This plan must be stamped out, post haste

The recent attempts by this government to try to move the collection of welfare payments from the post office to the banks represents nothing less than a scandal.

If the Department of Social Protection is allowed to force the 51% of people who receive their payments from their local post office into a situation where they are paid directly into a bank account as much as 557 local post offices could close.

Brian McGann, general secretary of the Irish Postmaster Union (IPU), speaking at a rally outside the Dáil, described how the Department was actively helping to drive business out of the post offices and into the hands of the banks.

We should recognise this is not simply a situation where An Post must fall to progress as technology (electronic payment) trumps the traditional method of cash payments, because, as the IPU has stated, they are more than willing to offer electronic payments if the government so asks.

But the problem is they’re not asking, because such a move would run contrary to their present plans.

Once again it seems our public services are being forsaken for private interests.! Minister for Communications Pat Rabbite has done nothing to alleviate the legitimate employment concerns of those who work for An Post, or for the concerns of a multiplicity of rural citizens for whom the post office forms a central component of the community.

His proposal to ‘review the sector through the Cabinet sub-committee on social policy’ is just the latest in a long line of government calls to inaction.

This government has become so good at kicking the can further down the road one could be forgiven for thinking that they’d gone and brought Ronan O’Gara out of retirement. Retired sports stars entering the political melting pot has become somewhat of a soup du jour.

Cillian Doyle

Rochestown Ave

Dun Laoghaire