Seanad debates

Monday, 8 March 2021

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

 

10:30 am

Photo of Denis O'DonovanDenis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the people involved. It is a great day for mná na hÉireann. As the youngest of a big family and having seven sisters, I wonder whether I was henpecked or whether I was subject to the petticoat government. It is a mixed view but I think neither, to be honest.

I ask the Leader to provide a debate on the future of rural Ireland. This stems from the closure of post offices and the recent announcement by Bank of Ireland to close many of its branches, which are spread primarily around rural Ireland such as west Cork, west Kerry, Connemara, Clare, and Donegal. I live in a beautiful village called Schull. It is likely that in the next three to four years the three post offices in the peninsula, Goleen, Schull and Ballydehob, will close. For a person living in the village of Goleen, the former home of the great P.J. Sheehan, the nearest Bank of Ireland is 28 miles away. I had to laugh about a report I read the other day - I sent an email to the bank and it came back to me stating the same - that in most instances there will be a post office within 500 meters of a Bank of Ireland or an AIB bank. What a joke. I am sure the same would apply to the Beara Peninsula, Dingle, Connemara, Clare and such places.

I would like to see a debate on the future of rural Ireland. If one considers the closures of the post office, which are imminent, and the way Bank of Ireland is treating the people of rural Ireland, it is a very serious situation. I would like a debate to be held on these related issues for the future of the already suffering people in the peninsulas of west Cork and west Kerry and places like Connemara and west Clare. If we do not have such a debate and raise our voices, further erosion of services will occur in rural Ireland.

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