Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The viability of rural post office is under threat but that is because of Government inaction. A Programme for Partnership Government outlines a process which would expand services in rural post offices. Of course, rural Ireland is changing and people are moving to online services, but the post office is much more than online services and facilitating social welfare payments.

The Taoiseach referred to the independent appeals process. It is a sham. I am not aware of any post office that has successfully gone through the independent appeals process. The only criteria used relate to whether there is a population of greater than 500 in an area or whether a post office is greater than 15 km from the next nearest post office. Communities are spending vast amounts of time developing business cases to support their view that their post offices should be retained and in respect of the level of services that they would like to be delivered in them. All those appeals are being rejected purely on the grounds of population size and distance to the nearest post office. Times are changing and An Post needs to change. The programme for Government, to which I keep returning, included a process through which post offices would change; they would be given extra services, would act as Government hubs and be utilised. A national asset of 1,100 post offices should not be thrown away purely on the basis of an economic model which does not allow for the sustainability of the communities that will lose their post offices.

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