Call to support post offices a New Year’s resolution

Anton McNulty

People living in rural areas have been asked to make a New Year’s resolution to support their local post office to prevent them from closing in the near future.
A number of post offices in rural parts of the county face an uncertain future with fears that some will close in the next 12 months. In light of this, Lennie Grimes, the Chairman of the Cushlough Community Council raised the issue at their recent AGM and called on people to support their local post offices.
Speaking to The Mayo News Mr Grimes said it would be devastating for their area to lose their post offices in Liscarney and Aughagower and they have to ensure they support them.
“The danger is there, they may be closed in the future. To lose them would have a devastating effect on the area, especially for older people. A lot of people do use them, but some don’t for whatever reason. I would encourage them to make it their New Year’s resolution to use them more.
“The rural post offices are all up to date and have the same facilities as the larger post offices in town. The local post office also has more advantages for doing your business, such as not having the same queues as in towns.
“I brought this up at our AGM last week because we need to get people to start thinking about using their post office more regularly. Whatever chance we have now of saving them, there is no point shouting when the announcement to close them is made. When they are gone they are gone and not coming back,” he said, adding: “Why not make supporting rural post offices your New Year’s resolution?”
In November, the DΡil showed unanimous support for a bill aimed at protecting rural post offices, but despite this, An Post Retail Operations Manager, John Daly, said 700 of the country’s 1,131 post offices are not viable.
“That necessarily does not mean we will have the same number of outlets as today but I believe that going forward you could have a scenario providing lesser locations but a lot more services, whether that be government services or banking services,” Mr Daly said in November.
Mr Daly also ruled out setting up a bank within the post-office network because the costs and obligations involved are too prohibitive.