Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

Yes, I still have them but I do not collect them any longer. I remember when I got my first Penny Black. It was a major event to get my hands on the first stamp in the world. It was extraordinary to see it. I also collected Penny Reds and other British stamps. The first Irish stamps were overprints. It is quite interesting that instead of printing our own stamps we put an overprint on British stamps. Times have moved on. The favourite television programme of one of my children, and perhaps mine as well, is "Postman Pat". The notion of it being changed to "Special Delivery Service Man Pat" makes it clear that times are moving on. It is quite extraordinary that in the British Empire one could literally get a letter delivered to London the next day by the great British postal system. The logistics of that are extraordinary when one considers the times that were in it. We can knock the British all we like but the reality is some of the things they did in their great days of empire were extraordinary. The postal service was one of them.

Senator McFadden spoke about the postal service in Athlone. The reality is we very much copied the British system. We must recognise that over the years we have had a great postal service in this country. As Senator Quinn said, we must recognise that times are changing. A 16% drop in the volume of post is significant. There is a change in the way people communicate. People can communicate instantly by telephone or computer. For example, within seconds of the events happening last night in South Korea, someone could capture an image on a mobile telephone and send it to me as I was sitting in the Seanad Chamber. A postal system based on letters cannot keep up with that kind of thing. I accept that letters were not used in that way but it was impossible to do that in the past. The level of communication we have now is extraordinary. I refer, for example, to Twitter and various text services, e-mail and the electronic transfer of funds. People use electronic banking now to a much greater extent.

Nevertheless, there is a need for a postal service. Internet shopping is an interesting development. People buy goods from other countries on the Internet that are delivered by the postal service instead of going to shops as was previously the case. It is not simply the case that there is a diminution in the need for postal deliveries to one's door. There is an increase in demand in some areas. The Minister is taking on a rapidly changing situation. He is trying to improve it enormously.

The introduction of postcodes is very important. I lived in London for a number of years. People referred to the area where I lived, Wimbledon, as SW19. The postcode was written on the names of the roads in the area. It is quite extraordinary that people very much identified with their postcode. That is still the case in the United Kingdom. Postcodes are very handy because they speed up the delivery of post and provide for a more modern postal service. I understand they can speed up the sorting time within the postal service. If we are going to maintain what Senator McFadden referred to as a proper postal service in this country, we need to modernise it to the maximum extent to ensure we can save jobs which are under enormous pressure.

A number of speakers rightly made the point about the universal service obligation. I do not know how we are going to protect the rural postal service to the extent we would all like. I have seen the closure of post offices throughout the country. However, it is not as simple as that. Senator Quinn rightly pointed out that in many parts of France people must collect their post from a central location. I would not like to see that system introduced here. At present, farmhouses up long country lanes get personal deliveries to their door. That is obviously very inefficient but we must consider whether we expect old people to walk or drive perhaps up to 20 miles in some cases to pick up their post. One can ask whether that is what we want or whether it is economically sustainable that for the sake of the delivery of one letter to a person's door, a postman in a van must travel 20 miles. I do not know whether it is realistic for that to be sustained. We need to be imaginative and to ensure we do the best we can.

It is true that while the liberalisation of the postal system is important, it will work much better in cities than in rural areas. It will work perfectly well in cities but it will be difficult in rural areas. I urge the Minister to examine what has happened to the deregulation of the waste system in this country. The privatisation of waste collection has worked in some areas but the reality is that large areas of this country have no waste collection service. I have spoken to people on Galway County Council which now has no waste collection service of its own. It relies purely on private operators. Many people do not get their waste collected at all. Some people bury waste while others burn it. That has led to enormous problems in parts of the country.

I am a member of the same party as the Minister who is trying to cope with this issue. I accept there is a downside to such matters. The reality is that if we do not have the postman coming to the door every day, as Senator McFadden rightly pointed out, there is a social effect. The issue is not purely to do with the efficiency of the postal service. The postal service is part of the fabric of rural Ireland. Unfortunately, we are not living in the days of Postman Pat, his lovely black and white cat, Mrs. Goggins, and their lovely cakes and tea. Perhaps that is a reality in some parts of the country but those days are numbered. Significant challenges face the Minister and future Ministers in terms of the postal service because of the enormous pressure from electronic mail and other methods of communication. The reality is that the art of letter writing has somewhat died away. It was prevalent in the early years of the 20th century. It provided a considerable record of what went on around the time of the foundation of the State. The sad thing about electronic mail is that while it may be recorded currently, it disappears. Recently, I was told that the cost of data storage in terms of energy emissions has surpassed the cost of motor vehicles. This is extraordinary. Data storage on Internet sites like Facebook is unsustainable, in that we cannot keep using massive amounts of energy to store these volumes of information indefinitely. We have seen what happens with housing bubbles and an Internet bubble might be building.

The integrity of the postal system is important and considerable challenges face us. That the Minister is examining the matter creatively is important and necessary. As various Senators mentioned, the manner of the Bill's implementation is as important as the Bill itself.