Regional and rural affairs minister
Deputy MacSharry questioned whether the Government was still committed to a Cabinet-level minister for regional and rural affairs and criticised service decline outside Dublin. Deputy Moynihan added that the promised whole-of-Government response to post offices had not materialised and called for action to empower An Post.
With regard to similar issues, page 41 of the programme for Government spoke of the Government making a Cabinet-level Minister responsible for regional and rural affairs. I do not see a Cabinet-level Minister. Indeed, if it is the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, or the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, and I am not sure whether he is at Cabinet, the question of what we are doing can legitimately be asked.
We have become consumed and conditioned by a culture of service reduction and alienation of rural and regional Ireland. Is it the Government's policy to continue to ignore the regions? The national planning framework, which should underpin the future of post offices instead of the rumoured 80 closures we hear of today, is written in such a way that the template provided for people to give submissions next week is going to exclude the whole north-west of the country and west of Mullingar. We seemed to have defined it in such a way that the future growth and potential of the country is going to come from elsewhere. It seems to be written in terms of the pretence given to the strategic environmental assessment that it is going to undermine the potential of these regions to perform to their capacity.
Comment on this
Is it Government policy to continue as it has with this culture, which undermines the very culture of our citizens? People live outside Dublin, outside our cities. What are the Taoiseach's Ministers going to do to deal with this issue?
Comment on this
Three years ago, under the previous Government, there was an announcement by the then Minister, Mr. Rabbitte, that there would be a whole-of-Government response to the issue of post offices. I am not sure what the definition of a whole-of-Government response was three years ago but in my opinion, there has been no response. This morning's report bodes very poorly for rural Ireland. It is time for action to be taken in regard to empowering An Post in order that it can have a service that will empower the postmasters and postmistresses to have a vibrant operation within their communities.