Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Post offices are an essential social service. They provide a service that needs to be maintained. I was a Deputy between 2011 and 2016 when, because of the completely reckless behaviour of previous Governments, there was a complete retrenchment of public services. Savings had to be found everywhere, in the most horrible places imaginable. That put huge pressure on the post office network. A number of post offices were marked to close. I worked with local communities in Broadford and Cratloe and their work prevented the closure of those post offices. Unfortunately, during the lifetime of the previous Dáil, other post offices closed.

The deficit we are running at the moment is going to lead to similar pressures on post offices and public services. We are running a deficit of approximately 6% of GDP, which looks fantastic on paper. It is the second lowest deficit in the eurozone, lower even than that of Germany. However, we all know that GDP is not a realistic measure of the economy because our corporate tax take means we are effectively eating other countries' lunch and we cannot do that, or get away with doing that, forever. If one looks at the deficit we are running as a percentage of GNI, Seamus Coffey pointed out in a frightening statistic this morning. It is 11.5%, which is the highest deficit in the EU. There is a price to be paid for that, which will be social services, including post offices.

The delivery company, DPD ,has just announced it is hiring 700 people. That is good news but why did the post office hand over the parcel delivery service to the extent it did? All those deliveries are happening because of money not being spent in towns and villages across Ireland. That money is going to Amazon. That is great for Jeff Bezos but it is not so good for our economy.

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