Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. As a rural postmaster I have a particular interest in the legislation and I fully realise the importance of the Bill in terms of the future viability of An Post as we know it and the future provision of mail delivery to every house and business on every working day throughout the year.

The Irish Postmasters' Union, IPU, will be delighted to hear of the fulsome support that Deputy Bannon gave the rural post office in his speech earlier. I shall relay his support to the next meeting of the IPU for Longford-Westmeath.

I understand that this and previous Governments had no choice but to implement this EU directive, and it is very worrying. It is important that the views of the Members of this House and the affected parties are fully considered before any law is enacted, because if something is not broken there is no need to fix it. The current level of service provided by the postmen and postwomen of An Post is second to none. These people have striven in recent years to achieve the target of 90% next-day delivery and they have done so by embracing change. They have often worked in some of the hardest and most severe weather conditions to ensure they maintain their high service level to all customers, both rural and urban.

It is often said that the only way to encourage people in semi-State bodies to embrace change and new practices is to open the market to competition. However, the staff of An Post have proven themselves willing and able to embrace change long before this Bill was initiated. The current market for parcels of more than 50g is open to competition. When one looks at the manner in which people deliver the phone directories on an annual basis one wonders about the wisdom of moving this service from An Post to an alternative provider.

During the course of the recent general election campaign I saw phone directories where they should not be. This simply happened because when no one was at home the directory was left at the front door or somewhere else, exposed to the elements and left to blow around in the wind. Not only did this present a litter problem, it also identified houses in which nobody was at home, giving rise to a security risk. It was a great worry for people, particularly in rural Ireland, to have potential burglars being made aware when houses were empty. This would never have been allowed to happen if An Post had retained the contract. The postman or postwoman would continue to bring the directory until he or she managed to gain access, or a note would have been left advising the recipient that the directory could be collected at the local post office. If this were allowed to happen in the letter post sector it would have dire consequences for rural Ireland in particular.

The local post person, while providing a quality service, also plays a major role in the social make-up of country living. Often he or she is the only person that elderly people living on their own meet from one end of the day to the next. An elderly person in my locality puts on an outside light if she wishes the postman to call. There is no alternative to An Post, with its network of offices the length and breadth of the country. Where would a person go to collect undeliverable mail, that is, post that requires a signature or is too bulky to go through a letter box? I can foresee a situation where people, on coming home from work, might have to travel miles to collect their undelivered letters. At present they can go to the local post office, which will often facilitate them after working hours. In 90% of post offices the local postmasters or postmistresses live on the premises and are very much community driven.

This Bill, opening the service to competition, is designed to make postal services cheaper, faster and more efficient. However, when one looks at where competition entered the market, one sees it did not always have the desired effects. Take Eircom, for instance, and the fact that there are large areas of rural Ireland with no broadband, as it cherrypicked the best areas in which to provide it, leaving others without it. Without deviating from the topic, I implore the Minister, especially under the NewERA document, to ensure that all parts of the country have accessible broadband. It is a critical piece of infrastructure and I call on the Minister of State with responsibility for the NewERA document, Deputy O'Dowd, to give that commitment to the House. In my village, where his Government colleague, Deputy Penrose also lives, we do not have access to effective broadband and that is not acceptable in this day and age.

I read the speech of the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, where he said that safeguarding the universal postal service was one of the explicit requirements of the directive and was central to this Bill. The universal postal service, he said, would ensure the collection and delivery of mail to every address in the State on every working day, and it was important that this minimum but significant level of service was enshrined in primary legislation. I acknowledge the Minister's statement in that regard but I am worried that the Bill also charges ComReg with the objective of enabling the development of competition and innovation in the postal service. I wonder what if any input Members of this House or the Minister of the day will have in any future decisions of ComReg. While I accept the need for a certain level of independence and regulation, I am worried that the Minister of the day and the Members of the Oireachtas will not be able to propose amendments that are obviously in the common interest. My fear is that in future years Deputies when submitting questions about the provision of postal services will receive a similar reply to the answer I got to a parliamentary question from the Minister as regards broadband to the effect that the provision of telecommunications services, including broadband, was a matter in the first instance for private sector service providers, operating in a liberalised market regulated by ComReg. That means the Minister and his office, in effect, is totally absolved of responsibility.

It will be too late after this and Deputies will be asking in the House in future why we did what we will have done to An Post. The Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, did nothing when the ESB introduced a minimum payment for those who pay their bills through instalments in the post office. Only last week we learned that customers wishing to avail of the new ESB price reductions will have to pay a higher minium payment or else pay by direct debit, and receive the bi-monthly bill electronically. This is a simple but clear indication as to why we should not allow any commission have full and ultimate control to dictate terms and conditions in the future.

I am told that the Royal Mail has moved from being a profit-making business into a loss making enterprise since the mail industry in the UK was opened to competition. Now the British Treasury is subsidising the Royal Mail to maintain the universal postal service in rural areas, because competitors have cherrypicked the most profitable areas. I do not wish to see a situation such as this happening in Ireland. Neither do I want to see people in rural Ireland only receiving their post a couple of days a week.

Already the Government has rowed back on a commitment in the programme for Government to protect the universal postal service obligation by assigning it to An Post for at lest 20 years. Now it has been reduced to seven years and ComReg has the power to nominate alternative providers during this period also. I have grave concerns that ComReg may dilute this commitment further without any say from the Minister. Are we to have multiple operators in some areas, just like we saw when the refuse collection services were privatised in so many parts of the country, with five or six operators providing the same service each week? It does not make sense.

I am also worried that there will be a need for Exchequer funding to ensure the provision of the universal postal service provider. At present cross-compensation being used by An Post is self-financing. In the current stringent economic climate is it wise to allow a situation to develop whereby public funds will have to be invested just to ensure continuation of a very basic service? Currently, it does not matter whether a letter is being posted from Leinster House to the GPO or from Leinster House to Malin or Mizen Head, the cost is the same. With the entry of new providers, I am concerned that all the non-profit making routes will need to be subsidised by the State.

I accept that An Post faces many challenges over the coming months, with more people turning to electronic statements, etc., but I am confident personnel in An Post will adapt to these challenges. I encourage the Government to continue to support An Post

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