Athenry - athenry.net

Athenry, Co.Galway, Ireland

Athenry Local News Archive

Proposal to close Post Office greeted with disbelief
The proposal to close the Post Office at Bridge St. has been greeted with disbelief in the area. The plan to replace it with a sub post office attached to an existing business has been very badly received and is seen as a definite down-grading of Athenry by the State sector.
The decision couldn't have come at a stranger time. The population of the area served by the post office is booming, the town alone now home to 3000 people up from 1600 in the mid ninties. Rural areas are experiencing close to the same levels of growth. Thus the plan to downsize the post office looks to be a very short sighted one.
The level of service in a sub post office can never be as good as a stand alone, purpose built finacial office we are used to at present. Queues are the norm on any day, so what a busy day would be like in a sub office at the back of a shop, we can only guess.
There are also the issues of privacy and security of staff and customers to be considered, but none of these seem to matter to to the people who run An Post. The people of Athenry will have to pay the price of poor and unimaginative management by An Post, who's attitude is to cut services to save money instead of looking for new business in the financial services area.
All is not lost yet and even now lobbying of public representatives and complaints to An Post at the proposal may yield something. As of now no new premises has been announced so it may be the situation that no suitable site may be offered.
The plan to close the present post office is seen as a further sign of a lack of commitment to rural towns like Athenry and surely if there is any real interest by the State in spatial planning and balanced growth they should at least maintain their own servcies in rural areas away from the east coast.
At the end of the day, the government is a shareholder in An Post and Athenry is represented by three government ministers.
Time Ministers O'Cuiv, Tracey and Fahy earned the votes we gave them............

Peter Feeney - Chairperson Athenry Community Council