Irish Examiner view: Running down post office networks an act of vandalism

Despite repeated warnings, Government failed to respond to prevent imminent closures

The Post Office at Barrackton, Military Road, Cork City closed in February. Postmistress Ann Dorgan retired after working there for 48 years.

If a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, soon the other windows will be smashed too. 

This, according to one academic theory, will happen in all neighbourhoods not because we are all enthusiastic window-breakers but because broken windows are a visible sign that nobody cares, and dereliction breeds dereliction.

The broken windows theory, as it is known, was described in 1982 by US academics James Q Wilson and George L Kelling to explain how abandonment encourages vandalism, but it might be used to describe how governments have allowed our post office network to run down to the point that we are now facing “unrestrained post office closures” after June.

The network is facing a “cliff-face” this summer when contract payments paid by An Post to the country’s 899 postmasters end, the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) warned an Oireachtas committee this week.

That agreement was made on the assumption that a range of new Government services would be made available to support the network by 2021.

However, as the union has pointed out, none of these services has yet materialised.

Repeated warnings

The Government’s failure to respond, despite repeated warnings, is akin to an act of vandalism on the fabric of rural Ireland. 

The last year has taken an enormous toll on our towns and villages, even if the increase in remote working has offered some potential to rejuvenate rural communities. That, of course, is heavily dependent on broadband quality, which is still patchy and undependable.

Right now, though, pubs and shops are closed, some never to reopen. Bank branch closures continue apace while Covid-19 restrictions have reduced the numbers using public transport and the footfall in post offices.

To return to the dereliction theory, that makes for a lot of broken windows in our criminally neglected rural communities. 

While the closure of Bank of Ireland branches will boost An Post business in the autumn, the network needs a lot more support than last week’s announcement that an interdepartmental group will look at how Government business can be directed to the post office network. 

It is too little — and too late.

The way ahead was signposted in a Grant Thornton report last September which recommended urgent State investment in a network that provides “multi-fold economic and social return to communities”. We have seen that during lockdown. 

To quote one example: at Bangor Erris post office in Mayo, postmistress Mandy Carrabine and staff member Síle Gallagher wrote to their elderly or isolated customers to let them know that the post office was there for them.

Modest investment

The level of investment needed to save this vital service is quite modest. 

According to Grant Thornton, annual public service obligation funding of €17m would bring a significant return. The return in social terms is incalculable, although in financial terms, it’s estimated between €344m and €776m. 

State support would also go some way towards repairing the big holes gouged out of rural communities by the pandemic.

If post offices are forced to close later this year, it won’t be because nobody shouted stop.