Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I sympathise with people who would like to see all the Garth Brooks concerts going ahead. I was surprised, nonetheless, listening to Senator Averil Power and others that there has not been a note of censure for those who made this arrangement and led people to understand that these concerts would take place, in apparent disregard for the requirements of the law or the need to have the licensing steps taken in advance. One wonders why people are ruling out the possibility of the Aviva stadium. I understand Mr. Peter Aiken has gone to the US to persuade Mr. Brooks to change course.

If tomorrow never comes, so to speak, as regards the five events, it seems that holding two of those concerts elsewhere would be a reasonable solution.

Last night, I attended the inaugural meeting in Ballinasloe of the National Post Office Users' Association, which is coming together to make the case from the users' point of view. There is no vested interest other than of those who see the value of post offices to rural areas and who want to see their vital rural services protected. Great credit is due to former councillor, Mr. Michael John Kilgannon, Ms Angela Magennis and others who were involved in convening this meeting. It would be timely for us to hear from the Government as to its level of commitment to the maintenance of the rural post office network. It seems we are at a troubling time in Ireland where, because of the recession, decisions, whether about the provision of maternity services, mental health services or post offices, seem to be left in the hands of bean counters and bureaucrats, who may have an eye to the economic bottom line but who do not seem to understand the need, in particular, in rural areas, to have a decent level of services provided.

The Irish Postmasters' Union has commissioned two reports produced by Grant Thornton that bear out the argument that 557 post offices will close if the Department of Social Protection contract is eventually lost to An Post. In March, the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, stated this was balderdash. I am aware the contract has been secured for a couple of years. However, we need to remember that it is unfair to expect people, in particular, older persons, to have to travel many miles to access services. We need only see how in countries, such as France, they are good at finding derogations from the effect of EU regulations, for example, a certain amount of songs played on French radio must be French songs, and yet we do not seem to be able to make the argument-----