Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I thank the speakers, on both sides of the House, who contributed to this debate. A total of 25 speakers contributed over the three hours, all of whom supported the content of the motion. All raised the issues affecting the post office network throughout the country and were ad idem with the concept as set out in the motion. The only discordant note came from the Government amendment which is in the usual fashion a case of little heads stuck firmly in the ground and derrières in the air.

I was most disappointed by the speech of the Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Browne, last night. He repeated a history lesson but we all know the history; we could write it at this stage. He failed to say what the Government intends to propose now as we enter a new era of deregulation, one which has not proved happy for the Government. When transposed into Irish law, the EU regulations have had a negative effect on many aspects of our life. The European model to which the Government is wedded has some benefits and many demerits. That is what speakers addressed over the past two days.

The Minister of State also failed to recognise the competition in the marketplace and the degree to which the viability of An Post will depend on the network in place. There are no capital costs involved, apart from those required to keep the service going. The critical point that came through the contributions was the necessity to upgrade and automate all the post offices and stop fiddling around.

It does not take an economist to tell the Government that if it wants to run a fast, effective nationwide service, it should find out who has the best network to provide it. No other organisation has a network like An Post that can provide an effective nationwide service and has plenty of experience of doing so. Over recent years we have discussed this topic in the House and addressed meetings in front of the House when postal workers and postmasters were not getting a hearing. We were all at one as to what should be done for the future but this has not happened. The prevarication in the meantime is the most serious problem affecting the future of the postal services.

Various people have talked about the viability of the sector. I worry that it is intended to close more post offices, as colleagues on both sides of the House have said. If that happens, the effectiveness and viability of the service will be weakened because it will not be possible for it to compete. The Government must take policy by the scruff of the neck and recognise that with the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, who has ultimate responsibility, it must say this is what we want to happen.

Speakers have referred to electronic competition and the changing era in which we live. An Post can change too. A variety of services can be tagged on to the post office system with minimal effort. It can become an attractive and profitable service. I commend the work undertaken so far by the chief executive and the review, but it is not fast enough. An Post knows that and it requires support, as do the postmasters.

It is timely to recognise how much we rely on the postal service as we come into the festive period. We could greatly extend the services that could be tagged on in the festive periods throughout the year. The initial vision for An Post when it became a semi-State body was that it would develop into other areas and provide other services compatible with the existing services. Somewhere along the way that faded because there was no commitment.

What is the vision now? We know what it must be — to provide a competitive, efficient, reliable next day delivery service throughout the country. That is the nature of competition. An Post can do that only with the support of the Government. Then it will be alive and well in 50 years' time and providing services not heretofore envisaged. It is high time that we recognised that mission statement and supported and pursued it. The Minister is the only person who can do it.

We have become very conscious of the need to comply with regulation and deregulation, and have seen numerous examples of it going wrong because the Government slavishly followed everything that was handed down to it. The Government was in a position to negotiate these regulations through the Council of Ministers before they became law through the Commission. We have seen the demise of the fishing industry, as a result of Government inaction over recent years. We have seen too the beginning of the demise of the agricultural and food producing sector. Anybody who is around in 50 years' time will look back and ask why that was done. Other EU states watch their own interests much better than we do.

There are serious signs of the Government's neglect in this area. We are not fighting our corner. There are signs of the demise of the telecommunications sector. From having been at the leading edge of the telecommunications industry throughout Europe, we are now back markers, in last or second last place. This is an appalling performance at a time when the country's coffers are overflowing with money. We will see further examples of that later today.

The manufacturing sector has disappeared through high costs and stealth taxes to which my colleagues referred. This has culminated in over 34,000 jobs being relocated to other destinations, yet we hold up our hands and say we are better off here because we have a high wage economy.

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