Postal and Telecommunications Services (Amendment) Bill 2026 [Certified Money Bill]: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Charlie McConalogue (FF), Donegal

I thank the four Senators for their contributions and for their support for this important funding. As I said in my opening contribution, the Bill makes a very small tactical change to the legislation. Over the past three years, €10 million per year was provided to An Post. This legislation now provides that, in each of the next five years, this year included, €15 million will be provided to An Post. The structure of that payment, which was agreed between An Post and the postmasters, is designed to maintain and strengthen our post office network and to keep it sustainable, taking into account the number of post offices in an area, the distance to the next nearest post office and the rural nature versus the population base that it might be serving and weighting the payments from the Government in such a way as to ensure they strongly favour those post offices that need the support the most.
I thank Senators for those contributions. I take on board the comments of Senator Andrews. The post office will remain in Rathmines. It is changing location and will stay open in Rathmines village. I take on board the points the Senator made about the previous building. The service will be maintained and will stay in the area. The objective of the Government is to maintain as many post offices in the network as we possibly can. That is why we are increasing funding by 50% this year and we have a commitment to continue that for the duration of this Government. I look forward to seeing the Bill pass Second Stage and move through the other Stages in the House today.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:15+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14