Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to broadband, as the Deputy is aware, our Department is dealing with the local authorities to make sure that when the contracts are awarded, there will be no hold-ups and the local authorities will have their ground work done. When people are appointed to deal with the contracts, we will be there and the local authorities will deal with the land issues and any other issues that arise. The Minister, Deputy Naughten's Department will deal with the licences and we will do our bit. The local authorities have all been written to and they have all responded. What we need to do now is to make sure that we can roll this out as quickly as possible.

Regarding rural post offices, we have a group that I am chairing and another group, the Post Office Network Business Development Group, that Bobby Kerr is chairing. He is examining ways and means to see what we can do to give new services to post offices. I am engaged with the Irish postmasters association in examining ways and means to see what we can do to save as many post offices as possible. The Deputy is correct that there a number of categories of post offices, including big post offices, small post offices and rural post offices. I am working with those people to explore, for example, the possibility of having mobile post offices, community post offices and a combination of both to try to keep a service in an area. Bobby Kerr intends to have his group's report compiled in the next number of weeks. I will have my report compiled and we will then go to Government to see what we can do to support and assist rural post offices to the best of our ability.

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