2,300 sign petition to Save the Dodsboro Post Office
By Brendan Grehan
THE CAMPAIGN to save Dodsboro Post Office continues as the group “Save Dodsboro Post Office” delivered 2,300 signatures to the CEO of An Post, David McRedmond.
The group also sent a letter to the Minister for Communications, Denis Naughten TD.
Caroline Brady from “Save Dodsboro Post Office” told The Echo: “We have collected 2,300 signatures which have been delivered to the CEO of An Post, David McRedmond. We have also written a letter to Minister Naughten, the Minister for Communications.
"We got a reply from the Minister’s office this morning stating that he will look into the matter for us.”
A number of local politicians have weighed in behind the campaign including TD’s Frances Fitzgerald, John Curran and Gino Kenny and County Councillors, Ruth Nolan, Ed O’Brien, William Lavelle, Liona O’Toole and Danny O’Brien.
In October the current postmaster retires and the local suspicion is that An Post plan to relocate the post office to Supervalu, a 25 minute walk away.
A spokesman for An Post told The Echo: “We have advertised the vacant post office contract here. We are currently working our way through the applicants and their proposals. It is too early to make any comment.”
Ms Brady told The Echo: “A lot of people are very annoyed about this. We had 300 people at our demonstration last week and now 2,300 have signed our petition. There are a lot of elderly people living in the area.
“If they move the post office to Supervalu, it will mean a 25 minute walk each way for people to carry out their business. It is just not realistic. It makes absolutely no sense.”
The possible closure is part of last month’s announcement from An Post that as part of its Post Office Transformation Programme and €50m investment in the Post Office network, 161 postmasters have applied for the Company’s voluntary retirement package, resulting from the recent ground-breaking agreement with the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU).
This will result in the closure of 161 post offices out of a network of 1,111 post offices.
Ms Brady is very critical of An Post management and she feels there is no sense behind closing the post office.
She said: “It’s as if they randomly decided to do this without doing any research or checking with people. An Post have said they will not close any post office where there is a community of 500 people but here we have 2,300 signatures and the post office could still close.”
Ms Brady said that Dodsboro Post Office is a viable business.
She added: “It just makes no sense to move it. We are determined that it stays open.”
