Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What this financial package does – it is what the postmasters and postmistresses were asking for from me and the Senator as they travelled around the country – for the first in the history of the State is to ensure that if a postmaster or postmistress wants to retire for personal reasons, it will not be because his or her post office is not viable. In other words, it will not be because of economic reasons. As such, a viable post office will be on offer to someone else who might be interested in taking up that position.

The issue throughout the country was that in many cases where postmasters decided they were going to retire for whatever reason, nobody came in to replace the postmaster in a particular town or village. This financial package ensures that where that happens, and if somebody wants to retire for personal reasons that is fine, the position will be advertised and somebody can potentially come in and take over that post office.