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

First, I want to sympathise with the families of two young boys who were killed in our county last night. My thoughts go out to the parents, sisters, brothers and families that have been left behind. Their lives will never again be the same. May God give them the strength to carry on and continue with their lives in the best way that they can. It reminds us of what true loss is. While we are here today to talk about post offices, tragedies like this are a terrible infliction on families. I hope that the little boy who is very hurt recovers.

We are now being told that there will to be a 20% cut in State payments to post offices. That will signal the end of many. Post offices only ever wanted more work. Direct Government intervention through a PSO of €17 million is needed to ensure that our post office network stays intact. Some 281 have been closed in the past decade in 25 of the 26 counties. I need not name the county that was not affected. It is ironic to hear the Labour Party Member regretting the closure of the post offices. When they were in power from 2011 to 2016, they closed 218 of them. All that postmasters want is more work. They could deal with motor tax, licence renewals, registrations, identity verification and community information. When the country was broke and we had nothing, we had post offices, Garda stations and GPs in every parish. Deputy Griffin talked about the local improvement scheme for rural roads. We only got enough money for ten roads in County Kerry this year out of an application list of 697.

See this speech in context