Govt accused of 'kicking the can down the road' on rural post offices
Independent Ireland has criticised the government's strategy in terms of funding rural post offices.
While party leader Michael Collins has welcomed the government’s commitment to increase the amount of funding available to post offices, he said its strategic approach to the future of the network “could be written on the back of a stamp”.
The Cork South-West TD made his remarks in the context of the Postal and Telecommunications Services (Amendment) Bill 2026 which raises the amount the government can make available to An Post for the post office network beyond the current ceiling of €30 million.
In real terms, this will permit the government to provide €15 million each year until 2030.
However, Deputy Collins said that this is an admission from the government that postmasters and postmistresses, particularly those in rural Ireland, have been forced to operate in a “wholly unrealistic, unsustainable and unsupported funding environment for many years”.
He also argued that the funding term of the new Bill, which has a 2030 cut-off point, may be interpreted as a strategy "designed to buy silence" on the issue of major strategic investment in the network for the lifetime of the current government, which is due to end by 2029.
“While postmasters and postmistresses will of course welcome the additional funding, they will also look beyond that to what the government is proposing around long-term reform, infrastructural development and expanded service provision.
"What the government has done instead is to push the problem out to 2030, so it doesn’t have to deal with these issues during its own term.
“It’s too late for Goleen post office, the Durrus post office and Crosshaven post office. But local postmistresses, like Wendy Briscoe, in Schull, or Bridie Reichert, in Ballydehob, will be demanding clarity on all of these issues.”
Deputy Collins said that he has received representations from postal staff in rural communities that they cannot survive on "short‑term patches".
"What government has chosen to do however, is to replace giving them the kind of copper-fastened guarantees they need around expanded services with a funding countdown clock," Collins added.
The Independent Ireland leader has said that only a strategic framework designed to evolve over several decades will prevent further closures.
He said this should include modernised financial supports, expanded government services delivered through the post offices, and a digital plan that strengthens local access rather than replacing it.
