Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I too congratulate my colleague, Deputy Durkan, on this important motion. The only problem in An Post is that it has no overall strategy because the Government does not want it to have one. The easiest way out of this problem is to let the light go out slowly across the country as long as it does not come back to shine on the Government. I know of no other national organisation that provides a service such as An Post, yet seems not to have any objectives. If it had targets it could not meet them. It allows this to happen because it knows that neither the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources nor the Government could care less what it does.

If this Government is allowed to continue the erosion of services from rural Ireland not only will there be less traffic through the local post office but there will be fewer post men and women. Instead of daily deliveries, post will be delivered only three days out of five in rural areas. That is coming down the track. Did the Minister of State see what the regulator said about An Post's delivery service? One expects a letter posted in Dublin to arrive in Ballinasloe or Clonakilty the next day. There is no magic in this. The post office was better able to do this 20 years ago than now. Only 74% of letters posted in Dublin this evening will reach the provinces tomorrow. What happens the other 26%? No one notices that. This is an insidious procedure because the Government hopes that the network will pull itself down until it says it could not possibly make a delivery in the far-flung regions of the country every day of the week. That is where we are heading.

The Government is ensuring that every component of the An Post service is under pressure. Everyone talks about the minimum wage, and rightly so because the non-nationals who come here are entitled to be treated with dignity. Most of our own people, however, working behind the post office counters for 12 hours every day receive less than the minimum wage. They are in some of the best buildings in the most advantageous places possible in our towns and villages, yet they are paid a pittance.

When the incumbent retires or takes the few euro redundancy, An Post has an opportunity to close that post office. The age profile of postmasters and mistresses is rising by the day. There will be no trouble closing more post offices by stealth when the incumbents have retired or died, whether the post office has many customers. That is where the link is broken. The Government should insist on An Post having an overall set of objectives or a plan for where it wants the organisation to go in the next ten, 15 or 20 years, taking into account the importance of balanced regional development and all the other issues which I do not have time to cover. The local post office provides an important service in all areas. I assure anyone listening to or watching this debate that if more direction is not provided from the Government to ensure An Post gets its act together, there will be considerably fewer post offices, postmen and postwomen, and far fewer letters delivered.

Can one imagine the blow it is to places in my constituency of Galway East such as Clonbern, Newbridge, Kiltormer, Kilreekill and a host of other places? In those relatively big areas, one cannot even post a letter and one certainly cannot draw the pension. That is some service in rural Ireland.

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