40pc of post offices will close if Government does not increase yearly funding, committee hears
On Wednesday, representatives from An Post, the Irish Postmasters Union (IPU), and the Department Communications and Sport will appear before the Communications Committee.
Committee members were told that if Government funding remains at the annual amount of €10 million, many post offices will have to close.
The figure comes after a recent polling of members from the IPU.
'Currently, we have 108 postmasters that when you take all the costs out and are earning less than the minimum wage,' the IPU's Genral Secretary Sandra Tormey said.
'Recently, I polled my members and if the government funding stays the same at €10 million, 40pc will have to close. We've had to absorb 30pc minimum wage increases. We've had to absorb 15pc inflation. We cannot increase our prices to make our businesses viable.
'We cannot avail of any of the supports that the government services gave, because Government deems us services and not retailers,' Ms Tormey added.
The IPU has called on the Government to increase the funding by €5 million annually.
'If the government funding becomes €15 million, 70pc of our postmasters say, 'yes, I can see a future for the next five years. So it's an uplift of €5 million what we're looking for,' Ms Tormey said.
'That's the difference between 40pc of post offices around the country closing to 70pc definitely saying 'we have a future',' she added.
Meanwhile, CEO of An Post David McRedmond denied the claims made by Tipperary South TD Mattie McGrath that An Post was closing post offices 'by stealth'.
Mr McGrath told representatives from An Post that the cost of opening a post office in a local shop was prohibitive, with too much bureaucracy.
'We're not closing by stealth. We do not have a plan to close by stealth. We're not closing by stealth,' Mr McRedmond said.
'We have closed very, very few post offices in the last couple of years. We did a few years ago to strengthen the post office network, we closed 150 post offices in about 2018 and we did that very publicly, and it absolutely strengthened the network,' he added.
The committee also heard how ecommerce is the future of the post network, including second hand selling on websites like Vinted.
'We've a big new cohort of customers now coming in, in terms of the circular economy Vinted is really big part for us. So I think that whole thing of sending parcels, returning parcels, and post offices being at the heart of ecommerce,' Debbie Byrne, An Post's Managing Director of Retail said.
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