Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I rise to speak about the need for the Government to support post offices. I welcome the announcement by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Heather Humphreys, a number of weeks ago on changing social welfare payments to a weekly basis. This is encouraging for a number of reasons. It is much easier for people to get their payments on a weekly basis and some people were struggling when that was not the case. It also brings people back to towns and encourages them on a weekly basis to pick up the payment and then possibly spend on the back of that. For areas like mine in Tipperary, that is really important. It is also encouraging for An Post, which is also important.

We need to support the post office network. A report was completed by Grant Thornton and one of the major recommendations was that the post office network needs approximately €17 million annually to be sustainable. This would protect post offices and particularly rural post offices in areas like mine in Tipperary. As we heard earlier, they are vital for communities. In Cahir, for example, there is a productive post office and it has a knock-on effect for the town. Does the Leader agree that we must support the recommendations in the Grant Thornton report to support post offices? We can look across the water to the UK, where post offices that were previously closed have started to reopen. We do not wish to end up in a position where we regret the loss of the wonderful support and contribution that local post offices make in rural areas like mine in Tipperary. We should encourage as much as we can the support of those post offices.