Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Rural Independent Group would also like to register its deepest sympathies for the families who lost loved ones in yesterday's storm. I also compliment the Government, local authorities and, in the county I represent, Ms Moira Murrell, who is CEO of Kerry County Council, and all the great outdoor staff for the great work that they did, not just in our county but throughout the country. Those people worked so hard to ensure that everything was dealt with in the proper way.

I wish to ask the Taoiseach about the specific commitment in A Programme for a Partnership Government to protect our post office network. I raised this matter many times here.

I wish to declare that I myself am a postmaster so I know the workings of exactly what is happening.

We, the Independent group, passed a motion in November of 2016. I was grateful to every political group and individual here in this House who supported that motion at that time but, unfortunately, nothing has happened since. A motion was passed here. It gave a clear framework as to how we can protect our post offices. It is not an exaggeration to state that 700 post offices face insolvency in the next two years. When every postmaster who has been revised - a revision takes place every two or three years - gets back his or her figures, the postmaster is losing a lot of money, to such an extent that it questions the post office's viability completely.

Does the Taoiseach understand that in 2012 the social welfare contract was worth €60 million to the post offices? Today, it is worth just over €50 million. Why did that happen? First, it is Government policy. The Department was actively encouraging recipients to leave their post offices and use the commercial banks. The post office customers were being driven to commercial banks. I give the Taoiseach credit that when he was Minister at that time and I raised it with him he acted and ensured that letters being sent out to recipients encouraging them to go to the banks also pointed out that they could use the post offices. However, we must do more. When I saw "we", I mean every one of us - every political party and every individual here. All we need do is recognise that community banking is what saved the post office network in other parts of the world. It happened in New Zealand. It did not happen in England and Scotland. That is why they lost 10,000 post offices.

Anything we lose, as the Taoiseach well knows, we can never get back. If a post office closes in a community it is like taking the heart and soul out of that community. We have to recognise that the network is worth saving. It can be saved but we need the Taoiseach and the Government to provide policies and direction that will direct more business and more activity to the post offices.

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