Time is running out for An Post
BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN
How shortsighted can one government be? Last week the State of
the West report clearly showed the outcomes of decades of Dublin
government neglect of the West and North West.
This week, the Dublin government was faced with another policy
dilemma. There are 1,900 post offices in the state providing not
just a communications service but which have also become a vital
element of the social and economic infrastructure of rural
Ireland. In towns where economic underdevelopment has shut
businesses, closed banks and dispersed people, the local post
office has emerged as the last pillar of rural communities. The
post office is a local bank, a place to pay bills, get official
government forms and provide a much needed social focus for
communities.
Post had signalled to the Dublin government in its annual
report the need to subvent many of these offices, where their
economic viability was questionable. This failure is partially
caused by successive Dublin governments, who refused to create
the much-needed Third Force Bank which would have had the postal
network as its hub.
To this can be added the unchallenged EU directives that are
threatening to undermine the post offices' role as a bill payer
for gas and phone companies. The Dublin government has made no
public case at the EU for special consideration of the role the
Irish post office network plays in rural society.
This week, they floated proposals that could transfer 900 post
offices to agents who are running other retail businesses. How
this will affect areas where no businesses are willing to take on
the local post office is not answered. There could be a series of
closures over time.
Public Enterprise minister Mary O'Rourke has promised that the
network will be maintained but why has she not recognised fully
the responsibilities of the state in ensuring that not only is
the network maintained but that it is also enhanced and grown?
A holding operation is not enough. The postal network has the
chance to be a dynamic cog in rebuilding rural economies not just
in holding together declining ones.
Sinn Féin's Sean MacManus criticised the proposals. He said:
``Post offices are often the back bone of small communities. If
the government fail to take decisive action in order to develop,
rather than downgrade the services offered then they will be
participating in the decline of rural Ireland.''