Cllrs to appeal to An Post to reverse Austin Friars Street decision

The members of the Municipal District for Mullingar Kinnegad are to ask An Post to reverse its decision to close the post office at Austin Friars Street in Mullingar, and they have agreed also to ask Mullingar Chamber of Commerce to back their call.

Mayor Ken Glynn, who raised the subject for discussion, described the closure of the sub-post office on Austin Friar Street—a location with a long history of service—as a significant and concerning decision. He highlighted that the closure was due to the unavailability of a new postmaster, which was, he said, “amazing” given the size and population of Mullingar and its surrounding areas.

“We cannot have a situation where the people of Mullingar are having a major service taken away and it's absolutely essential that this decision is overturned,” he stated.

Cllr Mick Dollard was also displeased over the closure: “It made me quite angry quite frankly,” he said, adding that all over the weekend there had been no notice put in the post office window stating that the post office had been closed down. He said the service was used by a lot of pensioners and people receiving social welfare.

“The situation is that a lot of people now are going to arrange to get their payments and social protection paid into a bank, which is totally opposite now to what a post really should be doing,” he said, proposing that the Chamber of Commerce be asked to support the District’s call.

“For the life of me, I can't understand why somebody with business acumen hasn't actually taken on the position as a postmaster in that sub-branch,” he added.

Cllr David Jones was also disappointed at the closure, saying that the whole system needs to change to ensure the long-term sustainability of post offices.

“I've met with postmasters in the past. And I understand the struggles they're going through being paid by transaction. The whole system does need to change,” he said, stating that the present system does make it difficult for anyone to take on the running of a post office, since with the pay-per-transaction model, there was no guaranteed wage for the operator.

Cllr Jones added that a lot of older people feel safer going in to a post office to obtain their money than taking it out from an ATM on the street.

Also in favour of Mayor Glynn’s call was Cllr Aoife Davitt, who said a big issue was the fact that clients of the post office were not informed in advance that it was being closed: “They were in disbelief because nobody had written out to them to actually tell them,” she stated, adding that some have said to her that they will now get their payments paid into the bank because of the numbers of people who will now have to go to the post office in Dominick Street.

A further issue, Cllr Davitt added, is the fact that there is just one disabled space on Dominick Street.

Cllr Julie McCourt was also disappointed that the post office had been closed, and that there had been no advance notice

“Our town is over 22,000 people and one post office to service all of those people is just incredible,” she said, while Cllr Denis Leonard compared the impact of the closure of post offices to the closure of local bank branches that had taken place in so many areas. He cited in particular the Bank of Ireland which had closed its Castlepollard, Kinnegad, Moate and Athlone IT branches all in one day.

“The green sign that was over every post office in the country on the main street of every town in the country has been disappearing slowly but surely from Ireland,” he stated.

Cllr Leonard was also critical of the fact that people now felt they had to go to a bank – “the banks that we bailed out, the banks that are now charging a fortune in charges to people to have money in their account and for every single transaction.”

He said there was also a social side to the post office, and that these were not just financial institutions but community services.

Mayor Glynn said that a further impact of the closure was the way it would affect footfall on the street which is so essential for the survival of businesses in an area.

His view was that in its letter to An Post, the district should set out its concerns about the effects this would have on east Mullingar, Cllr Leonard felt the point should also be made that at present, clients can find themselves queuing for as long as half an hour in the Dominick Street Post Office, even just to buy stamps. To introduce extra people into that scenario was simply not good enough, he said.

Director of Services Deirdre Reilly undertook to draw up letters to An Post and to James Bourke of the Chamber of Commerce.