject of a bit of press coverage, the idea would be that the pandemic fund would kick in for 18 months, allow businesses to normalise and, more importantly, allow postmasters to avail of the considerable supports that we have put in place over the past 18 months to two years. We have invested very heavily in the infrastructure of post offices around co-location with the capital investment fund. We need to accelerate that again.

We have also invested significantly in commercial training for postmasters. That has not been ideal. We have done it in a virtual world, but it is not the same thing. We need to equip postmasters with the commercial skills and tools and marketing supports so that they can promote their businesses. Post offices are businesses, no more than running a café or Spar shop. We need to equip postmasters with the right tools.

We also have a responsibility to introduce new products and services, which we have done with An Post Money. Our credit card and loan products have gone from success to success. Our current account figures increased by 40% last year, with those accounts largely being opened in post offices. We launched a new current account app last week with a €17 million investment. That will encourage new customers into our current account product, in particular given the consolidation due to Ulster Bank and KBC leaving the market. We are very actively targeting that customer base.

We are also looking at new products and services in the areas of mortgages and SME lending, a process which is continuing. Community banking is a major issue. There has been a lot of press coverage around the Bank of Ireland deal we have done. That will launch in August and all of that IT integration and investment is ongoing at the moment. We will also work with AIB and Ulster Bank to expand the business that we do with them.

An important point to note is that as pillar banks consolidate, we have done some mapping which shows that there are 500 post offices which do not have a bank within a 5 km radius. An Post can be the backbone of community banking in Ireland, whether that involves offering services for pillar banks or our own An Post Money brand, and let us not forget State savings. Covid has helped with that for postmasters. The fund now stands at €23 billion. While Covid has definitely adversely hit us in terms of social welfare payments and foreign exchange, we have seen a big influx of savings into the post office. That is a new customer base, along with strong growth in mail and parcels during Covid.

Postmasters have told us younger cohorts are coming into post offices to buy stamps, send parcels and pick up online shopping. That is good news in terms of a broader demographic of customers outside of a social welfare customer now coming into post offices. We need to cross-sell such customers Postmobile, a lottery ticket, One4All gift vouchers and all of the other products and services that we offer.

I will wrap up by returning to Mr. McRedmond's point on sustainability. We have big ambitions for e-commerce in terms of the post office network being the backbone of online shopping. We will all return to work and we want the post office to be the place where people pick up online shopping or return a parcel. Co-located post offices will allow customers to do that through the opening hours of a shop.

The green hub launched last year puts the post office network and postmasters at the heart of the Government strategy on the green economy. Our partnership with SSE Airtricity in the area of home upgrades and the best green loan rate in the market, at 4.9%, equips postmasters to go out into communities and sell that product. I know they were very enthusiastic about that until Covid hit. Our new children's account, Money Mate, launched last year.