Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I join my colleague, Senator Alex White, in calling on the Government to look again at the whole issue of post office closures. There was an excellent debate in the House yesterday with the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív, on the rural development programme. I made a point in that debate that in the past eight years we have seen the closure of 500 post offices in rural Ireland, leading to rural isolation and people being pushed out of rural communities and into urban areas. The Minister made a strange point in that he said he finds it very difficult to get potential operators of rural post offices. I can give one example in my area of Donore where there is an operator,. a community and a premises. We are ready to open a new post office there, but we cannot get the approval of An Post.

The scheme being approved by Lord Mandelson in England is something from which we could learn. We should consider not just a financial analysis in terms of post offices but a social cost-benefit analysis. I ask the Leader to request the Minister to look again at the question of support for post offices.