Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State and this debate, as a discussion on An Post is good. It was interesting to listen to Senator Brady speak from experience, as I have experience also. I was chairman of An Post and its predecessor, the interim board, for ten years from 1979 to 1989. I have tended to avoid speaking about the postal service in the House because when one leaves a job, one should keep one's mouth shut in case one appears to be second-guessing the people who follow.

I want to speak on this motion because it is seriously confused in two ways, including its presentation of the postal service as an integral part of a competitive economy. The truth is different. With each year that passes, the postal service is falling further away from the mainstream of our economy. It is and always will remain an essential part of our infrastructural backbone, but it is no longer a key success factor. In today's world, the importance of next day deliveries is not as great as it once was. Nothing that is time-sensitive is sent by post. Yesterday, we learned that important information in Britain was sent on an assumption, but such a situation will not recur.

While I regret that An Post has not met ComReg's targets, this failure is not crucial to the economy, as the real problem in communications is our continued failure to deliver broadband across the country. This issue has a real economic impact because our failure will hobble our economic future in a meaningful way. To bleat about next day deliveries in a situation where the scandal of broadband continues shows a curious sense of priority.

The confusion in the Fine Gael motion relates to the issue of post offices and arises through regarding it as a business issue when it is a social issue. We will only solve the problem when we face up to the reality that the post office retail network cannot be justified in purely business terms. We must recognise that rural post offices are a crucial part of a social framework and are vital to our society in a way that they can never be as part of An Post's business.

During my time as chairman, the question of post offices was every bit as hot an issue as it is today, but people would not face up to the realities anymore than they do today. An Post was given an uncompromising business mandate to run a postal service efficiently and to make it pay. This mandate was the death knell of post offices. In serving the mandate, I presided over the closing of a number of post offices. Every closure broke my heart and the heart of the villages in which they had been located, but I had no option. If one insists that a postal service pays its way, with which I have no quarrel, while supporting elements that are not viable in business terms, one is asking for the impossible and will not get it. That was true in the 1980s and it is true now.

In the past generation, some of the key anchors of our rural life have disappeared. The village school tends to be a thing of the past, which is regrettable, but one can understand if people want to be educated in larger schools. The local rural Garda station is becoming a thing of the past. I have my doubts about the wisdom of this, but I can understand the economic pressures that force such closures on the Garda.

However, the local post office is different. Its continued presence becomes even more important as the schools and the Garda stations close. In many cases, it is practically the only glue holding a small rural community together. To lose the network of remaining rural post offices forever would be nothing short of a national tragedy.