This article is from page 37 of the 2007-05-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 37 JPG
LABOUR Affairs minister, Tony Kil- leen, has expressed his disappoint- ment at An Post’s decision not to re- introduce full services at Kilmaley Post Office.
The minister said that he had re- ceived a letter from An Post which stated: ““We are not aware that the re- cent downgrading of the service has had an undue impact on customers in the area.”
However, according to Mr Killeen, the loss of full services has affected local people and public opinion told him that there was a demand for them
to be re-instated.
‘Nobody wants to lose a vital serv- ice, which is why I can neither under- stand nor agree with An Post’s asser- tion that the downgrading of the post office has had no negative impact on customers in the area,’ he said.
Mr Laurence O’Brien, who took over the running of Kilmaley postal services when the former postmistress retired and the post office was down- eraded, said that the lack of a full service “doesn’t make sense”’.
“If a person is living rurally on their own they might only get a lift into town every few weeks to do their shopping and collect their pension. If
people want to put money in a savings account here we can’t do that. They would have to go to Ennis, which may as well be Timbuktu. If people want to pay their ESB bill we can’t do it. Local businesses can’t even send registered letters or parcels,” he said.
He added that the town has no ATM so there is no facility for withdrawing money between Ennis and Miltown Malbay.
Mr O’Brien said that Kilmaley Post Office had a higher turnover than oth- er small post offices with full services and predicted a huge future demand because planning permission has been granted for over 280 houses locally.
“It seems to me that the Government haven’t thought it out. One man who comes in phrased it perfectly when he said that when we had nothing in Ire- land we had post offices but now with all the money in the country, they are closing them down. It is completely ridiculous.”
Mr Killeen said that he had spoken with the Minister for Communica- tions, Marine and Natural Resources, TD Noel Dempsey, about the situa- wtOyNF
Mr Killeen said that the decision was not “irreversible. It makes perfect business sense to put in place a service that is in demand”.