Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I concur. As the part-owner of a rural shop, the rush of people out of rural villages into large towns is a scandal. They bypass everything. I will not participate in any protest about any of those services - post office or otherwise - because if people used them they would be under less threat. I put it to the Minister of State that the final Kerr report is, no doubt, an excellent report and I have no doubt that the Department, among others, had a good input into it. However, is the secret here not that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and those in his Department are recalcitrant? They have no interest in advancing this matter and the Minister of State has an awful fight on his hands. I know it. I am plain speaking as well and I may as well be doubly plain speaking with the Minister of State because he understands it. He was not brought up with a silver spoon. The situation is that I know the way the Minister for Finance and those in his Department work because I saw it with the Bankruptcy Bill. They can put blockages where even a magician would not put a blockage. That is what they are doing. I know what the Minister of State faces. Get the Minister for Finance and his officials together and we will make rural Ireland survive with the help of the people, but the rural communities better get off their butts as well and stop complaining and looking for a protest. We have enough of that racket going on throughout the country. I am not part of that protest movement. It is part of an action movement we should be.

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