Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

I wish to declare a personal interest in this topic. My family has been involved in the post office business for many years.

I will concentrate on the issue of the 350 sub-post offices which have not yet been computerised. From any rational point of view, it is not credible that the Minister who owns An Post on behalf of the Irish citizens has not instructed it to computerise these offices. The Government seems to have no problem wasting hundreds of millions of euro on computerised voting machines or on a computer system to pay health wages which did not work. However, when it comes to spending a mere €3,000 or €4,000 to allow post offices to provide basic services to people in rural areas, the Minister refuses to use his power to direct An Post to do so.

Much confusion exists among Ministers on this matter. I understand the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs offered that his Department would pay for the computerisation of post offices in CLÁR areas. However, his Cabinet colleague refused to instruct An Post to accept this offer. Many postmasters and postmistresses offered to buy computers themselves. Community groups campaign actively to upgrade their local offices and would facilitate postmasters and postmistresses in this respect.

The chief executive of An Post states that little difference exists between computerised and non-computerised post offices. Recently, this was communicated in a letter to the post office in Lombardstown in my area which wishes to upgrade. It is incredible that the person whose job it is to promote and expand the service is so unaware of the real situation. A non-computerised office cannot provide Passport Express, mobile phone top-ups, AIB transactions or One4all gift vouchers or accept Garda fines. It takes so long to transact the bill payments which they can accept, it makes the entire process ineffective.

The response from An Post to the increasing demands to computerise the remaining post offices is to initiate a trial programme of automation in ten selected post offices. One of these is Schull in west Cork. This is a thriving tourist village during the summer months but inexplicably An Post needs a trial to justify computerisation. Aside from the needs of the locals, hundreds of people stay in holiday homes and thousands of tourists visit the village on a yearly basis.

An Post tells us that even though the trials have been completed no information will be available until March. This is astonishing considering An Post has had in place for years an accurate system to evaluate on a day-to-day basis the business done by each post office. In other areas in my constituency, such as Meelin, Dromahane, Tour, Tullylease and Freemount, full post office services have ceased. I already mentioned Lombardstown, as did Deputy Michael Moynihan, where the local community has mounted a massive campaign to computerise its post office. This issue is critical to this area and others like it.

An Post pays a pittance to postmasters and postmistresses at this level, in some cases far less than €10,000 per annum. From this postmasters and postmistresses must pay themselves, provide premises and pay for heating, lighting, rates and insurance. Many of them receive well below the minimum wage and are below the poverty line. This motion gives every Deputy in the House the opportunity to vote to ensure all post offices are computerised, postmasters and postmistresses in rural post offices are paid a decent wage and postal services such as letter delivery are maintained and expanded.

The public, postmasters and their union are led around in circles. The facts are simple. If the House votes in favour of this motion the Minister will have no option but to instruct An Post to computerise remaining post offices and enter into immediate negotiations with the postmasters union to ensure a reasonable decent wage is paid to the postmasters and postmistresses who run these offices. Computerisation will go a long way towards solving this problem as computerised offices will increase business and post offices are paid per transaction.

I emphasise this motion covers a large range of issues which must be dealt with to ensure An Post makes small post offices viable. By passing this motion, this House can ensure that clearly and once and for all the Minister gets the message that this small expenditure is necessary to ensure the survival of rural communities. I ask Government backbenchers to consider this when they cast their votes.

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