Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I know we are a week into the Lent but what the Minister of State is doing, blaming the Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, is the greatest Pontius Pilate act I have ever witnessed. I had to deal with all the Departments involved and they dealt with our recent motion on this.

We got the report from An Post. What does it do this week? It puts up the price of a stamp by 35% when sales of stamps are dropping. Any other company which did that would be out of business in a week. This is heads in the sand stuff.

Last week, the Minister of State announced another sham consultation about public banking. Our motion sought to allow the post office network become involved in community banking. The Minister of State is having a consultation period on this but the network will be imithe – gone - like the snow off the ditch. The Minister of State is passing the parcel to the other Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten. It is he who should be here dealing with this, instead of the Minister of State hand-wringing, doing a Pontius Pilate job and passing the buck. The post office network is disappearing before our eyes while the bus services and Garda stations are gone. There will be nothing left in rural Ireland, only the hen harriers, along with the weeds and the ditches the Government will not let us cut.

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