'It’s great news': Postmasters hope new plan can deliver a more secure future

Postmaster Sean Martin at Tramore Post Office: 'The money will help the network, which badly needs to market itself better. Most people are at a breadline stage and badly need the cash.' Picture: Patrick Browne

Hildegarde Naughton's plan to save rural post offices was the best news Sean Martin has had in a long time.

The junior minister with responsibility for postal policy's announcement could see post offices like his in Tramore, Co Waterford, receive €12,000 a year as a public service obligation (PSO) payment.

Millions are to be paid out to the country’s 875 independently operated post offices every year for the next three years.

“It’s great news and it will be a great help,” the 56-year-old said.

“The money will help the network, which badly needs to market itself better. Most people are at a breadline stage and badly need the cash.”

Little wonder the plan is welcomed by Mr Martin, who is also the president of the Postmasters Union.

It costs him about €70,000-a-year to run his business. That is before the father-of-three can pay himself a single cent.

While postmasters and post mistresses only get paid for each transaction carried out with a customer, they also have to pay almost all their own costs.

These include rent, rates, lighting, heating, staff costs and insurance.

In Mr Martin’s case, he also has to pay almost all the costs of a sorting office he runs about a mile from the town centre.

Tramore Post Office costs about €70,000-a-year to run. Picture: Patrick Browne

That adds another €10,000 to his costs.

So why does he do it? Mr Martin, who has been a postmaster for 30 years, doesn't hesitate in his reply: “I love this job. I love the people and I have always been a people person.

“I also like the fact that on Thursday, which is my busiest day, a lot of customers come in to get a bit of business done and meet up with people.

Coming to the post office can often be the only social interaction a lot of people have all week, it is the social dividend from post offices."

Máiréad Browne knows all about the social dividend.

The 26-year-old, who is one of Ireland’s youngest postmistresses, runs the post office in Ballinskelligs.

She and her father saved the service for the remote part of Co Kerry after An Post decided to end the contract in 2018 as part of cost-cutting measures.

“The reaction in the community was phenomenal,” Ms Browne said. “It fought hard to have the contract reinstated.

“I’ll never forget the joy on pensioners' faces when they learned the post office would stay open."

Because the post office is located in her father Nicholas’ shop, her costs are not as high as Sean Martin’s but they are still high, at about €30,000-a-year.

"The extra money will be a great help," she said.

"I love being a postmistress because I love the people and the chat — they say I'd put talk in a bottle if I had the chance.

"But I am wholly dependent on transactions, even if that means selling a single stamp.

At the end of the day, if people want to keep their post offices they have to use them.

"There is no point people complaining about a vanishing network of rural post offices if they are not prepared to use them.

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"People have to realise, they need to use their post offices or be prepared to lose them."