PROTEST TO SAVE POST OFFICES
Rally against ‘attack’ on rural Ireland
A mass rally will take place on Saturday 18th August in Sligo town to protests against 21 threatened post office closures across the North West.
A number of speakers have already been confirmed, including local TD’s and representatives from farming and community bodies. The demonstration will begin at the Model carpark in Connaughton road at 1.45pm and march to the GPO. Everyone is encouraged to attend in a stand against what has been described as an ‘attack’ on rural villages.
A further two public meetings will also be held this Thursday 9 th July at 8pm in Maugherow Community Centre and in Gurteen.
Just last week news that Monasteraden Post Office faced closure was greeted with dismay by the local community.
What was not mentioned was the poor quality broadband at this rural post office and how the service impacted negatively on business.
Local Fianna Fail Councillor Paul Taylor who lives in nearby Gurteen hears all about the problems of doing business in a broadband blackspot.
He explains: “Broadband was a major issue for the Post Office in Monasteraden. There are a lot of broadband blackspots with Eir.”
The village of Monasteraden sits at a quiet country cross roads. ‘It sits in a dip’ says Paul who considers the location a blackspot for broadband.
“Three years ago, the computer system at the Post Office was updated as nearly everything is done by PC. Because of poor connectivity the PC would crash when customers were trying to make transactions. It never worked properly,” claims Paul.
He thanked the Foley family who run Monasteraden Post Office for their years of loyal service and says the closure will be a big loss to the area.
“They closed the shop last year and now with the Post Office going, there’ ll just be a school and a pub left here. If broadband has not been such a big issue maybe it would not have had to close.
“Broadband is an issue with a lot of rural post offices. If the infrastructure was proper and the same as in bigger population areas they would have had a choice to bring more services to the people and it may then be a more lucrative business for them too,” he says.
Outside of this tiny village the hinterland and indeed the neighbouring bigger village of Gurteen also suffers from poor internet connection. Everyone the Sligo Champion spoke to had a similar story and all wanted the same thing - fibre optic cable to the business and the home.
That promise for more than 540,000 rural homes across the country under the Government’s National BroadBand Plan is a long way off yet. The Government is now negotiating with a telecoms company Enet whose construction partner (SSE) quit for reasons it won’t disclose. The Government doesn’t yet know who will back up Enet’s construction plan. It appears that some form of subsidised rural broadband scheme will be pursued in the future.
In the meantime householders and businesses are struggling with a lack of connectivity.
Some companies have no other choice but to take matters into their own hands and at their own expense install fibre optic cables themselves.
In Gurteen, Green Isle Foods fish processing plant has done just that but plant manager Joesph Hannon says more needs to be done for rural based factories.
“We would like to see the national broadband plan rolled
WHERE I LIVE IN KILLAVIL IT WOULD TAKE LONGER FOR A VIDEO TO DOWNLOADTHAN IT WOULD TO PLAY THE THING
out fully for companies like ourselves. It is an extra cost on the company having a fibre optic cable coming in but we would not be able to work without it,” says Joe.
The plant which opened in 1995 and employs 70 people locally has no issue with broadband as a result. But when the employees go home and need to check a work email, it’s a different story.
“Not having good broadband in the house is a major disadvantage,” says Joe, “If you want to check a work email at home it is awkward.”
What people in communities want is the same treatment as those in bigger urban areas.
As Paul Taylor says: “It’s just not good enough. Sometimes it’s not even strong enough to look up your emails. And if you have a few teenagers in the house using the wifi, you run into problems there too.”
So watching netflix in peace is a gamble. While the prospect of setting up a business from home in these rural areas would not look promising.
But what about those who have no choice but to work from here, like farmers who incidently do more online work now than ever before.
As Ballymote Councillor Keith Henry explains: “For farmers today it is almost mandatory for everything to be submitted online. If you do not have high speed internet access this is a major issue.”
He adds: “The lack of connectivity for rural Ireland is mainly down to money. The Government need to do the same as they did when electrification came in, and put the money there so that everyone gets the service. The internet is as essential as water or electricity nowadays.
Keith says that although the bigger towns across Sligo have good connectivity you don’t have to travel far to experience little to none: “Just a kilometre or two outside Ballymote and you will find very poor internet access. In my home place of Killvahil it would take longer for a video to download than it would to play the thing.”