Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is the Minister's lucky day, and again we are talking about services that affect rural areas. I, along with many postmasters and postmistresses across the country, was horrified to see the headline in theIrish Independent some days or weeks ago. It stated 400 post offices are to close. As the Minister well knows, the post offices provide an invaluable piece of the fabric and integrity of rural areas. We cannot stand by any longer and see no changes and movement towards making progress on post offices and bringing them into the 21st century such that they will have the technology and services to make them sustainable and worth having in communities.

As the Minister knows, the post offices have to be sustainable. They are businesses. We need to offer a broader range of services within them. We need to consider the financial pressure that the postmasters and postmistresses find themselves under. It requires some fresh thinking and the implementation of new ways of doing things.

There has to be an emphasis on the Kerr report. It was launched almost a year ago, with some practical solutions as to how we can proceed. We will all be the first to admit the figures do not lie. The post offices have suffered significant losses, of between €12 million and €15 million in 2016, and a much greater loss is anticipated for 2017. Postage currently represents 64% of An Post's revenue, down from 74% in 2016. These are facts we cannot get away from. It is largely attributable to the fall in mailing and also to better use of technology. We have talked about broadband so we realise better use of technology is not always a feature in certain areas. There are rural areas in our constituencies that do not have broadband and probably depend on An Post a lot more than areas that do. One facilitates the other.

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