Search Results for 'post office network'

The increasing move towards electronic billing and payment and the fall of stamp sales has put the post office network “under huge pressure”, but is not an argument for post office closures.

“A victory for the local community” is how the keeping open of the Barnaderg Post Office is being described. However there are concerns this only applies for the next 12 months.

Post offices in rural Galway should not be threatened with closure over Government plans to relpace ‘An Post’ with the term “payment service provider” in the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill.

Of all the towns in Ireland the recession hit Gort the hardest, falling from the top 10 per cent in 2002 to the bottom 10 per cent by 2011, according to a Teagasc supported research conducted by the Commission for the Economic Development or Rural Areas (CEDRA).

There is no Government plan or desire to shut post offices throughout County Galway, but there are still “significant challenges facing An Post”.

The decision by the Department of Social Protection and Minister Joan Burton to award An Post another contract to provide over the counter cash transactions has generated a warning from Vincent Harney, a Westmeath postmaster leader, that this does not remove the serious threat to the long-term future of many post offices in Westmeath.

In a response to recent revelations indicating that up to 400 rural post offices could be facing closure, Deputy Colm Keaveney has remarked that closing these local services could prove detrimental for social and environmental costs. "It is critical that in dealing with our current fiscal difficulties that we remember that the calculation of the cost of any reforms must include external factors such as social or environmental costs. In this case, rural post offices form a vital part in our rural communities and the calculation of the savings from any reform must take the social costs of the closure of post offices into account.”

The Irish Postmasters Union (IPU) today welcomed the new agreement between An Post and AIB that will increase the services available in some local post offices.

Galway East Labour Party TD Colm Keaveney has called on the Government to make full use of the post office network to deliver public services in a cost efficient manner.

The community of Aughagower in Westport is in for some good news this week with the reopening of the Aghagower Post Office from Wednesday December 1.