More than 100 post offices face closure in next 12 months

MORE than 100 post offices could shut during this year if An Post continues closing branches at the same rate as it did in 2007, postmasters warned yesterday.

According to the Irish Postmasters’ Union, the number of post offices and sub-post offices has gone down from more than 1,400 in 2006 to about 1,250 at the end of 2007. At that rate the union reckons Ireland could lose a third of its post offices within five years.

The union estimates only about 800 of the network are commercially viable in the current economic climate, and that An Post will have to do more to ensure the future viability of a comprehensive network of post offices and sub-post offices.

In many small villages and isolated areas, the local post office is going the way of the Garda station, or has already gone, said the union.

The union has called on Communications Minister Eamon Ryan to decide if the Government wants to continue with the post office network.

The union’s general secretary John Kane said: “Then the Government should make a decision that every community, or communities of a certain size, should have a post office.

“At the moment, nobody is making a decision. There’s a social necessity and an economic necessity to have a post office network and they need to decide on what size that network should be.”

Many postmasters and postmistresses are leaving the business because “it’s just not viable,” Mr Kane claimed. “People can’t make ends meet. Then when people retire or go, nobody wants to take it on.”

Current income levels make only about 800 post offices viable, he said, “but they’re spending the money over 1,250 offices. There’s nobody getting a fair share.”

A report commissioned by the union during the previous government’s lifetime suggested the optimum number for a fully viable network would be about 850, said Mr Kane, when the systems used in other countries were taken into account.

“If you got agreement on the numbers, you’d have to get agreement on a lot better resourcing than we have at the moment,” he said.

A recent European Court decision came down in favour of An Post retaining the €7 billion contract to process social welfare payments, but the union fear any future attempt by the Government to put the contract out to tender. “The whole network would collapse tomorrow morning, bar about 50 or 100, if we lost that contract.”

An Post spokesman Angus Laverty said a nationwide review of the postal network is currently taking place, with a firm of consultants examining all relevant issues.

The European Court ruling had given them “some guarantee” regarding the future of the social welfare payments, he said. “It’s worth about €7bn and there’s no doubt it’s the backbone of the network.”

Among the problems cited by post office management in today’s Ireland are higher wage costs and rent bills as well as declining levels of business in rural areas.