Postmasters are to gather outside the GPO in Dublin today in protest at reported plans by An Post to close scores of post offices across the State to try to secure the future of the company.
The semi-State firm’s chief executive David McRedmond told the Government last week that more than half of all the 1,100 post offices in the State were loss-making.
The closure of a large number of rural post offices, as well as a programme of redundancies, is expected to be part of a plan to address An Post’s financial issues, which is currently being drawn up by it and consultancy firm McKinsey.
Members of the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) said they felt they had to take to the streets to make sure their fears over the potential impact of branch closures were heard. The protest takes place at 11am.
John Kavanagh, a second generation postmaster in the village of Walsh Island in Co Offaly, and his wife Breda have run the village shop and post office since 1982.
Mrs Kavanagh said that when she arrived in the village the post office was a meeting place and it remained the case today.
“The lads call the chair outside the pensioners’ chair, the local news is discussed there,” she said. “If the post office goes, the shop is gone, because one supports the other.”
Mr Kavanagh said that encouraging young people to use the postal service was key to the future of the rural network.
“We have three new estates built in the last 20 years, a lot of those young people wouldn’t be using the post office. They get their children’s allowance paid into the bank, most of their financial transactions are done online,” he said.
“Technology has moved on the whole gambit of the way people carry out their daily lives, carry out their business transactions. Unfortunately the An Post system is left behind a little bit.”
Mr Kavanagh said he was unsure as to what the future held for his post office as there were “so many stakeholders involved”.
“There is An Post, the Government, the public, they all have a stake in the post office but are they all of the same mind and willing to make it succeed or push extra business towards the post office? I don’t know,” he said.