Alex White (Labour)

I disagree profoundly with the position of the President of the Czech Republic but an issue arises in respect of the maturity of the debate thereon. If the President of the Czech Republic states his position in Ireland, surely the way to counter that is through the strength of the arguments against what he is saying rather than suggesting he does not have the right to make his points. I realise Senator O'Toole did not quite say that Mr. Klaus does not have such a right, but it has been suggested that it is outrageous that a foreign leader should come to Ireland and make such points. It is not deemed outrageous, however, if foreign leaders who hold the opposite view come here and make those points. I disagree profoundly with the position taken by the President of the Czech Republic but we have more strength in us to deal with these arguments than to simply suggest that every time somebody such as he opens his mouth, it constitutes interference in our process. The lesson of the Lisbon treaty debate, be it in the media or the political fora, is that those in favour of the treaty missed the opportunity to demonstrate a much more robust and self-confident approach and instead relied excluding views with which they disagreed.

The question of our post office network was raised a number of times in the Chamber in recent months. A very interesting development in the United Kingdom yesterday was that Lord Peter Mandelson stated the UK Government intends to support the development of its post office network. He stated: "We should examine the prospects for the Post Office becoming a much more significant player in financial services." Most of the debate in this Chamber concentrated on the social value of post offices. Developments in recent months, however, regarding trust in the major financial institutions should surely present an opportunity for us to determine whether there is a role for An Post, which has a national network, expertise and a background in retail associated with financial services and which does not have overpaid and over-rated people going around in suits in the back room pretending they are masters of the universe and geniuses in financial management. What is wrong with using and expanding the existing service of An Post and determining whether the organisation can fill the gap that arises from people no longer having trust in the major financial institutions, including the banks? Will the Leader arrange a debate to determine whether we can encourage the Government to expand the role of An Post, arrest its decline and the closure of post offices in rural areas and ascertain whether it can fill the gap that is opening up regarding trust in financial institutions?