Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When I spoke at a recent meeting of the Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment attended by the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and the chief executive of An Post, I made it clear that there has been hypocrisy on the airwaves in respect of this matter. When I did some research in advance of that meeting, I discovered that the last time Fianna Fáil was in power - up to 2011 - it closed 755 post offices, or almost 40% of the total number of post offices at that time. Sinn Féin has submitted an amendment to this motion because it does not accept the hypocritical and untruthful nature of its wording.

Fianna Fáil claims in its motion that previous post office closures took place at a different time and in a different context and that it had not planned for this to happen. That is utter nonsense. As we know, the population in rural areas grew significantly throughout the short-lived period of economic boom, which was eventually destroyed by an over-reliance on developers and crazy lending policies. Fianna Fáil stood idly by while its policies, including its support for the postal services directive at European level, let our postal service be open to the decimation we have seen.

The last time Fianna Fáil was in government, 40% of post offices closed. Deputy Dooley had the audacity to go on the airwaves even though his party was in power when 755 post offices closed. One would think that Fianna Fáil opened 755 post offices, or that the number of post offices increased by 40% rather than decreased by 40%. It is an incredible brass neck. Those who are supposedly leading the charge for rural Ireland are the very people who decimated rural Ireland the last time they were in power. Their crazy economic policies led to the crash in the first place. All of that has to be said.

Fine Gael has been in power since 2011. We are approaching eight years of continuous Fine Gael power. Personally, I have a lot of regard for the Minister, Deputy Naughten. I think he is a very sincere person. I think he works very hard. However, I do not agree with the full assessment he has given here today. I believe there has been a complete lack of imagination about the role of our postal service and our post offices in rural communities. I will give an example. It is proposed to close 18 post offices in the Minister of State's home county of Galway, which is the most affected county under this plan. My own county of Donegal is the second most affected county with 17 proposed post office closures. To be honest, I accept that not every single one of them should be kept open. I think the level of protest in some cases is evidence of that. The protests that are taking place in certain locations serve as evidence that the local post offices can be saved because the desire to do so exists in those communities.

I am not being dishonest here today. I am not saying that every single one of the 17 post offices in County Donegal that I have mentioned should be kept open. However, I emphasise that many communities where post offices have closed continue to have a strong and vibrant community infrastructure. There are community centres and community leaders in many of these areas. People talk about the New Zealand model, or the German community banking model. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is not a greater focus on our credit union model, which has been exported across the world. It is a pretty fantastic model. I cannot understand why we have not looked at twinning credit union services with post office services in certain rural communities where post offices would not be sustainable on their own. We need to think outside the box. If a postmaster says that he or she cannot make a post office sustainable on its own in its current building, we should seek to put together a plan in the nearest community centre that involves credit unions, post offices and, possibly, social enterprises being based together in community hubs as a one-stop-shop. All of this has been put to the Minister previously in the Bobby Kerr report and in other proposals. Why are we asking people to travel such long distances for things like driving licences and motor tax? Why are those services and facilities not being based in one-stop-shops in many rural areas? I appreciate that the Minister, Deputy Naughten, is having a go at this.

I am being honest here. I am not saying that every single post office could be saved. If I am honest, I can think of some communities where people are not protesting and are not fighting to keep their post offices open. In quite a few cases, however, people are campaigning to retain their local post offices. We should be working proactively in such communities. We need to listen to people who are organising public meetings and coming out fighting for their postal service. We must find ways of pulling various services together. I have already listed the additional opportunities that exist with regard to credit unions, social enterprises and postal services. That is how we develop vibrant rural communities. We have to be honest here. Despite the impact of the loss of so many services in rural communities, we still have strong rural communities in County Donegal because of the community leaders in local areas. There are halls in every parish or townland. I am sure other Members are visualising various townlands that have community centres and hubs. That is what we need to build on. That is the future of the postal network. I am not here to punch and slap the Government. I am here to confront hypocrisy. I am here to have an honest and serious conversation about the need to lean on the strengths of rural areas if we are to save the postal network in such areas.