Mary goes private on a public issue

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, may have imagined she would touch a chord when she declared banks should pay around £10 million (€12.7 million) a year to An Post to stop it having to close down rural post offices. All it did was give people a laugh.

When it emerged that she had informed the Cabinet earlier that she intended to pronounce along the lines she did, she lost even the opportunity to pass off the suggestion as a slip of the tongue.

The idea that a private sector company should subsidise a State body out of some perceived "debt of honour" is crass.

The banks are in the process of agreeing with An Post a system of transaction charges to allow bank customers pay bills at post offices which they would otherwise pay at the bank. This will facilitate the closure of nonviable rural branches.

Such a system is fair and can only increase the role of the post offices as essential centres in local communities. But that is as far as it should go. If State enterprise needs subvention, it should come from the State, that is the taxpayers. If we want village post offices, there is a price to pay. The idea that private enterprise should pay that price for us turns logic on its head.