Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty is that Roscommon town will be the only county town in Ireland without an An Post-owned post office if this measure goes ahead. Disappointingly, the type of support that is needed for An Post to develop its own post office network with new services has not been forthcoming to date from the Government, despite a Cabinet commitment to deliver that. This is at least in part resulting in the threat to the status of this post office in Roscommon town and, in fact, the transition of the ownership of all of these iconic buildings and their services into private control. All of the public representatives from every party and none are at one when it comes to our call for An Post to abandon its plan to alter the status of post offices that it owns in our county towns and in particular in Roscommon town. We want to see the post office in Roscommon town retained in its current location and with its current ownership and operation, and in fact see the building expanded and refurbished to meet the growing needs of the local community and to mirror the significant public funds that have already been invested in Roscommon town by this Government and the previous one. It makes absolutely no sense that we are investing public money to improve the town of Roscommon while at the same time we have a semi-State company withdrawing its own investment from that town.

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