asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is aware that payment of Irish postal orders are refused in Britain since the break with sterling and that the postal orders cannot be cashed when returned to Ireland as the original payee is named on the order; and his proposals, if any, to remedy this matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions Oral Answers. - Irish Postal Orders.
11.
(Dublin South-Central): The British Post Office have notified my Department that, as currency conversion work is not undertaken at their counters, they have suspended the cashing of Irish postal orders for the present. Crossed Irish postal orders can be cashed at some British banks on their terms.
The sender of a postal order can obtain repayment of the amount, but not the poundage, by presenting the order and counterfoil at the issuing office. Alternatively he may send the order to the Postal Order Section of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, College House, Dublin 2, for franking and insertion of the sender's name as the payee and the name of the new office of payment.
Would the Minister of State ask his colleague in Government, the Tánaiste, to make the most strenuous representations to the British commercial banks and to the British Post Office authorities to give some modicum of a reasonable exchange rate on the cashing of such postal orders? Is the Minister aware that only this week the best rate one could get in UK banks on an Irish postal order was about 91p or 92p in the £ when the exchange rate was about 97p or 98p and, today, 99p in the £? Therefore, many Irish people sending those postal orders and trying to cash them anywhere within the UK are being discriminated against.
We cannot have long speeches during Question Time.
(Dublin South-Central): I agree with the Deputy. I know that the rate of exchange is very low, especially with respect to the banks. As the Irish currency is almost at parity with sterling there is a possibility that they will exchange the IR£ for the pound sterling.
Is the Minister aware that UK commercial banks, shops, offices and post offices are treating Irish cheques and currency with absolute contempt? I would point out that I do not suffer from the "anti-Brit" attitude of some of the Minister's party. At London Airport yesterday the most one could get for the IR£ was 90 pence, while the official rate of exchange was 98 pence. Apparently the Minister for Finance accepts this discrimination and the contemptuous way in which Irish people are being treated.
(Dublin South-Central): I take the Deputy's point but it is a matter for the Minister for Finance.
Donncha Ó Dulaing could get only 86 pence in the Grosvenor Hotel and is lost somewhere in Soho.