An Post workers heckled at closure

An Post officials were heckled last night as they closed for the last time a post office which has served a Cork community for a century.

Campaigners fighting to prevent the transfer of Blackpool post office from the village to a nearby shopping centre shouted and chanted at the officials as they moved in to oversee the closure of the village branch ahead of Monday’s relocation.

About 50 people, many of them elderly, stood in front of the post office and chanted “shame on you”, “we don’t trust An Post”, and “out, out, out”, and blocked An Post officials from entering.

It was their sixth public protest as part of a campaign to save the branch.

Bill Dunlea, chairman of the Blackpool Community Centre, asked the An Post workers to give the campaigners time to say goodbye to the post office staff.

“An Post has refused at every opportunity to meet with us. We are asking An Post to leave the area now, and leave us with our dignity,” he said.

Socialist Party Cllr Mick Barry said the local residents have been betrayed. “Today is their sixth mass meeting. They have organised more than 6,000 signatures. They have done everything possible to save the post office,” he said.

An Post insists the new branch, which will be run by Tom Scally, will deliver a better service from the shopping centre.

However, it is understood that the campaigners have threatened An Post with an injunction in a last-ditch bid to block Monday’s opening unless it sets out in detail the tendering process it used to advertise the contract for the running of the new post office.

Picture: Blackpool residents stop the An Post staff member on his phone from entering the post office. Picture: Jim Coughlan