Po stmasters in call for An Post closures to halt for five years
A GROUP of postmasters has called on the Government to respect a vote in the Dáil to hold off on closures for five years.
It comes as An Post boss David McRedmond defended the mass closures of post offices as necessary for the survival of the network.
He said the shut-downs were not an attack on rural Ireland but putting in place a plan to ensure the future viability of post offices across the country.
His comments come after the semi-state owned business said it was closing 159 post offices, mainly on the western seaboard.
But the Independent Postmasters’ Group called on the Government to respect a vote in the Dáil where 158 TDs voted to halt closures for five years, while a new plan for the network is put in place.
Tom O’Callaghan, a member of the group which represents one in 10 postmasters, said the motion advocated turning post offices into community banking hubs, with profits going back into communities.
The motion, passed in 2016, also calls for a once-off investment fund for post offices and for Government contracts to be awarded on the basis of both social and economic criteria.
Mr O’Callaghan said: “Post offices serve a vital social and economic role in their communities. There is a very specific commitment in the programme for a partnership government to protect the postal network.”President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association criticised the closure programme.
Pat McCormack said it was yet more evidence of what he described as “yawning infrastructure imbalance” between investment in urban and suburban areas and rural districts.
He claimed there appeared to be a deliberate policy of applying the most crude cost-benefit analysis to any kind of rural infrastructure that contrasted with the “money-no-object” approach in expensive public investment projects for cities.
Mr McRedmond said the shut-downs were not an attack on rural Ireland.
“What we are doing is the opposite of an attack. What we’re putting in place is a plan and a strategy to ensure there is an excellent service for the years ahead,” he said.
Mr McRedmond said the exact timing of when the remaining offices close would depend on when postmasters chose to retire over the next four months.
There has been heavy crit- icism of the closure moves, with large numbers of offices to go in Galway, Donegal, Cork and Mayo.
The postal service has promised that there will be at least one post office within 15km of each one that is being shut. In some locations, residents will face a round trip of 30km.
The An Post boss pointed out that of the 159 due to close before the end of the year, only 10 are at a distance of more than 10km from another post office; 100 are in areas described by the CSO as having “no settlement”.
Mr McRedmond called for more Government services to be operated through post offices such as motor tax.
“We would love to get more Government services, that’s why the harp is above the door. We’re doing everything to improve the service. If we don’t plan it, it will die.”
Mr McRedmond told RTÉ’s ‘Morning Ireland’ that 96pc of customers affected by the closures would have better services, while 3.7pc will be affected.
“We know every community that we live in, we really care about this,” he said. “We’re doing everything to improve the service.”
However, rural organisations have reacted with anger to the closures.
Vice-chairman of Forum Connemara Terry Kennan said the closures would have a huge impact on communities: “It seems to be an attack on rural Ireland, that people no longer matter, there’s no empathy with people, that it is all about facts and figures.”