Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Minister will understand where I am coming from on these amendments. I have spoken trenchantly on certain aspects of this legislation. I am pleased that the Minister has decided to make some improvements to the Bill that was published when we were in government. All legislation that goes through the Dáil is changed significantly between its publication and its finalisation. Substantial changes would have been necessary even if there had not been a change of Government. That is why we are proposing the amendments in Deputy Ó Cuív's name. We must reiterate where we stand on this issue. This is about An Post, but it is also about integrity and honesty. Can people believe what we say?

The Minister will be aware that I represent the Portlaoise area. I think he visited the mail centre in Portlaoise recently. He will appreciate that it is an efficient organisation. Its costs have been cut to the bare minimum. It is based in a high-tech building. Those who sort the mail will probably arrive for the night shift shortly. They will work through the night so that everyone gets their mail tomorrow morning.

I would like to remind the House of what the programme for Government says about the issue that this group of amendments attempts to address. The Fianna Fáil amendments were drafted to give full support and co-operation to what the Government parties signed up to a few months ago in the programme, which states:

A universal postal service is an essential public service, in particular for rural communities and those disadvantaged communities affected by digital divide. A publicly owned, commercially viable, profitable and efficient An Post is critical to the long-term viability of the postal market. We will enact into law the Postal Services Bill which opens postal market to competition. [We] will protect universal service obligation by assigning it to An Post for at least 20 years, make provision for state subvention and require that any decision by ComReg to reassign or scrap USO is subject to ministerial approval.

That is what Fine Gael and the Labour Party agreed to do when they signed the programme for Government earlier this year. If the financial world had fallen in, I could understand it if the Minister came in to say "we are broke, we cannot afford to do it any more". The Government cannot argue that these matters are outside its control. These specific matters are within the control of the Government. An extension in the relevant period from seven to 12 years was provided for on Committee Stage. It was rolled back on to a certain extent when it was decided that the regulator would review it after seven years. There is room for the Minister and the Government to reconsider that aspect of the matter through the regulator.

The commitment that was made was not even an election promise. The Taoiseach said recently that election promises are not personal commitments. We all know that election promises are not legally binding. That was found to be the case by Mr. Justice Denning in Britain years ago. A manifesto is a general offer, rather than a legally binding contract to each voter. The Government made commitments after the general election when there was no need to do so. It was not out there hunting for votes. There was no prospect of it gaining extra seats when it knew in its heart of hearts that some accident and emergency units could not be kept open. It made promises to get extra seats.

Some Government backbenchers have been asking senior Ministers why they made all the promises which are now causing such difficulty. I understand some of them have been told by their parliamentary colleagues that if the parties in question had not made the false promises, they might not have won so many seats. That is from where the Fine Gael Party is coming. However, that was during the heat of an election. We make no excuse for that, but I am merely pointing it out.

After all of that, when the Government has more than 100 seats, in the cool light of day when it sits down behind closed doors, is not facing the public for years to come and has the biggest Government majority, nobody forced it to sign this. The Government signed it in negotiations behind closed doors and then came out and published it. They stated they would have their review within 100 days. I do not understand why they went so far as to make this commitment only a few short weeks ago and within weeks utterly renege on it here in legislation. No good reason has been given for that.

I support the amendments and the thrust of what has been stated here. Everyone knows An Post provides an efficient service. All of these European competition issues are necessary but Ireland is a more rural country than most other European countries. We are not Birmingham or London where there is a population of 4 million and 12 million, respectively, within a couple of hundred square miles. Our population is well dispersed. People will see that density of population will become a more difficult issue, and we will deal with the downstream access into the postal system and the man in the van stating he is an operator when we come to those particular amendments. In general, I fully support my colleague, Deputy Ó Cuív, in putting down the amendment to extend the designation period for An Post to 20 years in line with the programme for Government. I look forward to the Government agreeing to accept the amendment which is in line with the programme for Government and approving this.

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