Dave McRedmond, chief executive of An Post has warned that a significant number of post offices are facing closure.

Speaking on the Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One, McRedmond said he could not say a specific number but An Post are looking at “a significant number of post offices closing”. The final number will be known in about four weeks, he said.

The confirmation follows reports that a recommendation for the future of An Post is to close around 80 post offices.

This recommendation is from a report by a group, chaired by Bobby Kerr, into devising a future strategy for An Post.

The An Post chief executive also said: “For the postmasters and postmistresses who run them, they are all now in sub-scale businesses because there are too many post offices.”

He went on to say that 70% of the population live within 15km of five post offices each: “That is a huge number of post offices.”

On Tuesday, An Post said in a statement: “We are currently completing the first detailed, in-depth review of the post office network for many years. This review will take into account shifting demographics, the changing marketplace for services and the economics for postmasters. No decisions have been made while this review is ongoing.

“An Post’s intention is to produce a plan for a commercially-viable and self-funded network which will meet the needs of citizens across the State.”

Consolidating services

There are currently 1,130 post offices across Ireland.

Dave McRedmond said of these, 265 aren’t in villages, towns or cities and that “populations have moved away from where post offices are”.

An Post want to consolidate post offices and relocate them to into local shops, he said.

There are currently 9,000 employees at An Post, with McRedmond confirming that closures will lead to redundancies.

An Post has reduced its staffing by around 1,700 in the past decade and will have to reduce quite substantially in the next decade, he added.

”Utterly bewildering”

The news of potential closures was described as “utterly bewildering” by John Comer, ICMSA president, in light of the “fanfare of publicity” when Minister Humphreys launched the Action Plan for Rural Development, “which laid out the Government’s ambitions to halt and reverse the decades of decline and neglect that had characterised successive governments’ attitude towards rural Ireland”.

“We learn that the already skeletal system of rural banking and post offices is to be hacked at again,” he commented.

“There’s a great deal of confusion and disappointment around this news and it’s magnified by the optimism that many of us felt just a few weeks ago when it looks like we were going to see a serious attempt to integrate rural areas into the urban and suburban economies.

“We have to see the Irish State committing to all the citizens regardless of where they live or how far they are from Merrion Street. Only the State can lead in this respect and we really need to see it setting out that positive vision in an unmistakable manner that doesn’t allow for confusion.”

Price of a stamp to rise

Dave McRedmond also revealed the price of stamps are to increase from 72c to €1.

He said the 39% price increase is absolutely necessary and matches the average across the EU.

“The price increase is about setting the right price. The price has been kept artificially low in Ireland and is well below the European average.”

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