Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues who have contributed and I know more will speak later. My priority is to try to maintain as many post offices as possible. On Senator Ó Céidigh's point, we have a clear blueprint in place that will bring new business in. We are the only universal service obligation postal service in the world that has expanded its service over the past six months. It has gone from a five day to a six day a week parcel service. One now sees An Post vans on Saturdays which one would not have seen this day 12 months ago. This time two years ago I was faced with a position where we were only going to see the post office van every second day. That was the proposal put to me. I have been able to turn it around completely by taking the Nightline approach to the mail service.

We are going further by looking at what new business we can put into the post offices with regard to banking. Next Monday, I will be in Carrick-on-Shannon to launch the new credit card for An Post. The company has also introduced a smart account. An Post is the only banking facility in the country where one could walk in tomorrow morning without preordering and get US dollars, sterling, Canadian dollars or Australian dollars because it is now expanding those financial services. An Post is engaged with the Government on providing new and additional State services, including services connected with TV licence and fines. We are looking at an offline avenue for all-of-government online services and we are exploring it with An Post. In the new year, the company will introduce personal loans and business loans for small businesses throughout the country. The company is transforming radically.

We cannot justify putting a PSO in place where 11 people a week are collecting their social welfare payments. Where would we set the threshold? Do we set it at 11 transactions a week or 20 transactions a week? Where do we draw the line? The line has to be drawn somewhere. I was not prepared to see a situation in which more than 600 post offices were forcibly closed. We have a voluntary package in place, which the postmasters and postmistresses sought. I did not seek it. I made it a condition that it would be a voluntary package.

I have to smile regarding the motion, which Fianna Fáil has tabled, because Senator Leyden was in my shoes quite a number of years ago. It was the policy back then and it has been the policy of successive Governments since not to subsidise and put a PSO in place for An Post. An Post is a commercial semi-State company.

After the decision of postmasters to retire from the business, An Post will be cross-subsidising approximately 500 post offices through its busiest post offices because the company wants to provide a service in rural Ireland. It should be remembered that this network of 960 post offices is twice as big as any other retail network in the country and continues to reach right throughout rural Ireland. By this time next year, every one of those post offices will have high speed broadband. Next Friday, we will launch the new digital assist pilot where we will look at the opportunities of developing an offline avenue for people who have not used the Internet. One in seven people in Ireland has never used the Internet. Why should they not have the opportunity to benefit from the Internet? Why should they not be able to save €200 and €300 on their electricity bill by logging on to switcher.ieor bonkers.ie? They will be able to do that through the pilot initiative being funded by the Minister for Rural and Community Development. The intention is to expand it over time. We have built a review process into it.

Senator Leyden specifically mentioned the village of Athleague and the particular issues there. The case has been made by colleagues in this and the other House with regard to other post offices that An Post should have looked at specific issues. There is a review mechanism in place. It is an independent review mechanism and no one can say the two individuals are biased in any way. One of them issued a critical public statement regarding my colleague the Minister for Rural and Community Development at one stage. They will review all of the information that communities want to provide on the unique circumstances of the particular community. Where a postmaster or postmistress decides to retire - and their decisions need to be respected and honoured - any retailer in that community can make contact with An Post and he or she will be considered if he or she wants to take on part or all of the post office services. If the person is not happy with the decision by An Post, it can be independently reviewed. The closing date for the review mechanism for communities was the end of September but it has now been extended to the end of October to give communities a chance to make the case. People need to remember that it is a voluntary decision.

Senator Leyden mentioned a public meeting I attended in Athleague. The postmaster spoke at that meeting and said the contract had been withdrawn, which was untrue. The contract remains there as long as the postmaster wants to stay in the business. On that occasion, it was announced that the closing date would be extended from 31 October to 31 January. It is the prerogative of the postmaster because it is a voluntary scheme. If a postmaster decides to withdraw from the voluntary scheme, that is also his or her prerogative. Many postmasters and postmistresses have given long service to their communities. Over the years, they have seen people bypass their post offices for one reason or another and we all have to acknowledge that it is the case. Technology has changed. Some postmasters and postmistresses do not want to retrain. We are talking about a significant investment in the post office network.A sum of €50 million will be invested in the post office network to bring new services and new technology into the 960 post offices in the State.Some of those postmasters and postmistresses do not want to retain and one cannot blame them. They have been in this business for a long number of years. However, we are talking about an investment equivalent to €45,000 per post office in software development and hardware development to provide the new services that the post office needs to provide.

The issue of the television licence was mentioned. In fact, it was not I who suggested taking the television licence away from An Post. I made it crystal clear that people should continue to be able to pay their television licence in their local post office. It was the joint Oireachtas committee that suggested it be handed over to the Revenue Commissioners. It was an all-party committee that came forward with that proposal, not me. I have made it quite clear that I want to see more business going through post offices. In fact, if one goes back and checks the record, I am one of five Members of the Oireachtas who made a submission to the Kerr report. When it came to seeking views and solutions, few other colleagues, some of whom were quite willing to criticise me and attend public meetings, were prepared to put pen to paper; but I did. Thankfully, quite a lot of the Kerr report has been implemented. I compliment both Mr. Bobby Kerr and Mr. Turlough O'Donnell, who chaired the discussions between the IPU and the postmasters on my behalf.

The public record will show that I was one of those who fought vehemently against An Post getting out of the parcel business when it sold its SDS business because I felt that was the future for the company. I am lucky enough now to be the Minister in charge of communications who has a role and input into An Post. I am proud that the company is expanding its parcel service into every home in rural Ireland because now it is the only company in Ireland, and definitely the only company servicing a dispersed rural population anywhere in the world like ours, providing a door-to-door delivery service. One can have a parcel collected or returned from one's door by the An Post van and brought anywhere across the world. That does not happen anywhere else. In fact, so successful have ReturnPal and AddressPal been for An Post that many other mail services across the world are looking to buy that software. That is a new innovative development by An Post. In fairness, each of my colleagues here, no more than colleagues in Dáil Éireann, gave An Post the chance to do that by giving it the opportunity to raise the price of a stamp. Unpalatable and all as it was, it has given the company the opportunity to develop these new services and to invest €50 million in the post office network that will make a real difference.

This issue is not only about older people. We need to provide services for older people that they will use tomorrow, the day after that and the following day, not the services they used ten or 20 years ago. Holding back the tide will not solve the post office network issue. If anyone looks back, at the peak of the greatest economic boom in this country, 500 post offices closed and the policy decision taken at the time was to keep our mouths shut, sit on our hands and let them slowly ebb away. In one year alone, although I am open to correction, 2003, over 190 post offices closed. There was never a plan put in place even though everyone had it in his or her manifesto and was talking about doing something about the post offices. Senator Mac Lochlainn and myself often discussed the issue in the Dáil.

I want to see something happen. I am not prepared to sit back and leave 9,000 people to sign on the live register, which situation was put on my desk after I was appointed Minister. I want to see a thriving business into the future that can provide not only today's services in rural Ireland but tomorrow's services, in e-commerce, in digital services through the local post office and assist those who do not have access to the Internet or who are not IT literate. That is what we are doing.

This company will be transformed and it will give every one of those 960 post offices and postmasters and postmistresses a chance. That was outlined to the 1,100 postmasters and postmistresses before any of them made a decision in this regard and some of them made a call on it. One cannot blame them, if they have 11 social welfare payments a week being collected in their post office and they are being asked to continue that service. We are being asked as a State to pay a public service obligation when people themselves are not using the post office and yet we want the taxpayer to fund it - that is the proposal before me here today. We cannot, in all honesty, justify that. No one can justify that.

I will tell Senators exactly what I would be providing in rural Ireland if I had that extra money tomorrow morning. I would be supporting and investing more in the ambulance service because people are relying on the ambulance service every day and, as each Senator here will be aware, the ambulance service needs investment. If we were to put additional investment into rural Ireland that will have a direct impact on every family, home and community, I would put it into Loughglynn's ambulance service of which Senator Leyden will be aware, the ambulance service that is struggling in Connemara because it is being sucked in to Galway city and similar services right across the country. Government is about making decisions and I will not shirk my responsibility in making tough decisions.

I accept it is not easy for the older people in those communities. I fully accept that but we need to try and keep a post office service. I was left in a position where I was facing the closure of 1,100 post offices and I was not prepared to accept that. I was looking at a situation where 9,000 people were about to lose their jobs because the company was going to run out of cash in five months. Those are the practical realities of what I was left with because successive Governments and successive Ministers failed in their responsibilities to work with the company and put a practical plan in place to use technology to bring new business into the service. Everyone paid lip-service to it and everyone talked about it. In fairness, across the table individual postmasters have said to me that they would not say publicly, but would say to me privately, that I was the first individual that they had sat opposite who was prepared to do something about the post office service and was prepared to put a plan and a viable future in place. Sadly, because I am prepared to do that, because I am prepared to give the post office network a future, I get criticised for it. That is the reason successive Governments did nothing. That is the reason successive Ministers did nothing. They knew well, while the communities are not the ones that are giving out as has been mentioned earlier, the politicians would give out because no one was prepared to be honest and accept that some of these post offices are just not viable.

Senator Leyden's colleague and spokesperson in Dáil Éireann, someone for whom I have a great deal of respect as a straight-talker, Deputy Ó Cuív, said on the floor of Dáil Éireann that anyone who says that we can keep all of our post offices open is talking tommyrot, and yet we have the same party putting down a motion looking for a PSO to keep some of those post offices open. That funding should be put into rural Ireland. It is being put into rural Ireland in investment in a post office network that meets future needs and ensures that younger people, not only pensioners, start using the post office for e-commerce services and banking services. Where every bank has turned its back on rural Ireland, one can now go into any post office in the country and access one's AIB, Danske Bank or Ulster Bank account.One will be able to access one's An Post credit card from next week and one's An Post personal loan or business loan from next year. This is bringing real, genuine banking services back into communities that have not seen them for a generation. That is what I want to do.