Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

He is doing an excellent job as Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. The debate tonight is about our post office network. The Minister has engaged and reached out. With the Kerr report and the various reforms introduced by Mr. McRedmond, An Post is in a better place today in terms of staff, mail centres, volume of business and profit. It is not all about profit and it must also be about the delivery of services to people. As other Members have said, we need to expand the remit of An Post into other services.

Why do people go into post offices? When did we last use one? Senator Ned O'Sullivan sent us all a post card during the summer, using An Post. How many people go into the post office to collect their child benefit, their social protection payments or their social welfare payments? As the Minister and Senators Mac Lochlainn and Lombard said, it is important that An Post deals with driving licences and, on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, acts as a one-stop-shop for passports where there is no passport office in the area.

The Minister, Deputy Naughten, deserves immense credit. He spoke about An Post almost collapsing 98 weeks ago, having just five months' cash and 9,000 people to be paid. Restructuring is about reconfiguration. It cannot be all about the attrition of services and staff. We are debating the importance of post offices to rural Ireland but this affects urban Ireland. In Cork city, no post offices are closing. We moved the post office from Bishopstown into the Wilton Shopping Centre. The office at Dennehy's Cross was closed, as was that at Victoria Cross. I hope Senator Leyden is listening because this was not done under this Government. Bishopstown and Wilton are suburban areas with big populations but people did not use the offices. The American postal system was going through a crisis because people did not use it. As public representatives, charged with trying to bring out policies for the betterment of society, we have to come up with ways of making our post office system better and more user friendly.

The independent appeals mechanism is important and there may well be post offices that can be used. It is a voluntary scheme and people can withdraw their decision to close. The Minister spoke about the need to embrace innovation and change and I am confident he will do that. I am equally confident that the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, will do so.

If we went back to 1984, would we envisage using email, the Internet and mobile phone devices to connect us to the furthest points in the world at the click of a button? Now we have to ensure our post office system reaches out to people with a debit card or a credit card. I used the An Post card in America in the summer. I put the money in before I left and withdrew money from the hole in the wall, or paid my restaurant bill, when I got there. It was simple. It is refreshing that we are being honest in this debate and recognise that the heart of our country has services to offer. We are of our people, whether we are urban or rural. None of us is isolated but we live i measc na ndaoine. This is about the next generation of An Post and how we can bring about further change.

I commend the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, on their efforts to deliver a public service to support the new, modern Ireland. As Senator Mac Lochlainn said, Fianna Fáil closed a gargantuan number of post offices, not in the time of the recession but in the middle of boom and bloom.