Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 31 January 2013
1. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his strategy to ensure a viable post office network, especially in rural Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4890/13]
View answerAn Post is a commercial State body with its own board and management. Accordingly, operational matters are a matter for the board and management. These are areas in which I have no statutory function. As shareholder, however, I do have a strong concern about the ongoing commercial position of the company and I regularly liaise with the company in this regard.
The reality is the core mail business of An Post has suffered a major fall which has impacted seriously on the company’s revenue flow. In response, it is proactively seeking to keep costs down and diversify its business. Control of costs must, in particular, be rigorously pursued by the company in light of the continuing drain on revenue arising from the core mail business decline.
None the less, it is my strong objective that An Post remains a strong and viable State company, providing high quality services on a nationwide basis through a network of economically viable post offices. This objective is shared on all sides of the House. I must stress, however, that the company requires to be in a sustainable and viable financial position to ensure this. An Post is a commercial State company and its strategy and decision making must be formulated in this context.
However, I firmly believe An Post has many strengths. It is a trusted brand and it also has the largest retail presence in the country. I have impressed on the company the need to exploit further its unique position in this regard. I have been supportive of its attempts to diversify its income streams and to win a wider range of commercial contracts offering higher margins.
I welcome the progress An Post has made towards diversification, including the announcement that following the decision of AIB to close several branches, an extended range of AIB services is available through post offices in the locality of the closures. This is beneficial not only to An Post as a commercial body but also to the local communities.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House
Furthermore, in May last year I welcomed the arrangement between An Post One Direct and Aviva which saw 23 Aviva insurance branches become One Direct outlets. This not only secured some of the jobs that were at risk due to Aviva's restructuring but it further broadened An Post's portfolio of financial services offering to customers.
In the context of the public sector reform and service delivery agenda, I continue to engage with my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, and other Ministers in relation to consideration, as appropriate, of the post office network for transactional elements of the business of Departments and Government agencies. I have stressed to my Government colleagues that the network is ideally configured for over the counter transactions. I and my Department will maintain ongoing contact with the board and management of the company to work with them on our shared objectives in light of the challenging environment which they face.
I accept the independence of An Post but for generations there has been an ongoing debate about the survival and maintenance of rural post offices. It is tied in with other issues such as rural isolation. We may have ghost estates but we also have ghost villages. Communities are losing their post offices not just in rural areas but in urban areas as was seen in Blackpool in Cork city recently. Since I was elected, every communications Minister has said they want to provide a network of commercially viable post offices. In his reply, the Minister stated An Post should seek further contracts. However, we do not see any urgency in this regard. We have heard at public meetings and so forth that An Post should go into providing different services such as county council bills, but there never seems to be an urgency for it to go after these contracts. There must be a drive to ensure the post office network becomes a provider of other services.
There must be an urgency because many of the smaller post offices rely almost exclusively on social welfare business at this stage and they need to become more than simply a traditional post office. Perhaps in his negotiations the Minister could encourage An Post to have a sense of urgency.
I agree that as a result of the collapse of the core business of An Post there needs to be an urgency, as Deputy Moynihan puts it, in terms of acquiring new business and diversification and so on. In fairness to An Post, it has been going about its business quietly and in a commercial manner and it continues to do so. For example, there is an arrangement between An Post, One Direct and Aviva, which has seen 23 Aviva insurance branches become One Direct outlets for An Post. This is the type of venture that could be built on because An Post has a unique retail infrastructure.
Deputy Moynihan offered an exhortation to urgency but even if An Post was unsuccessful in all other cases, it has been chasing contracts and opportunities, including motor tax renewals, driving license renewals, HSE patient charges, household charge payments, second home payments, water charge payments, Courts Service fines, the registration and payment for septic tanks, Irish Rail ticket sales and electrical rural production. An Post chases all of this business and it wins more than its fair share. These are the types of contracts that represent the future of part of the business of An Post.
The Water Services Bill will come before the Houses of the Oireachtas next week and will be debated at length. We should show good faith and show that we are all serious about the provision and maintenance of the post offices. There is a fear in rural communities in particular and in urban communities that they are awaiting the retirement of the postmaster or postmistress. Something should be included in the legislation to the effect that the first port of call for the payment of bills that accrue from the Water Services Bill should be the post office. The same should apply to any other legislation coming through to ensure that An Post and the post office network is highlighted as the first port of call and the point of interaction between the citizen and the State.
I accept the importance of the network of An Post, not least in rural Ireland, and I accept that it is a trusted brand. It is also a commercial State company, though, and must compete commercially and it is focused on doing precisely that. The State contracts to which Deputy Moynihan refers are those which An Post ought to compete for and for which it should have at least a 50-50 prospect of success.
