Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I sat on the business development group and Mr. Bobby Kerr was very sincere and genuine in his approach to pulling together all the various stakeholders. The Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, and I are on the group so there is political input. There are other representative groups and stakeholders as well. From day one, Mr. Kerr was consistent in saying that he wanted outcomes and proposals to go directly to the Minister.

Later in the autumn, after all the consultation input has been collated, we will be making proposals that will not only be going to the Minister, Deputy White's desk, but to Cabinet. Within that, as we discussed with Deputy Moynihan earlier in respect of social welfare and other Government contracts, there are bread and butter issues with the post office which needs these contracts to survive. That has been the focus and has been very much the way Bobby Kerr has steered this. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Bobby's role in this.

It is not finished; there is still a lot of work to do. It is not about convincing the electorate that things might happen. Key commitments must be given by various Departments, whether the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine or the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, where there are services through local authorities that could potentially help post offices. The Deputy's raising of this question today helps to feed into this process and I thank her for that.

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