Ms Sandra Tormey:

We cannot really be highly efficient because if we were, postmasters would not spend time looking after their customers, talking to them, ensuring they are not being taken advantage of by phishing scams, and ensuring all of our elderly customers are coming through and are there. If they go missing for one of the weeks, postmasters make follow-up calls to ensure they are all right.

Postmasters are paid on a fee-per-transaction basis so our problem is twofold. Yes, An Post wants more from the fees. We deserve more for the amount of work we are doing. As the president of the IPU, Mr. Martin, said earlier, AMLs are quite time consuming and the forms are quite complex to complete. With the transactions we need more. When we came looking for the initial funding of the €10 million, we were looking for additional services. We did not just want this as a subsidy; we wanted it as an investment.

We speak to the community. That is who we serve. Some 91% of the community know how critical postmasters are to them, and 89% want more Government services delivered through their post offices.