Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

I strongly support Senator O'Toole's amendment to delete "five years" and substitute "three" because three years is a reasonable period. Five years would put An Post into a straitjacket. As I said on Second Stage, I am concerned that we should preserve the universal service obligation and the excellent next-day delivery levels to every part of Ireland that An Post has achieved. That is the premier objective. The second objective is that we have a quality delivery service to people's homes, not to central collection points. Cheques and moneys should not be put at risk by being collected at central locations, nor should we allow private operators at a lower level in the marketplace where they can cherry-pick.

Our big objectives are that An Post should be competitive, deliver a quality, universal service, preserve the taxpayer's investment at €100 million at the four automated centres, and keep its excellent workforce in place. Given those objectives, it is too much of a straitjacket to box it into a five-year price control system. We think that three years is a reasonable period. Obviously, a submission for a price increase in three years would have to go through the normal processes rather than being automatically agreed.

Were An Post bizarrely to propose a trebling of postage rates, that would not be accepted because there are controls to ensure it would not happen. Normal price controls would apply of having to go through the regulator and the Minister. One assumes, therefore, that the proposed regulations could not be abused. It is too much of a straitjacket to opt for the five-year period because we cannot gaze into the crystal ball to that degree. Senator O'Toole made the valid observation that we were wrong in the case of the ESB. There is no harm in learning from mistakes. If there is something we should all learn on this unique day in our history, it is the capacity to accept error, build on it and do new things as required.

I appeal to the Minister to accept the amendment as a reasonable proposition. Sufficient safeguards are built into the system for the consumer, yet it affords flexibility to adapt to what might be a very different situation in three years' time. We hope, of course, that postal services will get cheaper. That is our general ambition and no one is arguing to the contrary, but we are just trying to be sensible in the circumstances.