Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak and to offer my support for the proposals which the Minister is making. As a Deputy from the rural constituency of Galway East, I have experienced over the years post offices closing in our area and the amount of upset it causes to a community. This is a symptom of what can happen when the service is not being supported properly from central level. What we now have we should hold in respect of the post office network. We should freeze any more closures of post offices in rural Ireland and if the postmaster is giving the licence up, every effort should be made to put somebody else in place to keep the facilities going.

I welcome the funding that is being made available but I hope that funding gets to the network on the ground rather than being held at An Post executive or national level.

The Irish Postmasters' Union has done a great job over the years in highlighting the issues within the postal service in how it is trying to keep a business going against all of the tides. The roll-out of the off-line services which have been talked about should be given to and carried out by the post offices. I am aware that there were issues around procurement, but we need to get going with that.

Rural Ireland is facing a new post-Covid 19 crisis with the number of pubs which are closing which were a social centre for people to meet. Many community groups are becoming resilient in light of the fact that they are losing some of their services, including the local pub, which was very important as an economic driver in the area.

As politicians, we have it within our gift to ensure that we strengthen the post office network so that it becomes sustainable and, as one of the other speakers said, so that into the future we do not have to be offering supports for it to become a viable proposition for a postmaster. In this area, there is the idea of a one-stop-shop for services such as motor taxation, passport services, which the postal service is already carrying, and social welfare services. We should make every effort in every Government Department to ensure that any payments and services which are coming from social welfare are offered, in the first instance, to the post office service and that every form should have the post office as its first option. This would link people to the post office, which is very important.

Post offices and postmasters need guidance and funding to refocus the model of their business to the modern times we have. Parcel deliveries and online services are great but there is still a cohort of people who are not up to speed with the online service and are not, so to speak, computer literate. It is important that service can be provided at the local post office, whether it is applying for a grant from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, or whatever, with the assistance of its staff to ensure that it can be done online, because we seem to be driving everybody online now, for better or for worse.

We have lost many of our Garda barracks in rural areas. That is a legacy issue. We have lost enough and it is important the post office service is retained. We should be promoting services in post offices and what is available in them. Over recent years, retail banks have closed a lot of branches in rural areas and have left the market, including banks such as Ulster Bank. It is important we make sure we have a vibrant post office network to take up some of that slack.

I commend postmen and postwomen who, over the past two or three years since Covid first struck this country, showed leadership, which was important to the country. They were probably the first point of contact for many people living in rural areas. They knocked on doors and asked people if they were okay, whether they needed anything from the shop, if somebody had called, whether the heating was on and whatever else. They went beyond the call of duty to make sure they were providing a service. That came naturally to postmen and postwomen, and it is important we acknowledge that as something specific to rural Ireland. That experience has also shone a light on how the post office service in our cities and urban areas was able to do the same during Covid. The post office network is an important national asset. It is something we should be proud of and help to develop.

The move by the Minister of State today is to provide funding, on which I commend him. Funding is badly needed and we need to make sure it gets to the people who need it, right down to post office level. We need to make sure it is not lost in transit.

In respect of rural crime, we do not have rural Garda barracks and gardaí are not on the ground. The person who is looking out when passing in a green van is the postman or postwoman. Given they are familiar with an area, they will alert somebody if they see something peculiar or strange. That has not been accounted for, but it helps a lot in rural Ireland to keep everybody safe in their homes, as well as keeping property safe. Well done to the Minister of State and he has my support.

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