Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State for attending and the Cathaoirleach for facilitating this debate. It is appreciated that we are having this conversation. I am glad to be joined this evening in the Public Gallery by my postmistress from Portumna, Sinead Salmon, and my former postmaster in Mountbellew, Peter Kitt. Listening to all the valuable contributions, and having a financial head myself, I was looking at the statistics. An Post assists in gathering €400 million when it comes to fraud, believe it or not. There is a logical argument to be made for collecting 1.5% from the funding gathered in fraud prevention - that would be €6 million - and giving it back to postmasters. Then we would not need to have this conversation at all.

Post offices provide a valuable service and are the social fabric of all our parishes, whether they are urban or rural, whether during the Covid-19 pandemic, Storm Éowyn or other pandemics. At the end of the day, the one trusted part of our social fabric priority is our post office network and we need to recognise its value. Sometimes when we lose a bus service, we argue there is a public service obligation, PSO. I would argue the same is required to maintain our post office network in our communities. I certainly do not want at any stage to find that it is already too late to argue to retain a post office. I do not want to be in a community centre begging a Minister to support my local post office. I have done it once before in Eyrecourt when there were 770 people. The figure that was required will always ring out for me. Going forward, €5 million is a good investment.