Do we always need the socket file?

I have Postgres 7.2.1 configured to listen on TCP/IP port.
When the server starts up it still creates the socket file in /tmp.
Removing this file manually does not seem to cause any problem for the
application.

Is there a way to prevent postmaster from creating this file?
Is this really safe to remove the socket file, or would it create
some problem that I won't necessarily see?

Thanks,
Mike.