We in Independent Ireland will always welcome any extra funding to post offices. It is hugely important. Since I came into the Dail, I have spoken on numerous occasions about the safeguarding of local post offices. As welcome as the funding is, however, the serious question is whether it will stop the closure of post offices and make them a viable option. The only way to make something viable is to make sure extra services are provided. When I came into this House first, we talked about maybe being able to tax your car in the post office. There were so many other things. The post office could become something like the credit union in a town, by providing banking services and all that sort of business. They are doing that in other countries. Maybe passports could be done through the post office. Sadly, they have been starved in terms of moving from what they were doing to moving to new services they could deliver. They provide an incredible service in most towns and villages. Sadly, in the nearest parish to where I live, we lost the Goleen post office a couple of years ago and the Durris post office closed last year. The Crosshaven post office closed last May. It is on the edge of my constituency, at the eastern end. It is very unfair and those communities have been hit very hard by the loss of the post office. I spoke to a former postmaster in a community that lost its post office. He said An Post failed to fund or put any kind of decent money into the business. The computers being used were 15 or 20 years old. If you squeeze the life out of something, it will die. If you do not put a drop of water on a plant, it will not live. If we do not feed post offices in the way they need to be fed, then the rural post office is going to go. Yes, it is very welcome the Government is giving this funding. It is appreciated. I know that when I talk to my local postmistresses, Wendy Briscoe, in Schull, or Bridie Reichert, in Ballydehob, they will appreciate it. However, they tell me they are fighting for survival. It is not easy. When the Goleen post office was closing, I heard politicians saying to people that they would love living in Goleen, down by the coast in the most beautiful part of the world. They were codding people because people have to work six days a week. They cannot really afford to take somebody on because if they do, their profits are cut in half, or close to it. That hits a person. I knew quite a lot of people who applied for the Goleen post office but who pulled out when they realised what was involved in the running of it and that the money they were going to make was little or nothing.

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