Ms Debbie Byrne:

When I took over this job three years ago, I said recruiting new people in that their job is to make the post office more relevant. The post office, as we know it, for exactly all the reasons outlined here, is changing. That social welfare business will continue to decline. No more than in the letters business that is declining, the bucket needs to be topped back up with parcels. We have got to find a way of topping up that footfall.

I will pick a few issues. Stamps, obviously, are the lifeblood of the post office. It has been a declining business. During Covid, we are one of the few posts in Europe that successfully stimulated stamp sales. I am talking about consumers now. Obviously, some of the businessmen would have been down with businesses not being in the office.

When I joined, we launched what I called the "sexy stamp" programme. We introduced stamps such as Father Ted, U2 and, a number of years ago, the Rugby World Cup. All of that is in a bid to make sending mail more relevant. We have the big schools programme at the moment where we are working with schools sending postcards, writing to people in nursing homes and re-engendering that whole activity of sending mail. That is important. We will be a case study for Europe in terms of stimulating that consumer spending on mail.

Financial services are really important. On our current account, the latest analysis that we have done shows we have successfully brought in a younger customer demographic. It is the same on our credit card. We have the best balance transfer on our credit in the marketplace. If you have a balance on your credit card, you can transfer to An Post credit card and there is 15 months 0% interest. We are bringing out a new credit card later in the year that will appeal to people who do not have a balance on theirs. With loans, it is the same. We have the best rates in the market on a number of key lines.

The Green Hub that we launched last year is all about targeting homeowners who want to renovate their home and bring in a new customer demographic.

We have just launched our new children's account, Money Mate. This is a big opportunity for postmasters who know families, have that link with schools and will give it to the children to go out into their community and talk. Unfortunately, there are no communions this year. We were launching that in time for the communions. There is the big opportunity there.

It is all about trying to broaden the base beyond that social welfare base which is really important to the post office for example, to stamps and parcels. As Mr. McRedmond said earlier in terms of e-commerce, we want people who bought their free dresses on Boohoo and then go and return too. They will come in and return that parcel in the post office. That is a new demographic, and then we have the financial services.