Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I will come to that. Every Minister and Government backbencher says one thing in his or her constituency while saying the opposite in Dublin. This Government is brilliant at speaking out of both sides of its mouth. It is a master at doing that.

Deputy Enright spoke about our social responsibility. Members on both sides of the House have a social responsibility to protect rural communities and rural Ireland. In protecting Ireland, we must take into account the vital role of the post office, which is very important in all aspects of a community. It is a vitally important meeting place for elderly people once a week. I know that is not the only aspect to keeping the local post office open because there are many other aspects.

Over a long number of years, there has been a great tradition of families keeping rural post offices open and keeping the fabric of the rural community ticking over. It is very sad to see post offices closing. I will give one example. We all talk about protecting rural villages across the country. A post office opened in a village in Wexford, of which the Minister of State might be aware. This post office was downgraded to a sub-post office where it was not possible to carry out much business and then it closed down completely. An Post has introduced a little green box where people can put their letters, with the post being collected at 10.30 a.m. Over the past four or five years, a REPS planner, an architecture firm, an accountancy firm and an engineering company have located in the vicinity of that local village. In one sense, we are building up the local villages, but the most important part of the fabric of such villages is the rural post office, which the Government is closing.

People are being encouraged to move their businesses out of towns to rural areas, but we are not giving them much encouragement to set up their businesses in small villages. It is great to see all these people, entrepreneurs coming to smaller villages and communities across the country and establishing their businesses there.

It is ironic to see that the Government has a great opportunity to make social welfare payments in local post offices. The Government has an obligation but it will turn back on it. I assure the House that people will not get social welfare payments in any post office in a few years if this Government has anything to do with it because it wants to take out the rural communities and rural post offices. The Government, the Minister and the Minister of State have a great opportunity to contact the Minister for Social and Family Affairs to ensure that payments are made through post offices. I have no doubt that people on social welfare payments would be glad to get them through the local post office to keep it going.

In respect of computerisation and automation of rural post offices, I was involved in trying to get a post office automated. The process took two or three years and the post office had to go through a considerable amount of red tape. The post office received no help from the opposite side of the House.

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