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

Yesterday, Deputy Ferris and I, together with other Deputies, met the president of the IPU, Ms Marie Williams from the post office in Tralee who is on the IPU executive, and others. We listened to the IPU's urgent call on behalf of postmasters throughout the country. I must declare an interest as I am a postmaster myself of a small post office in Kilgarvan, County Kerry. I am proud to be the owner of a post office. I want my post office and every other post office to be sustainable, keep the jobs it has in place for the future. It will not happen without the Government's support.

Deputy Ferris is correct about what is happening. I do not want to wrong anyone. When the Taoiseach was Minister for Social Protection, I showed him a document to show how unfair the situation was. It was an application form for a new recipient of social welfare. I told him it was being sent out in his name and was telling people to use the bank. There and then he told me it was wrong and it should not be like that. In fairness, he went away and had it changed. He did not give us in the post office an unfair advantage; he gave us a fair playing field. He had the form read that the recipient could go to their post office or bank, and it was good and sound of him to do that. What is happening now in spite of everything is that people in Intreo offices are telling people to do things through the bank. We are asking the Government to give us a fair chance. This is a very important message and we need to get this straight. Deputy Ferris and I had this yesterday from the president of the IPU. We do not, as postmasters, want a handout. We are not asking Government to give us a grant or anything, we are looking for nothing from the Government. What we want is work. We want to be given new business that we can administer through our post offices, whether it is motor tax, or that farmers would come to post offices to use e-assist to fill up an area aid form or other applications. We just want work in our post offices and we are just asking the Government to help us in that. It is a very ordinary and humble request. Give us work to keep our post offices going.

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