Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for attending this committee and I wish her well in her new position. There are so many issues in regard to rural Ireland that we could spend a week discussing them here.

I represent County Laois and south Kildare is now part of the same constituency. The striking thing about this area is the rolling back and the absence of basic services. Monasterevin, for example, had a day care centre operated by a voluntary committee with a small clinic run by two nurses, but the HSE closed the day care centre before any replacement was put in place. This was the only facility in this area providing this service, but the doors have been closed on it now for more than six months.

The closure of Garda stations is mentioned regularly. Numerous community welfare centres in County Laois have been closed. The one in Ballylinan, for example, served the east of the county, but it was closed following an overnight announcement. People who are unemployed and dependent on assistance are those who need community welfare officers. These people often have no transport, but the door is now closed to them. They are given a phone number for a contact person but may not be able to get through on the phone. This is the situation.

We can talk all we like about CEDRA, SoFAB and LCDCs, but while we must have these acronyms, the issue is all very convoluted. All of these mean nothing to people who cannot access basic services, such as a day care centre, a Garda station or a post office. I am aware there is a working group in place that is examining the post office network, but the Minister of State should be aware that a stand-alone post office that provides the range of services provided currently will not be able to sustain itself in rural areas. Take for example the one that closed most recently in Ballycolla, County Laois. This post office was just about hanging on, but when the postmistress retired, the post office closed. These small post offices need some support and the service provided in them needs to be expanded to make them commercially viable. This is the issue in regard to post offices. The Minister of State is at the working group table and I ask her to raise this issue there and to come up with a plan for rural post offices.

We can have all the long-winded documents, but some of this is basic stuff. I lived in Scotland for a while and I used to be able to go in and tax my car in a post office that looked very much like Ballycolla post office. That was nearly 30 years ago. It was no problem, with no questions asked. I just walked in, gave them the money, gave them the log book, the registration document, and the person behind the counter went through the process and handed out my car tax disc. We need to increase the range of services provided by post offices and try to look at them as part of a more integrated service. The postman for the local village also provided public transport. The post van was an eight-seater and the back part of it carried mail and the rest of it carried passengers, so along with dropping mail it also carried passengers from a local village called Innerwick to a town called Dunbar. I am just putting that out there for what it is worth. There needs to be new thinking on all of that and more integrated services with the post office and a wider range of services to give the post office commercial sustainability.

While there have been big announcements on broadband, the reality is, and everyone knows this, that there are large areas, not just small pockets, that are not serviced by broadband and there are other areas where there is very poor broadband. We all know that it is essential. There are many people who are sole traders, or perhaps have one or two people working with them, and they are operating in a rural area. This is as important now as rural electrification. It is like somebody trying to run a small business in the 1950s without electricity. Can the Minister of State give a straight answer on what kind of timeline we can expect for broadband because a large number of the constituents I represent in County Laois are without it?

The third thing I want to mention is bus services. Bus Éireann, at the stroke of a pen, wiped out 100 services. It has stopped servicing all the towns in County Laois on the Dublin-Limerick route. Mountrath, Borris-in-Ossory and all the rest of them are no longer served. It long ago stopped servicing Abbeyleix on the Cork route. It has taken off Abbeyleix, Durrow, Cullahill and Johnstown. As the Minister of State knows, because she is at the other end of this route, it has now taken off Castlecomer, where the Minister of State was last night. It has taken off Newtown, Crettyard, Ballylinan and the town of Athy. The Minister of State, in her opening statement, spoke about social inclusion, economic development and tourism. We all want those things but it has to be possible to get in and out of an area. While rural transport is hugely important, we should also think about the volume of rain that fell yesterday and that one cannot expect people to stand at bus stops on a day like yesterday. There are no bus shelters. We need small bus shelters, not to fit 100 people but four people. Can we get that? Can we get a plan rolled out, first, to establish a bus service on those routes and, second, to have bus shelters and advertisements clearly marking the location of bus stops?