Since I came into Dáil Éireann, I have been lobbying here for post offices. I did not hear it but somebody told me the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, said if we do not use it, we will lose it, and I respect that. I am 50 to 60 miles west of Kinsale but it is part of my constituency. I was in the Kinsale post office recently and they told me they were moving into new premises. I am delighted with that because it was in shook condition. I pay tribute to the postmen, postwomen and postmasters of this country who have worked extremely hard. The bottom line is they are not getting any help from the State. The Government can say it provided further moneys recently but I was talking to a postmaster who told me they are working under immense pressure. They use Windows 2008. That means An Post is trying to close post offices by stealth. This is how you do it; it is clever. There is no problem doing that. Goleen post office, which was close to my heart, was closed. It broke my bloody heart as it was in my backyard. We tried hard. There were advertisements by politicians. Everybody would love to live in Goleen but that is pure nonsense. To live in Goleen, you must work. It is a six-days-a-week job, whether we like it or not. The money is not there to do that, so when the person retires, nobody wants to take it over. Deputy Barry Ward from Dublin said the same thing. We had the same situation in Durrus couple of weeks ago. I worked with An Post tirelessly and had somebody willing to open that post office. It needed a little bit of work. For the two to three weeks before it closed the door, An Post did not help me. I found out it was not communicating the information it promised me it would communicate. It intended to close this post office. This is what is going on. It gives you this false impression, saying it is a terrible thing and that if it closes, it will make sure it reopens it again. It is mocking me to my bloody eyeballs. I had people in Durrus who wanted to keep that post office open. The first thing that went up on Facebook was that the local politician could not keep the post office open, asking what good is he. That should not come back on us. I broke my butt to keep that open and worked with somebody who was willing to do that but An Post was not there to help us. It has to be held accountable. An independent body has to come on board to do that. I am lucky I have Ballydehob and Schull with Bridie Roycroft and Wendy Briscoe, and Toby Campbell in Bantry and the O'Mahony family in Kilcrohane. They are keeping the doors open under immense pressures. We need to look at where the problem is. Churches, pubs and Garda stations are in trouble. I saw in the local newspaper the other day that Lisavaird co-op is contemplating closing. I mention Reenascreena, Ardfield and Rosscarbery creameries. Where is it going to stop? The root of all evil, and people do not talk about it half enough here, is the county development plans. We are continuously pushing people out of rural communities and into the cities, refusing planning and refusing to zone ground. We need to make changes. If we do not, all the post offices in this country will close.

Sentiment score: -0.09