Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If we had €1 for all the various committees and studies on An Post that have been commissioned by the Government we would have a nice few bob in a savings account in An Post. There has been a plethora of working groups reviewing the post office network. One was under the auspices of the Minister of State, the post office hub working group to examine the Kerr report which, itself, was a separate report. In addition, the Government set up a network renewal implementation group. Meanwhile the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and his officials are examining the potential for motor tax etc. to be paid through post offices.

I ask the Minister of State to explain to us how all these groups knit together to try to resolve what An Post claims is an impending crisis for the 1,100 remaining post offices. Obviously, the announcement that 80 are to close is an indication of the failure of these groups to come up with ideas. For example, we could give some sort of public service obligation payment to the post offices, which they do not receive. We could stop underfunding them and stop removing services from them such as social welfare payments by insisting that certain Government payments must be made through bank drafts etc. The State could form something similar to the Sparkasse or Kiwibank models that would help An Post perform multiple functions and therefore survive.

It reminds me of the same rhetoric we have heard regarding Bus Éireann.

In that case, it is claimed that we cannot keep the service going, that it is costing the State too much, that it is valuable for rural Ireland but that it is too expensive and not competitive. The operative phrase is “not competitive” because we are running down social services for the sake of neo-liberal ideas that profit must be made and one must be competitive. It is not going to work without risking the fabric of rural life being torn apart, if that has not started already. The threat to An Post and the threat to Bus Éireann are one of the same threats to the fabric of rural society. It is also winding it up to send a signal to the workers in both Bus Éireann and An Post that they better not dare look for a pay increase the way the Luas or Dublin Bus drivers or other workers did, that there is a crisis and that they will not get any pay rise. Will the Minister of State comment on all of these points, in particular how this will destroy the fabric of rural life?

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