Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)

I thank all who contributed to the debate, namely, Senators Comyn, Conway, Ní Chuilinn, Scahill, Andrews, Cathal Byrne, Flaherty and Ahearn.

As with the last day, I will take away the very strong support in the Seanad for the continued support of our post office network and the recognition from the Seanad of the strong commitment of the Government in the most recent budget in which we increased funding from €10 million per year to €15 million going forward. There was also strong recognition from all Senators of the importance of working with An Post and supporting it in the work it does as a commercial entity to develop new services and to be as innovative as possible in a rapidly changing environment.

Senator Ní Chuilinn mentioned the GPO. I reiterate that it the GPO will remain in State ownership. Work is continuing on the transfer of ownership and that work will be led out by the Office of Public Works, on behalf of the Government, and will involve a detailed and thorough consultation process with the public regarding its future. We want to ensure the GPO has an exciting future that respects its heritage and that it continues to play a very proud role, not just in O'Connell Street but also in our country going forward.

A point was raised by Senator Andrews around Rathmines post office, which is moving location. As I mentioned in my initial contribution, where there are heritage buildings that become vacated, the Government works with local authorities to make sure they can remain at the centre of the community. That is something we are doing in that particular instance.

The overall thrust of all contributions was the importance of maintaining our post office network. It is the objective of the Government to make sure we keep post offices open and avoid in every way we can, from a Government point of view, any closures. While we are seeing a small number of closures, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of post offices that have closed since we introduced the Government support three years ago. We have to work within state aid rules, but with that increased support we want to make sure we continue to see post offices operate across the country. As Minister of State, I will continue to liaise and work with An Post and the Irish Postmasters' Union to support their engagement over the next couple of months to put in place an agreement to run for a number of years, with the objective of having a five-year agreement. As part of that, we want to see how we can enable the post office network to provide as many services as possible and look at new opportunities for post offices to serve local communities. The postmasters are very open to that and want to do that because that is where they see themselves. They want to remain at the centre of servicing their community.

I thank all the Senators for the opportunity to be here and for their constructive contributions. I look forward to continuing to work with them in the time ahead in supporting our post office service and network. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir, agus a Chathaoirligh.