There has been much talk in the media in recent days about the resignation of the former Senator and Minister of State, Michael D'Arcy. There is probably a problem because he spoke on finance legislation in the House last week. Leaving that aside, there seems to be no talk at all about the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sitting on the board of the FAI, an organisation that received many millions of euro from the taxpayer. Surely there is a conflict of interest in that regard. I would like the Leader to organise for the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to come to this House to discuss these issues and how they might be handled in the future.

Yesterday, I heard the Taoiseach, the democratically elected leader of this country, refer to the vacant seat that has been created in this House by the resignation of Michael D'Arcy as a Fine Gael seat. How much of an affront to this House is that? How dare the Taoiseach stand in a democratically elected Chamber and talk about a seat being belonging to any political party? I ask my colleagues in Fianna Fáil to have courage and put somebody forward. I ask Sinn Féin, the Labour Party and the Green Party to do the same.

Cúineas.

They should have the courage to put somebody forward. There is no seat here belonging to anybody.

Cúineas.

I did get in on a Fine Gael seat. I challenged the Members opposite and beat them at their own game. It is time that they realised that they do not own this Chamber.

If the Senators want to interrupt Senator Craughwell-----

The Cathaoirleach should chair proceedings properly.

It is on the Order of Business so the Senator-----

On a point of order, Senator Craughwell named a former Member and the Secretary General of a Department who are not here to defend themselves. The Cathaoirleach should have called him out on that.

It was an item discussed today in the Chamber so the Senator is entitled to bring it up. However, if people want to interrupt the Senator-----

He is not entitled to name people who are not able to defend themselves.

He is entitled to bring up the issue and I would like the Senator-----

Ask the Clerk of the Seanad.

-----not to name people in the Chamber but if people want to interrupt the Senator, they need to ask permission under Standing Orders. Senator Craughwell is out of time.

Let me finish my point. I was interrupted.

Sorry, Senator Dooley is next.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. This is a political Chamber and we are used to political banter. In the context of the Secretary General of the Department to whom he referred, however, Senator Craughwell should retract his statement. That is a voluntary position and the individual concerned is entitled to sit on a voluntary board.

Well said.

I do not see any conflict of interest. It is important that the Senator take cognisance of that and correct the record when next he has the opportunity to speak. We depend to a very large extent on removing politics from our Civil Service. We depend on civil servants regardless of who is in power, and to impugn the name or office of any one of them would be a retrograde step.

An independent report compiled by Grant Thornton has been published today. It was commissioned by the Irish Postmasters Union, IPU, and it predicts the collapse of the post office network in a short period if drastic action is not taken. The independent report clearly sets out the need for Government intervention to the tune of about €17 million. It identifies that by way of the public service obligation methodology that is used in an array of countries, including Spain, Belgium, Italy, France and Poland. It has been approved by the EU Commission as a methodology to fund and support a service like the post office. There have been changes to the way the post office operates and the demands and expectations of communities. The State has been lethargic, to put it mildly, in terms of putting services into post offices that would meet the needs of citizens. I do not need to lecture anyone in this House but if we look at what has happened during the pandemic, we see people retreating to their communities, being more dependent on the services that are there and moving away from large centres of population. In light of that, there is a clear demand and need for us to take seriously this independent report. I ask the Leader to try to organise a debate on this matter with the Minister at the earliest opportunity. The specific objective of that debate should be fashioning a response that would protect, to the greatest extent possible, the post office network's ability to deliver for our communities. It is not just about rural areas anymore. This report states that large and small post offices in urban and rural areas are under threat.