Did you even take 10 seconds to click on the FAQ link provided by Firefly? It's right theredefine oversized item ?
define oversized item ?
local post office/mace shop here had 40 old age pensioners collecting 3 years ago . they now have 6 that collect = nuff said .
You can have it paid directly into your bank or post office account. Why would anyone go and queue up to collect it?But why is this. It seems unlikely that the number dying exceeds the number newly retired by so much. Could it be that the PO is so badly run that people are choosing other options to collect their pensions.
You can have it paid directly into your bank or post office account. Why would anyone go and queue up to collect it?
That's the Pub you're thinking of.Because the Post Office is the "heart of the community", "it affords a chance for people to get together", "its the lynch pin of rural Ireland".
It also offers a broad range or services that attract people in for other reasons.
Or perhaps its a dinghy room with a floor that hasn't been swept in years.
Where else would you hear about Bridie's daughter being up the duff?You can have it paid directly into your bank or post office account. Why would anyone go and queue up to collect it?
You can have it paid directly into your bank or post office account. Why would anyone go and queue up to collect it?
The State can't be responsible for providing access to a high level of services for everyone living in sparsely populated areas of rural Ireland. The cost per head of providing what is there at the moment is already massive (remember the figure that there is €90 spent on local services per head of population in Leitrim for every €1 spent in Dublin?).My 90 yr old mother still queues up to get it. She's not capable of using an ATM due to arthritis and she's get's treated like a civilized human being in her post office as opposed to being treated like a nuisance by Bank of Ireland.
Also, especially with banks closing offices, a lot of people in rural Ireland simply don't have access to either a bank or an ATM (nearest one to my home village is 6 miles away) and as for trying to do online banking in rural Ireland with the standard of broadband we have, it would be faster to walk to town.
The State can't be responsible for providing access to a high level of services for everyone living in sparsely populated areas of rural Ireland. The cost per head of providing what is there at the moment is already massive (remember the figure that there is €90 spent on local services per head of population in Leitrim for every €1 spent in Dublin?).
As for access to ATM's, it would be cheaper for the State to subsidise the provision of ATM's in local shops than keep Post Offices open. The bottom line is that fewer and fewer people need Post Offices and therefore the provision of them is getting more and more expensive.
Would it be cheaper to provide a minibus service for people like your mother which can bring then into a local town or village one of two days a week so that they can access services, go to the shops etc?
My own Grandmother, who lived in Dublin, found if difficult to get to the shops etc so family members took turns to look after her. We could hardly expect the State to do that now, could we?
No that would be a bad idea. We should be encouraging people to live in and within walking distance of villages and we should stop ribbon development, even if it's a family member building on the family farm. The reason our villages are dying is because people want to live in big houses with a big garden at the same cost as a small semi-D in a city and they want someone else to pay for Broadband and sewage and a road up to their front door and electricity and phone coverage. Then they whinge about how long it takes to get to a hospital and how bad the bus service is. This isn't about Dublin and rural Ireland; it's about Rural Ireland screwing itself up. Go to England and look at how little ribbon development there is there. If you want your villages to survive then live in them.Ah, let's all move everyone to Dublin and the big towns where it easier and cheaper to provide services- the old Ceaucescu collectivization argument. That worked out well. Maybe instead we should be encouraging people to move out of the cities to reduce demand for expensive housing and transport infrastructure and that would then reduce the cost of providing services in the Leitrims of this world. After all, a hundred local houses in Leitrim would be far cheaper then in Dun Laoighre.
Great, the rest of us just have to keep subsidising them until they decide to stop being incompetent so.The Post Offices are actually providing more and more services, most of the banks for example now allow people to lodge and pay bills at the Post Office and the banks have used this to partially justify branch closures. Maybe part of the issue here is that some Post Offices are just not very good at marketing their business to their local customers.
The local Post Office also facilitates local enterprise, through my work with the LEO's I can think of a couple of small start ups who would have additional challenges and costs if their local post office closed.
Them's the breaks when you live in a sparsely populated area. It's also why I suggested that it could be cheaper to provide a minibus service a few times a week. That is if there is no family willing to help her.And as for looking after the elderly, my mother has the free bus pass but can't use it as there are no buses.
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