In 2021, the postmaster in Mount Merrion in the Stillorgan local area closed. It is a familiar story. The postmaster was moving on, An Post advertised and nobody stepped up to take on the role. We were lucky in the community to have two other local post offices a 25- or 30-minute walk away. Last month, one of those closed. It was the same story. The postmaster moved on, it was advertised but nobody took on the role. We are still quite lucky as we have one local post office. This one is in Stillorgan village. The village introduced paid parking before Christmas for the first time and from the first hour. One local said to me that has effectively increased the cost of your first stamp by 25% year on year. We know that is not how pricing works but it shows how people look at pricing. They looked at this as having increased the price of a cup of coffee or litre of milk if they drive to Stillorgan village. People have started to avoid it and trade is down by up to 40% by some measures. My concern is whether that will end up affecting the post office. Could we end up losing that post office? Is it economically viable? After that, we do not have a local post office serving a community of over 10,000 people. The nearest are a 40-minute or 60-minute walk, which is not realistic for most people. We are looking at people driving out of the community to avail of a basic service. We seem to have Government policies that are at odds. One policy is encouraging people, particularly in urban areas, to live, work, socialise and avail of services in the local community, while another arm of the Government is removing the very services we need to keep us in our local communities. I ask the Minister of State and An Post what we are doing to maintain our urban postal networks, so we can continue to work, live and socialise in local communities.

Sentiment score: 0.07