A closed Post Office in Ballybay, Co Monaghan
The public is up in arms over the closure of post offices.
Our village once had three pubs, two groceries, a butcher, a Garda station and a post office, and all this before a huge speculative building spree of new houses and an increase in population. We now are down to one pub and a hotel catering for passing traffic.
What the closed businesses did not have was the loyalty or custom of the locals. Businesses need support year round if they are to survive, and it is useless and too late to kick up a fuss when the harm is done.
John K Rogers,
Rathowen,
Co Westmeath.
Closure of post offices (Irish Times letters page)
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“The public is up in arms over the closure of post offices….”
No i’m not.
You are everyone?
Tossers don’t count Jake…
Well you’re not in the demographics that uses Post Offices I’d say Jake. Tis all electra-matronic mails with ye young whipper snappers and online banking. But how about the 82 year old widow that can’t walk that far who collects her pension every Friday and now is told to go to another Post Office 8km away but she’s no car or no bus route.
She won’t be around much longer, so it won’t bother her.
Well force her to have it paid into her account and let her use a card.
same as the bus route changes.
NTA: we are changing/removing this bus route
People: no, you can’t, what will we do for transport
NTA: nobody uses the route, there’s an average of 3 people per bus on each journey
People: so what, you can’t do this, this is a disgrace
exactly
There appears to be a sleight-of-hand at play here. My local post office is one of those scheduled to close. However, it isn’t closing due to lack of business. The lady running it was given a choice – take retirement and a payoff/redundancy or stay open with a new arrangement on a contract basis, together with sales targets for such services as insurance, mobile phones & credit card sales. Should the branch be closed at some point in the future due to her failure to meet sales targets, no redundancy payment would be on offer.
Unfortunately, she felt that she had no real alternative to the first option.
Agreed, I heard the same thing. I’m doing some work with An Post at the moment and they are, by far, the single most inefficient and mismanaged company I have ever come across. To get any decision from them takes weeks.
Excellent point. And of course this wasn’t properly explained or covered by the media at the time – or not on any source I am aware of. Pah!
I want broadband not post offices
Tell us something we don’t know. Local business cannot compete with 1) Supermarkets 2) online shopping – The Post Office is an horrible service, prices to send anything outside of Ireland is scandalously priced and the times of deliveries run in weeks rather than days. Obvious fall is obvious fall, feel sorry for the older people using those Post Office or indeed local businesses but with the cost of leaving people simply cant afford that loyalty which really was more of a “no choice” in the past.
What are we supposed to do, post a bunch of superfluous parcels because we feel bad for the post office?
Businesses close down through a lack of customers. Why did the grocers close down – no customers. An Post is a different issue perhaps, but when is the last time you sent a letter?
I sent 3, THREE to India recently ( staggered naturally)) andt one of the feckers have arrived,
yesterday I got someone else’s AIB statement which I opened thinking it was mine and nearly had a heart attack when I saw the balance
and not one*
Don’t people normally post letters via a letter box, and not the post office?
Tearing communities apart is not a rural specialty. Look at Dublin. Places like Stoneybatter. Ringsend.
Loneliness: as lethal as smoking 40 a day for shortening your life.