Rural post offices provide a vital social service and their closure will devastate communities

THE decision by An Post to close vast numbers of rural post offices is touted as a financial decision. There is much talk of the viability and sustainability of the network.

Ironically, in direct competition with this is the viability and sustainability of rural communities. Ostensibly, the post office is a business, a financial service and in urban Ireland this is true. It is also true in rural Ireland, but the important difference is that the post office in rural Ireland is also carrying out a very valuable and indeed identifiable social service as evidenced by the final report of the Post Office Network Business Development Group.

Services provided by urban entities such as citizens’ advice bureau, tourist information offices, social centres, elderly support services and social welfare offices are provided by rural An Post staff in tandem with the business services that they are paid to carry out.

It shows a complete lack of understanding of rural mores and way of life to say that these extra services are not the business of An Post because in rural Ireland there is no one else to provide such services. These services are provided as a courtesy, a community service, whilst the business of An Post is also carried out. Indeed it can be concluded that if people are drawn to the post office for the social services they will also avail of the An Post services available, so it’s a win-win situation.

The unavailability of broadband and the large numbers of elderly people living in rural Ireland render online transaction unrealistic and the option of welfare payments to bank accounts similarly unrealistic, given the closure of many rural bank branches.

Finally, lest we forget, the tagline of An Post, that nobody will be more than 15km from a post office is misleading ... that’s a one-way journey. So potentially we are talking about a 30km round trip for people who have little or no access to a bus or taxi service.

Surely the Green Party is jumping up and down as we speak at the prospect of all these increased environmentally damaging car journeys.

Take Gurteen, Co Sligo, as a case in point.

A flourishing, developing, vibrant village will struggle to survive if it loses its busy, fully operational post office.

We can’t apply urban government thinking to a rural reality. Sinéad Foley Coleman Address with editor