Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Watt. His response was a bit reassuring. When the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, was before the committee, she talked about the €10 million fund from the Government to be distributed by An Post. We got locked into a discussion of how much each post office will get and we asked will An Post positively discriminate so that rural post offices get a little more funding and the urban post offices get a little less. The Minister of State did not have that level of detail on the day and said that the matter remains to be worked out.

Dividing €10 million among 900 post offices works out per post office at €11,111, all the 1s. We asked her if the GPO in Dublin would be availing of it. It seems, given the way this will be devised, it will. Will the GPO and the very large post offices take a pro ratashare of this fund, or, as the helms body of the post office network, will An Post ensure the large ones above a certain threshold will not get anything, given the true wish of people is that the struggling rural post office network will be subvented? Will An Post ensure that happens or will it take a slice of the fund for the larger post offices?