John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I thank Senator Bradford and Senator Buttimer for sharing their time. I want to put on the record some points about this legislation. In the past ten years we have seen a decimation in many rural areas of the service provided by rural post offices because many of them have closed. I know that from personal experience. My cousins ran the local post office, Phelan's post office in Tullogher, County Kilkenny, which has been closed for four or five years. Sadly, many of those post offices have closed with the changes that have taken place in the past ten years.

As previous speakers mentioned, the role of An Post and of the postman, particularly in isolated rural communities, is significant and should not be underestimated. In whatever changes that must be implemented as a result of the European directive, and we acknowledge the directive is inoperative in Ireland and we must transpose it into Irish law, we must protect the provision of the service to every house in the State.

I note with interest the comments of Senator MacSharry and others about the Finnish proposals introduced some years ago where they managed to succeed in keeping that universal delivery service operative in Finland. I do not understand the reason we cannot ensure, in any changes we make under this legislation, that universal coverage would be continued. Before the Bill is passed by the Dáil and the Seanad I hope we will have guaranteed that the universal coverage that operates currently will be safeguarded into the future. I will conclude as I do not want to repeat what other speakers have said. I thank the Senators for sharing their time with me.