Danny Healy-Rae: Protect Post Offices, Protect Rural Life

Thank you very much, Ciann Comhairle. I'm glad to get the opportunity to talk about post offices and first of all I want to thank Minister Charlie and the Government for giving them financial assistance this year because they do need it and like every other member I appreciate our post office network and I'm sad to think that so many post offices have closed around us over the years. I remember the previous postmasters in Kilgarvan, Denis P. O'Sullivan and his brother John O'Sullivan and before them were Brydie and James Cronin and she used to send her brother out with the telegrams and my uncles told me a story that long past all of them. They met him one day going up the road with a telegram and he asked them if he had much further to go and they asked him where he was going and he told them to mind their own businesses and to tell him how far he had to go. That's how trusted and how secretive and how dependent the people that work for the post office are. They retain the confidence of the people and that's why at the present time in Kilgarvan we have a great operator. He's been there for many years now and he is a most reliable person, Patrick Sweeney and we're very proud to have him running and operating the post office in Kilgarvan. We have lost post offices like I said in Clonkeen, Guinea-Ville, Headford, Blackwater Bridge and different places and invariably they were at the centre of each locality. If the post office is not there a place loses its identity. We're in trouble now with so many shops closing rural areas in many rural villages. There is nothing left but the post office and we hope that we will retain the post office because like has been said here, the post office and the school and the J Club are so vital for the retaining of the identity of parishes throughout the Lington breadth of rural Ireland. We hope we will retain the post office in Kilgarvan, Kilmarnock and Fish, they're the nearest ones to me at the present time and we appreciate the great work they do. The government however should advise people more, people on social welfare payments to draw their payments through the post office rather than going to the bank. Indeed over the years Minister we have enough done for the banks. Payments should be always directed to the post office because on each transaction the post office gets paid and to ensure business is kept in we should do as much transactions as we can in the post offices. People should not be sent elsewhere to bigger towns because there is no longer banks in villages and it's very important for people to meet. Social interaction is so important with people and that's why people are becoming very lonely in rural places because they don't meet as much as they used to. At the creamery, at the shop, at the pub, in tougher times we had a post office everywhere, a Garda station, we don't have a Garda station in Kilgarvan, not many parishes don't. We had a doctor's surgery in every parish and indeed a social welfare office. And there were several small schools in the parish and I suppose in the late 50s they directed the smaller schools to close and sent them into a central school. That indeed was a very sad thing and it hurts me at times I see people in areas passing their own small school, local school, down maybe going into a bigger school in town. We must try to retain what we have and what we had and the school in the locality is very important to retain the identity of the locality. Then the pubs and shops as we all know, in Kilgarvan at one time we had 26 shops, now we're just two and that's replicated throughout the many parishes in Kerry and even just take Guinea-Willi now doesn't have a shop. The last place to close was the post office and the shop that went along with the post office and I'm just saying to government that it's so important to subsidise and give the post offices an opportunity to remain open. And to remain open they must be profitable for the owners because there's a lot of costs, there's a lot of overheads, so many different things and the one thing that's hitting every kind of an outlet at the present time is rates and commercial rates. Indeed it's sad to think that there's shops closing all over the county of Kerry including Killarney at the present time and it's been taught to me that rates, the cost of commercial rates have gone up since the rates review, that the actual cost of paying the rates has gone way up and it's hurting and causing businesses to close. And government must recognise this and we the members must highlight it and bring it forward to the government here because maybe it's not known as much as we know about it as the elected members do because we're on the road every day and we know what the problems are. And I say to you we must look at the rates and how they're applied and how they're charged for many businesses because many businesses are now afraid to open their doors because they'll be liable for a rates bill from that minute onwards. Again Minister I want to thank you for recognising the post offices and ensuring that they keep going for the present time and like I said to you Minister we must ensure and direct more business through the post office to ensure their viability and to ensure that they, and we appreciate the parcel service that they have at the present time to second to none. There's stuff coming out of vans every day, coming to our door and to the same right through the parish including Saturday and it's a great service and we must do our utmost each and every one of us to ensure that we deal with the post offices and especially for that great service as well because it means so much in a rural community where people are out on a limb and where it's so far away. To go to the bigger towns or indeed when you're talking about going to the city of Corkshire, it is a day's work to go and come there if you want to do business that far away so Minister thank you very much for this great effort.