Danny Healy-Rae urges payments to stay with rural post offices
Danny Healy-Rae spoke about the steady loss of rural post offices and urged government action to keep them open. He argued that state payments such as pensions and children's allowance should be directed to local post offices rather than banks to preserve village services.
Post office losses in local communities
Danny Healy-Rae listed closures around his area, citing Lankine, Headford, Blackwater, Blackwater Bridge and a recent loss in Coral. He said post offices are often the last remaining village service and central meeting point for local people.
Personal memories and local tradition
He recalled former local postmasters in Kilgarland, naming Dennis P.O. Sullivan, John Sending, Bridie Cronin and James Cronin, and related a telegram anecdote passed down in his family. He described the Coral post office as a family-run service with deep local roots that has now closed.
Policy proposal - payments through post offices
He urged that the government should insist on routing more payments through post offices instead of banks, arguing this would keep business in rural post offices. He noted that many villages no longer have banks and that directing pensions and children's allowances to post offices would help sustain them.
Appeal to communities and local examples
He praised the work of local post offices in Kilgavin, Kilmer and Glenfleisch and appealed to communities to keep using their post offices, warning that "you won't have it if you don't." He stressed the role post offices play for elderly people and for preserving village identity.
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I too like every other member here appreciate our post office network and I suppose we're sad when we think of so many post offices that have closed around us back over the years. And I too remember our previous postmaster in Kilgarland, Dennis P.O. Sullivan, his brother John Sending, before that there was Bridie Cronin and James Cronin and she used to send her brother out with the telegrams and I remember a story that my uncles had, they met him one day going up the road with a telegram. They knew he had a telegram and he asked him, have I much further to go? But where are you going James? Mind your own business, he said, well they tell me, have I found more to go? That's all secret if he was supposed to remain about the telegram but he still wanted to know, had he found more to go? But that's one of the happier stories of happier times. Look we've lost Lankine Post Office very close to me, we've lost Headford Post Office and Blackwater and Blackwater Bridge and different places. They are invariably the centre of each locality and they are invariably the centre of each locality and if the post office is in there, they lose their identity. I mean, we have so much trouble now, so many shops closing down in rural areas and rural villages, there's nothing left, only the post office. And we hope that certainly that we'll retain ours in Kilgavin and Kilmer and Glenfleisch, the ones, and we appreciate the great work they do. We think that government should insist on sending more payments and making people, you know, advise people, rather than letting them go to the banks. We've done enough for the banks, that payments should be directed all the time to post offices to ensure, to keep the business in the post office and not to be sending it elsewhere into the bigger tolls because we don't have banks in villages anymore or smaller places. So, to be very important, something, and like everyone else has said, it's up to the people themselves to use the post office and keep using it because you won't have it if you don't. People can't survive. We lost another post office a couple of weeks ago there in Coral and a family that gave great service to Derry. The man, this man, this man is a senior citizen now, but his father retired out of it many years ago and he carried it on. So, it's a tradition, it's a name lost in Coral, the post office is closed, and we're sad about that because it's a great place for people to meet, and elderly people feel like it's their job. We must go for the pension or whatever it is, and likewise, the children's allowance and all that, that's where it should be paid off. Thank you very much. And now I call on Deputy.
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