Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to the House. As a long-standing Member of the House for many years, I am sure he loves coming back to it. I wish him well in his new portfolio and hope he has a long career in that office.

The issue concerns the need for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to review Government policy relating to the Road Safety Authority tender process for driving licences to allow post offices to act as agents in processing and co-ordinating applications. The issue was raised by Senator Mulherin on the Order of Business some weeks ago and was brought to my attention by Councillor Bernard McGuinness from Culdaff, Inishowen, County Donegal.We have had discussions and debate on the closure of post offices. I know the Minister has championed the cause for the retention of local Garda stations, in particular his local Garda station in Stepaside. I am sure the issue of the local post office is close to the Minister's heart as well. We have seen a number of post offices throughout the country close in the past ten years. That is another service that has been lost by rural communities. Let me give an example from County Mayo. There are two National Driver Licence Service, NDLS, centres where licences are issued, one in Castlebar and the other in Ballina. It is 50 miles from Belmullet to either Castlebar or Ballina. In County Donegal, the two areas where the licences are issued are in Letterkenny and Donegal town. It is a long distance from Culdaff, Malin Head and other parts of Donegal to Letterkenny. The post office network could co-ordinate the licence application, the applicant would complete the application form and have the photographs and the post office would process it and send it to the licensing authority. Were the post office to provide this additional service, this would make the post office more viable in rural communities. We believe this could be taken into account when the tender process for the issuing of licences comes up for renewal.