Mr. Sean Martin:

Deputy Carrigy is dead right. This is about communities. This is not about post offices or about postmasters either. This is about 900 communities for whom post offices deliver on a daily basis. We commissioned an independent report from Grant Thornton, which reconfirmed the vital role played by post offices in communities, not just economically but also socially and environmentally. Their role is economic in that we hand out more than €7 billion in hard cash to local economies. That sustains local businesses and jobs and it creates the infrastructure that allows people set up businesses in rural Ireland and provide jobs. Socially, we provide a trusted face-to-face service, which provides social cohesion and also reduces isolation, in particular among the vulnerable, the most isolated and the elderly in society. The environment benefit is that by having services locally and by increasing them, we reduce the carbon footprint. We are about sustainability. The post office can deliver on that.

Deputy Carrigy's second question was about how much we receive for the products and what new services we could deliver. We can deliver an awful lot more for the Government, but we have been saying that for quite a while. I am not sure whether it is inertia, indifference or State administration that says we do not need to deliver more services. Our opinion is that we can deliver more services efficiently, effectively and locally. We could have form generation, so that every Government form could be available at the push of a button in the post office. That would stop us printing millions of forms across the country, which we throw out because there is a need to change a word or a price.

We could be involved with the register of electors, which is in disarray. We all know that 500,000 are not on it who should be on it and another 500,000 people are on it who should not be on it. We could play a role in that. We already play a role in ID verification and anti-money laundering, AML, requirements, so we are well used to being able to fulfil that role. We could also play a additional role in regard to the Department of Social Protection in terms of public service cards, PSCs, and being involved in people signing on and off. At the stroke of a pen tomorrow morning, we could all become peace commissioners. That would alleviate some of the administrative work done by the Garda, which would mean we could put the Garda where they are needed, out on the beat.

There is lots of additional work. Most post offices in rural Ireland act as tourist hubs already. Why not roll that out to every post office so we all become tourism hubs? There is a direct role for post offices to play in delivering for the Government. We can do that cost effectively.

In response to the point of what we get for the services, this is probably the nub of the problem: we do not get paid by the euro for the vast majority of services provided by postmasters, we get paid by the cent. I will give one example. Last week we handed out carer's payments of €2,000 to a lot of people who were in need of it. We got 65 cent for that €2,000. We had to secure the money when it came in, make sure it was right, make sure the correct person got it, count out the money and make sure the person was happy he or she got the right amount. That is the difficulty postmasters have. They are doing business for the Government but, unfortunately, they are paid in cent rather than euro. The Government must look at some of the contracts and see if there is room to improve.