Pádraig Ó Céidigh (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ní thógfaidh mé ocht nóiméad. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach seo. Tá sé an-deas é a fheiceáil. Le bheith fírinneach, tugaim an-tacaíocht dó go ginearálta mar is duine d'iarthar na hÉireann é. The Minister understands rural requirements. On this occasion, I support Senator Leyden's proposal. This has not been thought out at the level at which it should have been. I look at closing 159 rural post offices from an entrepreneurship point of view. We should look at what else should be done and how we can change the business model to make more of them. I agree a number of postmasters and postmistresses probably want to move on and retire. I accept that. I have seen it in the newspapers and I have heard someone speak about it. There are a number who want to and can stay on. In other countries, for example in America, they have local tourism offices. I was on the board of Fáilte Ireland a good few years ago and it was closing local tourism offices all around the country in places such as Clifden that rely heavily on tourism.

A company called Nightline was founded in 1992. One guy was unemployed and from north county Dublin. They built the company up with an investment of £20,000 up to a turnover of €50 million a year. It was sold recently to one of the largest companies in the world, UPS. These guys developed Parcel Motel for Amazon. Local post offices can change their business model and become effective. I am not saying the Minister is doing this or that his passion will lead to it but it is not a matter of slash and burn. It is far from it but from a business point of view we should look at how we can change that business model to ensure viability. As other speakers have mentioned, they can also provide banking services. The Internet has moved at such a pace that most people now do a lot of their business over the Internet but in the case of the vast majority of people, as the Minister knows better than I do because of the Department he is working in, younger people are using the Internet but older people are not. If one looks at rural Ireland, the vast majority of the population is over 65 years of age. I did quite a lot of research on the issue over the summer.There are parts of rural Ireland where more than 25% of the population did not do junior certificate exams. There are implications that may not have been foreseen of closing some of those post offices. I hope the closures will be practical and driven by economic considerations. They have to produce value. At the end of the day, the person who pays for all of this is the taxpayer. Taxpayers have to get value for money. The Minister is focusing on that and the advice he is getting is focusing on that. We need to consider this more broadly. To some degree, I agree with a PSO but I suggest strongly that it should be modified because we have to create incentivisation and productivity for the post offices that remain.

I have a question that goes back to the role of the Minister in RTÉ and public broadcasting. There has been a lot of talk about the licence fee and post offices. When I was on the board of RTÉ, a significant number of people who should have been paying the licence fee did not pay it. It is a big issue. From memory I think it cost €13 million or €14 million a year, which is significant. If the model were changed, I would not pay post offices a fee for collecting the licence fees unless they reached service level agreements and service level standards. I do not believe in giving out State money for the sake of giving it out. There has to be accountability and productivity. What are the Minister's thoughts on that? Is he in a position to consider changing the business model for post offices that want to remain open? They are important. How can their business model change to make them productive and successful? Perhaps we could look at the Nightline model. There are entrepreneurs out there. There is an entrepreneur in all of us. We can change the business model to make it financially viable and worthwhile for the taxpayer and the local community.