Mr. Ned O'Hara:

The Department of Transport in terms of driving licences. We also deal with TV licences and Garda fines. The Department of Social Protection is the biggest one. That is four Departments. We understand that the Government's agenda or even the people's agenda is digital, and we think that the officials who plan are just planning in digital mode: they are not looking at the transformation or the number of people who continue to use and need to use offline solutions. That is part of it. The issue is the lack of a champion, rather than any ill will towards the post office network. As Mr. Martin said, every Deputy and official we meet support the post office network, but somebody needs to grasp the nettle, make the decision and do something.

Postmasters are exasperated. We do not want to be seen coming with our hand out. We offer the services that we can provide. We say we can provide more services. People say they want to use us. They say An Post is the most trusted brand in Ireland. We say that the postmasters, who are the people who provide the service, are the people who provide that trust. It is not an organisational thing. It is about the experience when people come into post offices. I cannot fathom why it has not been done up to now. It seems to me at one level that it is just a case of making a decision. If people are concerned that investing in the post office network would become a black hole, we have said on numerous occasions that we are agreeable to have any plan reviewed over the normal business planning cycle of three to five years. We recognise that the world is changing. We are around for 100 years. We are not providing the services now that we were providing 100 years ago, but we are still providing services and we are still used each week by 1.3 million people. I do not know why somebody does not just do it. Perhaps it needs to be a Government decision. We hope that is what is going to happen.