Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a lot in what the Deputy is saying. We obviously have to have access for all citizens. We cannot simply decide to do it electronically only and have a whole category of citizens excluded from availing of services or even being frightened to go to a public library or post office. The Deputy will have dealt with people in his office, as I have, who are intimidated by receiving a letter with a harp on it, much less the notion that they have to fill in a form online. We have to have much more than a resource base with online services available. We also need to provide training and have local dimensions about which the Deputy talked. The notion of using post offices is not a bad one. The Tánaiste, for example, is developing concepts to use post offices for a range of services. The biggest user of post offices is overwhelmingly the State. More than 80% of the revenue generated in local post offices is from State-based services.

See this speech in context