We in this country deserve the highest European standards in all aspects of life, whether we live in an urban or rural environment. We are lucky in our quality of life which many of us take for granted and do not fully appreciate. "Far away fields are green" is an old adage and often it is only after a spell outside the country that we realize just how good life is at home.
A job is important, vitally important, but so also are communications and services which contribute to the quality of life. Availability of good education, a house, a car or a good public transport system, places of entertainment, the doctor and the hospital not too far away, low crime rate, multichannel TV, the phone, are all important.
The standard and range of postal services is also, of course, an important element of the quality of life. In many places the local post office is the focal point of the community, whether in urban or rural areas, and the services it provides are particularly important to the disadvantaged in society, the less well off, the social welfare recipient, the unemployed, the elderly, the lonely and women.
Of course, An Post have problems. Nothing said in this debate should attempt to obscure the reality or minimise the enormity of these problems. The viability plan spells it out.
An Post faces a serious financial crisis requiring immediate action if the company is to become financially viable, withstand the competitive pressures threatening its survival, and finance an investment programme without which business development and growth will be impossible to achieve.
The Minister speaking in this House on 7 February said:
An Post are suffering unsustainable financial losses and there is need for urgent action to restore the company to profitability. The crisis cannot be allowed to continue.
I agree. An Post are haemorrhaging almost daily. The problem must be tackled with urgency.
There are, however, unacceptable prices which I for one am not prepared to pay. I am not prepared to damage the social fabric of rural life. I am not prepared to threaten the quality of our life by a diminution of the range and standard of our postal services. I am not prepared to increase the isolation of individuals and disadvantaged groups in society by depriving them of a service which makes difficult conditions a bit more tolerable and reassuring. I am not prepared to see doorstep delivery replaced by roadside postboxes in both urban and rural areas where the security and confidentiality of the mail is suspect, where the boxes will be liable to vandalism and where the human face of An Post, so important to the old, the sick, the handicapped and the lonely, symbolised by the postman at the door step, will disappear. I am not prepared to tolerate that. I am not prepared to accept that 1,500 more should be thrown on the unemployment scrap heap to join the 254,000 already there — the largest number every in the history of the State, a cancer in our society and a monstrous indictment of those who are responsible for it and who uncaringly accept it and who refuse even to acknowledge it as a crisis.
There have to be, and there are, alternatives. For this reason — and, of course, the imminence of the local government elections — the Minister asked NESC to conduct a study: "of the socio-economic implications for rural communities of An Post's proposals for the closure of 550 sub-post offices and the provision of 200,000 roadside letter boxes, including an examination of alternative possibilities for increased revenue at the sub-post offices, hardship alleviating measures and other options." One may ask why they were asked to consider the implications of the provision of roadside post boxes for rural communities only. Was it to disguise the fact that the implications for many urban dwellers are almost certainly equally unacceptable?
The decision to refer two of the proposals to NESC is welcome, though those whose jobs are threatened and those whose promotions may be affected by the proposed downgrading in 48 company staffed offices, may wonder why they were not included. And as the attendance at the protest meetings organised by concerned bodies clearly illustrates a very large proportion of the population of those provincial towns affected are also asking why the effect on their economy, morale, standing and infrastructure are not also matters for investigation.
The Minister announced initially that NESC has been asked to do the study themselves and he confirmed that in his Dáil reply to me on 28 February. However, when asked again by me on 20 March to state the terms of reference he had given to NESC, the Minister was economical with the truth. He failed to disclose that NESC had refused to carry out the study. The council said that the study was not the sort of thing the council did or were equipped to do. Their role was to deal with principles and they were prepared to help on that level.
Implicit in the decision of NESC to "decline the invitation" was their refusal to be used by the Minister to carry the can for unpopular decisions and to postpone such decisions until after the local government elections.
The Minister, of course, did not disclose any of this to the Dáil at the time, concentrating instead on the principles and the willingness of NESC to co-operate. We know the truth only because a spokesman for NESC disclosed it to the media. The principles which NESC propose as applicable to the study to be carried out by consultants are important. The principle of transparency requiring the separate identification of the commercial and social functions of An Post with the financial cost of pursuing the relevant social objectives explicitly identified in the accounts is crucial. The council apparently have also recommended that current public expenditure should not increase in real terms in the period up to 1993. Therefore if a case is made for subsidisation of social objectives the cost of such subsidies will have to be met within those current expenditure restraints. The recommendation relates to co-ordinated planning of rural development and the giving of a high priority to the provision of appropriate communication facilities and social services geared to the needs of people living in remote areas.
The principles outlined by NESC and the drawing up of an alternative plan in compliance with the social and household requirements of the 1983 Act are compatible. An Post can be efficient and solvent and fulfil its social obligations, but to do so: the network must be maintained and the strategic location of post offices improved; the offices must have a full range of new and improved services; and computerisation is essential.
Discussions between An Post and the Department of Social Welfare on the development of An Post's counter services to offer a more flexible and extensive range of payment facilities to all social welfare clients should be encouraged. Advantage should be taken of the Department's willingness to invest jointly with An Post in the automation of its counter services. Overtures from Telecom Éireann to involve themselves in this field should be repulsed.
Last year the Department of Finance paid agency fees of £12.6 million to An Post. Further business between the National Treasury Development Agency and An Post should be encouraged. An Post should investigate obtaining business currently being transacted by building societies. Computerisation would enable An Post to provide such services as motor taxation, driving licences, ESB payments, services for other semi-State and local authorities, etc.
To gain maximum advantage of the new opportunities offered will require, of course, the closest co-operation of management and staff. There should be no excuse for inefficiency and antiquated working methods and practices, for recent levels of unacceptable overtime payments nor for a situation where, according to the Consumer Association of Ireland, our postal service is one of the most expensive and slowest in Europe. According to those figures it is the third most expensive in 13 countries surveyed and also the third slowest.
Since my original motion was tabled and the Minister's initial rejection of the proposal that he should use his powers under section 110 of the 1983 Act, he has responded to the pressure that the social and household requirements of that Act be taken into consideration. He deserves credit for that. Many times since he inherited the Communications portfolio from his precedessor, Deputy Burke, he must have wondered about this inheritance.
After all, it was his predecessor who instructed An Post in the early part of 1990 to tackle all the problems of the single comprehensive package. It was he who told An Post to ignore the social implications. It was his predecessor who allowed the proposals for restructuring of An Post to lie in his Department from November 1990 until the present Minister took over in February last. The same Minister, Deputy Burke, bequeathed to the present Minister proposals for the time-charging of telephone calls and a broadcasting Act now clearly coming apart at the seams. With friends like that, who needs enemies? I have some sympathy for the Minister — but only some. He was after all a member of the Government responsible for these decisions. He sat in Cabinet when these decisions were being taken.
It was this Minister who said in the House on 28 February, within days of his realisation of the enormity of the hot potato he has been bequeathed, "I have indicated to NESC I wish to have the study completed, if possible, within six months"— well on the other side of the local government elections. I am not cynical by nature but I have learned a thing or two since my election to this House. Good news has a habit of being facilitated but bad news delayed in the run-up to elections.
I will listen to the Minister and Fianna Fáil backbenchers with more than usual interest in this debate. There is an issue of credibility involved. Many Fianna Fáil Deputies have opposed proposals in the viability plan in the most trenchant terms at local meetings, at council meetings and in the local press. Now is the testing time for their sincerity.
This motion provides the opportunity for the cynics as well as the idealists to ensure that proposals which are socially, economically and politically unacceptable will not be implemented. I have pleasure in moving the motion.