Rural post offices are being phased out and the Government does not support them, local postmistresses have said this week.
Patsy Walsh, postmistress at Shanballymore, said rural post offices are being phased out and moved to areas such as shopping centres where there is a larger volume of people.
“The Government are not backing us, they are just shifting us from one TD to another. They are making it harder. They do not want the smaller post office, they only want them in big towns and nothing else,” she said.
The postmistress of 20 years at Shanballymore added that increased technology and online banking has also played a part in the decline of rural post offices.
The decreasing number of people collecting social welfare and children’s allowance, along with less people paying their bills through post offices, has had a negative effect on them.
“People will be talking about the post office when it is gone; if you don’t use it, you lose it,” she said.
SOCIAL IMPORTANCE
Meanwhile, postmistress at Glanworth Post Office, Bernadette Flynn, said rural post offices are ‘up against it’.
“In Glanworth, if the post office goes, the shop will go with it and there will be no shop in the village,” she said.
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