There could be widespread closures of local post offices from January if the Government does not approve a 50 per cent rise in the level of subvention to support them, an Oireachtas committee has been told.
About €23 million has been provided to postmasters across the country to help maintain the network since the scheme was introduced a little over two years ago, members of the Oireachtas communications committee were told on Wednesday.
But the annual amount needed to be increased from €10 million to €15 million if services were to be retained in hundreds of offices considered to be less viable.
“You’re looking at in January of next year, without Government funding being increased, unrestrained closures throughout the country, rural and urban,” said Seán Martin, president of the Irish Postmasters’ Union, citing a recent poll of its members.
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“Up to 40 per cent, 400 post offices, may go because the Government decides that it doesn’t believe the community should have them.”
He said a Grant Thornton assessment commissioned by the union had suggested many local offices were struggling to stay open because payments for the provision of government services were so low.
He cited the recent the handling of the recent €2,000 carer’s support grant paid to those providing full-time care to an elderly person or someone with a disability, saying that for their time and effort and security concerns related to the handling of cash, postmasters received just 65 cent for each payment handled.
“That’s the difficulty postmasters have ... they’re doing business, but unfortunately the business they’re doing for Government is in cents rather than euros.”
Contracts for such services are negotiated centrally by An Post. The company’s chief executive, David McRedmond, said its aim was, where possible, to achieve increases in the fees obtained that it could pass on to them.
Mr Martin said his union wanted to see more services provided through local post offices and it believed its members could play a valuable role in areas such as updating the register of electors and identity verification.
He suggested postmasters could be become peace commissioners, a move that could free up gardaí from having to sign or witness official forms.
An Post and the Department of Communications support the proposed €5 million increase in annual Government support, the committee heard, with a decision expected in the budget to be announced later this year.
Many committee members expressed support for the increase. Labour’s Alan Kelly, who chairs the committee, said he believed the union was selling itself short with the scale of its request.
Mr McRedmond said many of the more than 800 post offices run by contractors, which were said to be generally more efficient than the 41 directly managed ones, were doing well, but he accepted some were “struggling”.
Asked about the recent decision to sell the post office building in Rathmines, Dublin, one of a number being transferred to contractors, he said it had been offered to the Land Development Agency and to Dublin City Council before the decision had been taken to put it on the open market, but both had declined.
Asked about the terms on which it was offered, he said the LDA had been offered it for “almost no payment”, but would have to check with regard to the discussion with the council, which had viewed the premises before deciding it did not want to take it over.
