Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister may be aware that An Post over the last two days has offered, I believe, some 400 postmasters the voluntary opportunity to terminate their contracts for a severance package. That may well meet the needs of many of the postmasters concerned. However, I am sure it will not meet the needs of the communities that will be left without a post office. In his response, the Minister put a lot of stock on what the postmasters think and what An Post thinks. What about the communities that are losing a service? I can understand why An Post is taking this approach. The board of An Post has to look to profit and loss and to viability.

The Minister spoke of viability in his response, but what about the viability of the communities that will be left without perhaps the only service they have had for some time? Garda stations have closed and small schools have closed. I refer to the only facility with the harp over the door and that gives some inclination that the Government still cares about those villages. I want the Minister to put a plan in place to ensure those communities are not left without a service. It will require an input from Government. I refer to a public service obligation to ensure the services of a post office are available, even though in some of those communities we all have to accept that the services may not be viable on a profit and loss basis. However, if the service is not left there to facilitate the communities that still exist, then that community will cease to exist in a short time. In addition to the work An Post is doing, there is work to be done by the Government to identify what Government services can and should be delivered. We have heard a lot of talk about that for a long time with little action. We need Government investment to sustain a service that may not be viable otherwise.

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