Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have only two questions. Will the Government give a commitment that its contracts for procurement will include a social as well an economic element in the future? That is vital. We saw what happened with the driving licence system. It was farmed out and made so prohibitive that the post offices could not tender for it. John Daly, director of retail operations in An Post, told an Oireachtas committee on 8 November last that the future of the country's 1,100 post offices is now unsustainable and that the network is on the verge of collapse. Deputy Donnelly spoke about the post office in Arklow town. It is not a rural issue, but a rural and urban issue. There are small post offices in the heart of Dublin. I cannot say enough to thank the postmistresses and postmasters, fir an phoist agus mná an phoist, and everybody who has worked to deliver post. Even Deputy Jim Daly delivered post when he was a buachaill óg, as he said. I thank all the people who provide that service.

This is a vital service which has existed for hundreds of years. It must be enhanced. I have been a Member of the House for more than nine years and we have talked about this matter repeatedly. Successive Governments, one of which included me, talked about it, but more post offices were closed than were kept open. I put my hand up and admit that. Now, we have reached the bottom line. It is down to the core issue. We must protect these services. Many Members made excellent contributions tonight. Deputy Harty got elected for the "No Doctor, No Village" campaign. If there is no post office, there is certainly no village. There is no postmaster or postmistress to provide a service for anybody. These people were a social focal point. They were form fillers and did everything for people. When people did not have telephones, they were uimhir a haoin ar an dial-up telephone and they made contact for everybody. They filled forms, notified people about funerals, telegrams and so forth. The history, heritage and legacy are there and we must protect that.

People talk about rural Ireland as if it was a foreign place. It is here and we live in it, but it is diminishing and disappearing. Garda stations, factories and creameries have gone, so the post office is the last bastion and the last stand. I welcome the people who have come to the Visitors Gallery tonight. We must promote them. Other models have been mentioned, including the one in New Zealand. There are also models in Germany. I wish to put some figures on the record. We all believe Germany is full of huge multinational companies that are very successful. We tend to think that is down Siemens, Allianz, Bayer, Mercedes and the like. In fact, a research report found that 3.6 million small and medium entrepreneurs are the backbone of the German economy. That is similar to the situation in Ireland, although it is not to the same scale. These entrepreneurs represent 99.9% of all companies, and 87% have a turnover of less than €1 million.

Less than 1% have a turnover greater than €50 million. This is where we are coming in. We can emulate what they do in Germany, where community banks are supported and profits go back into communities. I compliment The Wheel and Irish Rural Link on holding the conference and the people who attended. Some of them are in the Gallery. We need to consider it in order to revitalise rural areas and allow them to have banking facilities in the post offices.

As Deputy Michael Collins said, there should be a front-office focus for Government services instead of taking them away and banishing them to hell or to Connacht. We should support and enhance them. We should take the handcuffs and the blindfolds off postmasters and allow them to do what they do so well. We should give them the tools of the trade in this regard. They are not begging. We are not beggars looking for charity. We want to be allowed to continue thriving businesses that provide employment. We want them to be used as official tourist offices, given that they operate in this way in an unofficial capacity. Somebody said that they are not allowed to accept parcels from courier vans. They do it anyway. They provide all kinds of services. If the parish priest cannot turn up for mass, who does he tell? The postmistress.

I have anecdotal evidence of three people in my small area who missed collecting their pensions at the post office and alarm bells went off. Two of them were found alive thanks to the alertness of the postmistress or her staff. One of them, sadly, had been out preparing for Christmas, picking material to make holly wreaths and was, unfortunately, found dead. He would not have been found for a week had the postmistress not missed him. It is the social fabric that we discuss here in debate after debate. They had a social fabric, in the veins of rural Ireland. We just enabled them. The Kerr report was been published in January. What aspects of it have we implemented? We get eminent people to produce reports. We put money in and carry out consultation processes but what happens to the reports? They gather dust on a shelf. There is confusion as to which Ministers in what Departments are responsible for rural development and we need to sort it out.

Many of my Rural Independent Group colleagues took part in the creation of the programme for Government and negotiated many aspects of it. Our job is to police it. I thank the Government for taking the motion. It is the second motion we have brought forward, and the Government has accepted both. It is magnanimous and is new politics working. However, we need action and delivery. I will be here, week in week out, as will my colleagues on these and other benches watching the Government and policing it. Tá an leabhar agam san oifig. I have the programme for Government and I will monitor it line by line. No issue is more important for rural and urban Ireland than that we are discussing.

The Government can provide Internet hubs for training courses. Rural Ireland is 30% behind compared to towns. We want outlets where students can go to fill in their CAO forms. They can have the broadband in the post offices, maybe not provided by Eir but by some other means. We cannot get it in rural Ireland. We are being hindered, restricted and stifled. That must change. Driving licence applications could be dealt with in post offices. Farm grants applications and transactions could be completed there. There are numerous services that could be handled by post offices, simple thinking and simple changes are all that is required.

I address myself to the Department's officials. In the programme for Government, the Taoiseach promised official Ireland would change as well as the Government, that it would be more engaging and interested in allowing activities to transfer from Department to Department. He promised that there would be more normalised behaviour, not empires in which Departments have ownership of areas and tell other Departments to back off. We do not need that. We need a modern post office network that will deliver what it is capable of delivering. We have come through decades of services from the postmistress. They moved on, upgraded, got IT-savvy and did everything else they were asked to do, will do, are able to do and want and wish to do in order to support people and supply services. All we have to do is allow them to proceed. We are prohibiting them and tying their hands behind their backs.

I have just enough time to thank the people who worked with me on the motion and my office staff. I appeal that all this talk will not go to waste and that the motion be agreed to without a division tomorrow, that the Government will implement what we, the IPU, Tom O'Callaghan and postmistresses around the country have asked for, and what is common sense, namely, to allow this, one of the last bastions of rural society, to continue to flourish, not to stifle it but to allow it to serve the public. They want to be of service. We are Teachtaí Dála, public servants; they are public servants. They receive a pittance for every transaction, not a salary. I ask the people out there, my family and everybody else, to use it or lose it. We must support the post offices. We will ensure the Government plays its part. The postmasters and postmistresses will do it, as will the sub-offices. It is up to the people to use the post offices. Deputy Jim Daly might be able to clarify his remarks. Could the Minister ask him to withdraw them? Nobody is trying to coerce anybody. People should have the option of receiving their social welfare payments in the post office, and not be discouraged from doing so.

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