Welfare tender vital to post offices

The threat to the post office network has galvanised people into action and now Fine Gael and Labour are now trying to convince people that the post office is secure in their hands. Our local rural post offices network can only survive if it remains a major outlet for the payment of social welfare benefits.

The local post offices themselves will tell you that the social welfare payments are 62% if not more of their weekly business. If that business is taken away from them, how can they stay open? One or two customers a day paying a household bill or buying a few stamps isn’t worth keeping the post office door open.

If people travel to larger or bigger towns to collect their money, they will do their shopping and pay their household bills while they are there. What TD can keep a straight face and say people will travel a few miles to collect their money and then travel back to their local post office to pay household bills?