Postmasters who lose their jobs when the new round of rural post offices around the country close will receive a retirement package worth an average of €50,000, An Post has said.
The postal company announced on Thursday that it would be closing 161 post offices as part of a voluntary retirement scheme. The closures will reduce the post office network from 1,111 outlets to 950.
Speaking on Friday morning, An Post chief executive David McRedmond revealed that the cost of laying off 161 postmasters would come to €8 million.
Mr McRedmond defended the postal body’s decision to close so many outlets, saying the move was about “strengthening the post office network”.
He said postmasters had done a “great service to their communities” and underlined that the redundancy scheme was “entirely voluntary”.
Mr McRedmond told RTÉ's Today with Miriam programme that the question of where people would collect their pensions once offices closed would be thoroughly examined.
He added that changes within the company had resulted in a profit of €8 million for the semi-State company last year.
“We have to make a profit so we’re sustainable,” he said. “We’re really confident about the future.”
Debbie Byrne, managing director of An Post retail, told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that the company was in the process of contacting all postmasters who applied for the redundancy to ensure they still wanted to avail of the deal.
She said postmasters had until January 31st 2019 to make a final decision on the package but added that the first group would leave their posts in the coming weeks.
Some packages could be as low as €4,000 - €5,000 while others could reach €80,000 depending on a person’s length of service, she said.
“Our commitment was that every community of 500 people would have at least one post office within a 15km radius so in terms of our coverage commitments that’s been maintained,” she said.
Mr Byrne said An Post would release an “exact list” of affected post offices at the end of August, saying the company wanted to “respect people’s privacy and contracts”. Her comments follow the leak of a list on Thursday which contained the names of 110 affected communities.
“The reason why we’re not coming out with exact numbers is that we’ve heard from a handful of people that they may change their mind. Out of respect to people we will wait to confirm that.”
A spokeswoman for An Post said the company needed to ensure all customer transactions had been transferred to a neighbouring office before the names of affected post offices were released. She said the number of closures was nothing when compared with the figures that “scaremongers have been predicting in recent years”.
“Fact is that we have to have offices in places where there are customers and where customers are choosing to do their financial and Government business,” she said.
The voluntary retirement deal follows lengthy negotiations between the State postal service and the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU).
In May, the IPU passed a ballot to support a new plan for the post office network, with the support of 80 per cent of members. The voluntary retirement package was included as part of that overall future plan with 161 postmasters applying for it.
In a statement released on Thursday, An Post said the company was in agreement with the IPU and postmasters that consolidating the network and “the subsequent transfer of business to neighbouring offices, is essential to the sustainability of the overall network.”
The semi-State company said it would stand by commitments that communities with populations of over 500 people would have a post office, and 95 per cent of the population would always be within 15km of at least one post office. There were no plans to close any post offices based on island communities, An Post said.
“To meet the above coverage commitments, An Post will also publish at the end of August a target list of new post office locations,” a spokeswoman said.
The restructuring is part of a wider €50 million investment programme for the postal network.
In areas where post offices will be closing, local shops will provide some services such as stamps, bill payments, mobile-top ups and television licence renewal through a PostPoint counter facility, the company said.
