IFA fears An Post and Eircom job losses with hit quality of rural life

The IFA has serious concerns that the quality of life in rural Ireland will be detrimentally impacted following the massive jobs culls at An Post and Eircom.

IFA deputy president and &countryside chairman Eddie Downey is seeking an urgent meeting with Eircom chief executive Herb Hribar to ensure that services to rural Ireland will not be affected by the company’s decision to seek 2,000 redundancies.

“The telephone network in rural Ireland is already in need of significant repair, with broken telephone poles and fallen lines remaining unrepaired for long periods of time. This recent jobs cut announcement by Eircom has the potential to make this problem worse, particularly since Eircom’s current strategy for upgrading the network is concentrated on urban Ireland and the main centres of population throughout the country.”

“Rural Ireland deserves a first-class telephony network and I am seeking an assurance from Mr Hribar that a rural maintenance and repair strategy will be put in place by Eircom and existing services will not be reduced,” Mr Downey.

An Eircom spokesman yesterday said he was unaware of the request from the IFA for a meeting but said the company’ business plan for the next five years includes a €1.5bn budget for infrastructure and network operations.

“We are investigating significant resources over the course of the next five years to ensure that services are improved and maintained.”

Mr Downey has also called for a full review of the existing services offered by post offices and an improvement in the product offering in order to safeguard the long-term viability of many post offices.

In a submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, which is examining the future of the post office network, IFA has called on An Post to expand its current product offering to include a wider range of foreign currencies, foreign exchange debit cards and additional deposit and other savings offerings.

“The decision by banks such as AIB to close 20% of their network, National Irish Bank to close 27 branches and Permanent TSB to close 16 branches have had a profound effect on services in rural Ireland. An Post’s network of over 1,100 post offices is uniquely positioned to develop its offering and meet the demand created by the decision of these financial institutions to close branches”.

In its submission, IFA has also called on An Post to publish the criteria used when deciding on what post offices to close, and for better consultation with local communities if post offices are to close.