TD’s threat to oppose Budget over post offices
INDEPENDENT TD Michael Harty has threatened to pull his support for the Government if An Post is allowed to press ahead with the closure of 159 post offices.
The Clare doctor has helped keep the Fine Gael minority Government in office for the past two years, but is now threatening to vote against October’s Budget.
Mr Harty said he is growing increasingly frustrated with Fine Gael’s attitude to rural Ireland. His defection would be a blow to Mr Varadkar’s authority ahead of a renegotiation of the confidence and supply deal with Fianna Fáíl.
“The Government doesn’t take into account the cascading affect on the village where services are closing,” he said. “They are supposed to be the basic fabric of rural Ireland.”
Mr Harty spoke out as protests are planned by angry rural campaigners over the proposal to allow more than 150 rural post offices to close.
Communications Minister Denis Naughten faces a revolt in his Roscommon-Galway base after it emerged the greatest rate of closures will be spread across the west and midlands.
INDEPENDENT TD Michael Harty has threatened to pull his support for the Government if An Post is allowed to press ahead with the closure of 159 post offices.
The Clare doctor has helped keep the Fine Gael minority Government in office for the past two years, but is now threatening to vote against October’s Budget.
He is counted as one of 58 TDs that Fianna Fáil made the minimum requirement in order for them to sign up to the confidence and supply arrangement.
But he told the Irish Independent he is growing increasingly frustrated with Fine Gael’s attitude to rural Ireland.
If Mr Harty goes against the Budget it is unlikely to pose an immediate threat to the minority administration’s stability, so long as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil can reach agreement on a budgetary plan for next year.
But he said Fianna Fáíl may also have to pull its support for the Government on the issue as it will be more damaging than a ‘hard Brexit’ to rural Ireland.
His defection would be a blow to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s authority ahead of a renegotiation of the confidence and supply deal with the main Opposition party.
“I won’t be supporting the Budget if this [post office closures] goes through as planned,” Mr Harty said.
“I ran for the Dáil as part of the ‘No Doctor, No Village’ campaign. The same principle now applies to what is happening with the post office service.
“Are we going to withdraw all services that are no longer financially viable in rural Ireland? If that’s the case then we’d withdraw medical service and education facilities.
“The Government doesn’t take into account the cascading affect on the village where services are closing. It leads people to go to the next town and stop supporting the other local services. A village becomes a shell of its former self.
“They are supposed to be the basic fabric of rural Ireland.”
Mr Harty said there should be a public service obligation in place to help fund post offices in rural areas. He also pointed to the system in New Zealand where a community bank is run through post offices.
An Post has said the closure of 159 offices that are seen as unviable will help secure the future of the wider network.
But Mr Harty said: “If they are not generating income there should be salaried people put in to run them.”
Responsibility
His call chimes with the demand from Fianna Fáil for measures to support the postal network to be included in the Budget negotiations.
Its communications spokesman Timmy Dooley said a line of subvention is needed “to protect and preserve” remote offices.
“The State has a responsibility to deliver key services of which the post office is one.
“If you close 160 post offices you are putting an intolerable burden on elderly people,” he said.
Mr Dooley wants An Post to put more effort into co-locating post offices with existing shops.
“It doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles that they have now. You can have basic services,” he said.
The TD intends to get his colleagues Michael McGrath and Barry Cowen to raise the issue during the forthcoming Budget talks with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe next week.