Tully tells Seanad of decline in Kilnaleck services

A DECLINE in the number of services in Kilnaleck was raised by Senator Pauline Tully, who lives three miles away from the village, in the Seanad recently.

Three years ago, she described how Kilnaleck had a branch of the Ulster Bank with an ATM that was available to use at all hours, a branch of Cavan Credit Union and a post office in the town.

“Now there are none of those,” Sen Tully said.

The Cavan-Monaghan senator shared speaking time with two other colleagues who all wanted to highlight the effect An Post’s policy to close 257 of their branches nationwide in the past decade is having in their local areas.

Sen Tully said the post office branch, which closed in Kilnaleck, was one of seven closed in County Cavan.

“The reason given at the time by An Post,” Pauline Tully said, “was there was under 500 people living in the village".

She continued: “It ignored, however, the fact there were 5,000 people living in a 5km hinterland of that village, that there were 40 businesses in and around the village and about the same number within a couple of miles of the village.”

Sen Tully said the result was people are forced to go to one of two nearby towns for postal services and the effect was that those people took their business out of Kilnaleck.

“They were not going to collect their pension or whatever other payment through the post office and then come back into Kilnaleck to do their shopping or say, go for their cup of coffee.

“The whole village suffered as a result and business was lost from the village.”

Sen Tully further quoted a Minister of State for Postal Matters who said post offices have social value.

“He is correct in that, but he should actually respect that,” Pauline Tully said.

She compared Ireland’s policies on post offices to other European countries.

“France invests 270% more in its post office network than we do. Belgium invests 500% and Italy invests 340%.

“We need to learn from those,” Sen Tully said.