Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

-----in particular in terms of what he had to say about vanity addresses. It is amazing what people will do to get noticed.

As a representative of a mostly rural constituency, I am familiar with the challenges facing my community and the counties of Laois and Offaly. Like other rural counties, these counties have been left behind by the Government when it comes to regional development. We have witnessed the withdrawal of vital services such as post offices that were once the heart beat of our communities. I witnessed families who had run local post offices for 40 or 50 years having to lock their doors for the last time.

The Irish Postmasters Union has said that the income of postmasters in some rural areas can be as little as €10,000 per annum. Postmasters are not being replaced on retirement even though post offices are seen as a lifeline for many people living in rural areas. Post offices remain the only public institution in many small towns and villages. Communities are dependent on this public institution for employment. There are 370 people employed in the sorting centre in Portlaoise. They are decent jobs with good working conditions and union representation. They must be some of the last jobs of that kind left in this State, so why is the Government actively trying to jeopardise them? Make no mistake about it, the Bill will close post offices and impact on An Post. More jobs will be lost and another service will be gone. Sadly, such closures are not unique in rural areas. Garda stations, corner shops and local pubs are all suffering the same fate.

The Bill, if passed, will have a profound impact on the lives of rural dwellers as well as postal workers, in particular on the lives of older people. The Government obviously does not realise the importance of the local post office as a social hub for older people. The Bill will allow private operators to cherry pick business, with whom to do business and where the most profit is to be made.

The services will go to highly populated urban areas, leaving the State operator as the sole service provider in rural areas. It has been said that the public service obligation will be protected but private operators will not take on the least profitable part of the service. This kind of arrangement will lead to high costs for doing business in rural areas. The State provider will be obliged to continue the service and will be compelled to fund it by either receiving massive subsidies from the taxpayer or massively increasing its prices, or initiating a combination of both.

Either way, the people of rural communities will lose out. They will face higher costs for basic postal services. Anyone in Government who thinks this will not be the case is living in a dream world. Low income older people in rural areas may already have to drive to the next village to use the post office or to pay their bills. We are all aware of the increases in transport costs and petrol. Such people may only be able to afford to take a trip once a week. When they go to the post office, they pay bills, post letters and perhaps put by some money in savings. The post office acts as an important social centre for them.

Given the very sparsely populated nature of rural Ireland and the isolation experienced by many, communities frequently feel helpless in their ability to halt the decline. Their voices are not being heard in the corridors of power. Their lobbies are too weak to exert the pressure that is needed to bring about change and in any case the Government is certainly not listening to them.

Between 2001 and 2008, some 344 post offices closed and many others were downgraded. The majority of closures took place in rural areas. Closures and downgrading place a huge strain on local communities. The post office increases footfall to local businesses in villages and, therefore, when one post office closes in a rural area, it has a knock-on effect which is felt by other local businesses nearby.

There is a need for a clear Government policy on the minimum number of post offices that are necessary in the State. In order to save a number of post offices at risk of imminent closure, the Government should intervene in the form of a public service obligation order. Sinn Féin has consistently stated there are services that could be expanded in rural post offices to enhance their economic potential, including combining postal services with council services to provide insurance and taxation services, developing post offices as centres of information and making door-to-door deliveries for people with impaired mobility.

I paid my motor tax in a post office in Scotland when I lived there. The local post office van doubled as local public transport. Such things can be done. Rural transport programmes in this State are ill-equipped to offer access to post offices, while travelling to post offices in other towns is time consuming and ecologically damaging. Even if adequate public transport existed, the damage to the social fabric of rural communities would be immeasurable. A number of initiatives have been taken in other countries to prevent the closure of post offices through developing the types of social services to which I referred.

While An Post is mandated by legislation to engage only in profit-making initiatives, the State could intervene in the form of a public service obligation order. If the EU was to authorise such an order, post offices scheduled for closure could be entitled to a subvention and therefore broaden their services to ensure their viability. We have always believed that the Government should intervene in the form of a public service intervention order to enable the subvention of post offices in rural areas to ensure post masters' incomes are brought to the minimum wage as a matter of priority

This and the previous Government have neglected the importance of the post office in the lives of older people and those in rural areas. Localised services assist older people in living independently in their own homes. Some older people may be relying on a visit from the post man or woman as the only daily contact they have. This is a very important social support that cannot be allowed to disappear.

The social supports provided by post offices consistently go unnoticed and unacknowledged. People who collect social welfare payments in post offices usually pay their bills at the same time and vulnerable people who very often face difficulties in opening a bank account, such as Travellers, unemployed people or refugees, can open accounts without any difficulty in the local post office. Other European states have taken the approach that citizens must be entitled to a postal service within a certain distance of their home.

Why will the Government not do this in Ireland? The answer is quite simple. It is because this Government is not concerned with enhancing public services to maintain employment and ensure that people can access services. It would much rather pass legislation like this Bill that will give private operators a foot in the door and the opportunity to make money while rural people are left high and dry without services or with services that they cannot afford to use. I ask the Government to take heed of what we are saying and not pass this Bill in its current form. Furthermore, we ask it to stop the privatisation agenda it has embarked on.

See this speech in context