Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Given that we are taking a pathway, I do not know what the financial implications are in terms of the franchise arrangements for private operators, but there should not be a tax liability for this funding coming through to the individual postmasters. I ask the Minister of State to take that up with An Post or get approval from the Department on the treatment of that.

The Minister of State has spoken at length about the activity that may come on stream down the line. A couple of things have not been mentioned so far today, including the immediate ability of post office franchisees to develop additional transaction revenue. A previous proposal was for post offices to be able to print all government forms. Rather than people needing to go to the local authority office or request forms from the tax office, they could go to the post office where they can be printed from PDFs. The post offices have access to every form the government produces and they could charge a transaction fee of 50 cent or something like that based on a PPS number. That is a social service that could be provided really quickly.

The Minister of State spoke about An Post linking in with the banking sector. There is already an agreement between bankers and An Post. The problem is the transaction fee is very low. However, that model could be replicated for KBC and Ulster Bank which are exiting the market. We know that will not be without pain. Perhaps An Post could get in the middle of that bun fight, for lack of a better term, to provide services. It is obvious that the banks acquiring those assets are having considerable difficulty subsuming those accounts into their banking systems.

The Minister of State mentioned motor tax a number of times. People in local authorities always tell me how pressed they are for staffing. In the Dáil today we were shouting about not having enough staff to process disability grant applications and yet we have people retained in motor tax departments throughout the country. Surely that is something that could be expedited. I know the Minister of State spoke about a whole-of-government approach. Can the Department of Transport not move responsibility for motor tax into the post office network straight away? Why do we need to wait for every other Department to figure out whether it is a good or bad idea?