Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, to the House and wish him well in his Ministry. I thank the Leader for arranging this timely debate. We are meeting representatives of the Irish Postmasters Union next week and the information the Minister of State has provided is important. The key point in his speech is the avowal that there is "no wavering in the Government's commitment to our postal services". We have heard that it is precisely because of this commitment that "urgent action" is now needed to guarantee the future of An Post.

I was in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in 1982, in a period when we were planning for the future. There was a strong network of post offices at that stage, or sub-post offices as they were called. The Irish Postmasters Union was very effective in its representations for that organisation at the time. It was a different era in that most post offices were linked to local shops and the latter were subsidised to some extent by this interlinking with the postal service. A person collecting his or her old age pension or child benefit tended to spend some of that money in the shop.

This situation still exists in my own area of Castlecoote where there is a well-run post office linked to an efficient shop, providing an excellent service in the area. When I was Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in 1982, I remember the postmaster at the time, the late Mark Delaney, sought to have the office upgraded to a money office, which I duly arranged. That assisted in developing that area of the post office regarding savings accounts. Insufficient emphasis has been placed on the possibilities of development in this area.

Unfortunately several post offices have been closed in recent years. In the next few days a very old post office in Donamon outside Roscommon town will close as the postmaster is reaching an advanced age and is retiring. No effort has been made to seek a replacement and nobody seems interested in taking on the task. I have received no representations from people in that area because the money paid to the postmaster would not cover the electricity, insurance and other costs of keeping the shop open. It was a very famous post office as the Divine Word Missionaries was located in that area and all its post went through that post office. It was very profitable at that stage.

When I was Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, I was amazed at the amount of competition for a post office. There was nearly a war over the post office in Ballaghaderreen. Different factions were making different representations over postmistress and postmaster applications. The stately Paddy Cooney had been Minister for Post and Telegraphs in the previous Government. He gave a firm commitment to one person that the office would be given to him. I had to either break or honour that arrangement and I honoured it. No one should think Fine Gael Ministers were always pure; they were very political in the allocation of post offices. I can prove this with the records from the time.

However, that was the procedure at the time. We allocated post offices in the Acting Chairman's constituency and throughout the country. I filled a few post office vacancies before I left office in December 1982. I filled them in Ballinaheglish, Mount Talbot, Monesteraden and other areas. It was and is a great service in these areas. There was immense competition to become a postmaster or postmistress at that time. Many services were being provided by the post offices at the time and it was quite a lucrative business, particularly when it was allied to another business.

We are now facing a major crisis with post offices and An Post in general. Regardless of An Post's difficulties, the payments agreed under national agreements must be guaranteed. For a State organisation not to honour those agreements would undermine social partnership. Irrespective of the cost I appeal to An Post to honour the Sustaining Progress agreement, particularly as this affects pensioners, many of whom provided 50 to 60 years of service. As a Member of the Oireachtas who is paid according to national agreements, I am dismayed that postal workers who provided such a service for the people have not been given their increases. This must be rectified regardless of the cost. We cannot keep a service going on the basis of depriving pensioners of their rightful increases.

I have confidence in the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the previous Minister in that Department, Senator O'Rourke.