Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the Minister referred to the Portlaoise mail centre. The Athlone centre is critical for the west and north east and the Minister's visit to the facility was welcome. My concern is that we have only four major mail centres whose future is critical in terms of distribution. As An Post has emphasised, the company is now moving into the personal network, which is a very good development.

I welcome the Minister's restatement of his commitment to the universal service obligation. We are all on the same page on that issue. Sinn Féin, in its discussions with An Post, made some suggestions on how the universal service obligation can be implemented more efficiently. It is essential that postal deliveries are maintained for five days each week.

The issue is that the post office network and the future of the mail centres are intertwined. For a long time, various Ministers dealt with different aspects of the postal service and there was a danger that it would move in different directions. The Minister is interested in the post office network, I will give him that. Now that responsibility for it has transferred to his Department, I ask him to take a direct interest in the issue, pull everything together, move the process forward and retain the mail centres in Athlone and Portlaoise. These facilities are now taking overflow business from Dublin that the capital cannot handle. We must also retain as many post offices as possible. The key point, however, is that this process is like watching paint dry in that we have been waiting for years for new services to be devolved to post offices. There is a broad consensus in the House and among communities on the need to implement the suggestions that have been made in this regard. We must move ahead and make the network viable.

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