Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have two minutes to recap some of what I have said and respond to the Minister. Some of the old sayings hold true in this modern society, and one is "if it is not broken, do not fix it." The system is not broken and An Post is working, although it may be able to do things better. Why should we interfere with the position of An Post, which is contained within primary legislation? I cannot see how, as the Minister has argued, the position of An Post can be strengthened by its removal from primary legislation. At the very least, we should reconsider the existing legislation.

I accept that An Post is uniquely placed to compete for the contract in future but that will not necessarily always be the case, and it may depend on its investments. It does not have a great track record of considering banking facilities. I have argued that An Post should be a "preferred bidder" and the Minister has concerns about the use of a preferred status for An Post in legislation because the EU may come down hot and heavy because of competition law. There is a social good that must be protected in the event of the EU demanding that services delivered by An Post on behalf of the Department of Social Protection be interfered with because of competition issues.

I welcome the provisions in the section that would give clarity to the powers of An Post in helping the Department deal with fraud and taking the public services card from people who do not own one or are using it fraudulently. Such provisions are in the Bill but there are already ways in which this can be done. It is just a matter of putting a phone call to An Garda Síochána, and it is fraud if somebody uses another person's identity for such purposes.

I have major concerns about lining up public services for privatisation. We even heard with Topical Issues about another area where public services are being outsourced. It was a Progressive Democrats mantra that the public service should have been outsourced or privatised and the Minister has started that ball rolling with JobPath. I hope the Minister will be proven right in her comments about An Post being protected forever but I do not believe that. Unless it is in legislation and the company retains its current standing, it will have no protection different to any other company which wants to compete for that business.

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