Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has succeeded in confusing just about everybody. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, makes it very clear that his role is about looking at a group of services that could enhance activity within the post office network. He claims to have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the operation of the network. The Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, is telling us something different.

The sooner the Government comes clean and tells the people who are affected by this change who is responsible, the better.

On a number of occasions the Minister told us that he has corporate responsibility for An Post. The last time I checked, however, the contract is between postmasters, who, by and large, run the post offices, with the exception of 50 or so that are owned by the company, and An Post where the Minister has effective overall corporate governance responsibility.

It does not take a corporate lawyer to make the connection between the Minister's responsibilities, the effective operation of the contracts and ultimately the delivery of the service. The sooner the Minister accepts his responsibility for a holistic approach of the entire An Post entity and stops shifting responsibility between himself and a fellow Minister, the better.

See this speech in context