This article is from page 18 of the 2014-07-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
THE Government has been accused of treating rural Clare like a game of Jenga – and dismantling it one block at a time.
The comment was made by former Fine Gael councillor Ian Lynch (IND), while speaking on a motion regarding possible changes to the way in which social welfare is paid, which could put the future of dozen of Clare post offices in jeopardy.
The motion, which was put forward by Cllr Bill Chambers (FF), is seeking to prevent the Government from passing the new Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, which, if adopted, would remove An Post as the designated payment services provider for Social Welfare benefits.
“If this bill goes through Dáil Éireann, something like 500 post offices will be under threat and I would like to think that that won’t happen,” said Cllr Chambers.
Speaking on the motion Cllr Lynch told the Government to “back off” and stop threatening rural services.
“They are playing a game of Jenga with rural Ireland. They’re pulling out the blocks one by one and it’s time we told the Government to back off,” said the former Mayor of Kilrush.
The motions comes as discussion are ongoing about the future of the Cratloe Post Office with a number of other Clare post offices understood to be under threat.
“They are trying to close down a post office in our area at the moment. It will have a devastating effects on our community,” said Cllr PJ Ryan (Ind).
“It seem that someone up in Dublin just makes a decision to close down a post office and does not have any consideration with the local community at all.”
The future of Cratloe Post Offices is set to be decided in the coming weeks. A local group made a submission to an post 10 days ago and are awaiting a response from the company.