Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will take up Deputy Broughan's final point. Deputy Dooley was critical of me earlier, but with the roll-out of fibre across rural Ireland, 97% of post offices will have access to high speed broadband within the next 77 weeks. That piece of infrastructure needs to be fully utilised for the benefit of communities, older people and people who do not have access to the Internet at the moment. One in seven people has never used the Internet. In this light, the post office can be used to provide such people in urban and rural Ireland with significant opportunities and we need to exploit those opportunities fully.

In fairness, the chief executive of An Post, Mr. David McRedmond, gets it. He sees the opportunity presented by the development of financial services, the parcel system and developments in the digital economy as an enabler to drive the business forward. Work is ongoing in terms of the Kerr report and the feedback from the McKinsey report and NewERA, but the board will have to make the ultimate decision. There is also ongoing and regular engagement with my Department. That will continue until we have a blueprint for the future.

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