Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

What I would be afraid of is the queue that would form quickly behind An Post — we have seen this in the past — of all sorts of service providers on islands queuing up with their hands out stating, "Please, sir, can I have some more too?" The Deputies know what would happen then, there would be no money left for the services we subvent on a daily basis, particularly transport services.

The figure for capital costs of €129,000 is modest. No doubt I can come up with €129,000. That is not a problem; we just would have to go through the processes.

I agree with Deputy O'Shea on the issue of the one stop shop. Currently, there is not the full range of automated services available. The first step we want to take is to provide everything that the best post office in the country can provide in terms of banking, passport applications, mobile services, sterling drafts, business deposits, gift vouchers etc. Of course there is a captive population on an island, where people cannot go to the next post office and the post office gets all the business available. There is also quite a bit of tourist business on some of these islands. I agree they can build up a good business.

On the issue of other services, the concept is good. However, we run a community development project on all of those islands, with the exception of Sherkin for reasons of which the House will be aware, and we are a little betwixt and between as to who should provide the one stop shop, in that there is the post office which is often associated with a shop and there is also this community development project or Gaeltacht co-operative providing other services, to which we often give the role of providing the kind of other one stop shop services. I agree that between those two organisations as many services as possible should be delivered within the islands. The principle is correct, but in certain cases perhaps the Gaeltacht co-operative or the CDP should provide it. In other cases, the idea of the local post office providing as many services as possible is a worthy one to which I would be open.

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