BY MARK McKELVEY
There will be widespread consequences with the further deterioration of the community if the mass Post Office closures are allowed to proceed according to concerned local community representatives.
It was stated that this proposal is an attack on the elderly and most vulnerable members of society, as it is those sections of the community who will suffer most if the 20 Post Offices earmarked for closure in Tyrone go ahead after the six week consultation period.
Beragh resident, Paddy Joe McClean who is Chairperson of the Sperrin Lakeland Senior Citizens Consortium that represents 75 organised elderly groups across Tyrone and Fermanagh, said that the elderly are deeply annoyed at changes like this when their familiar surroundings change.
Commenting on this loss to the community, PJ McClean says this has simply added further to the disintegration of the rural way of life.
He said, "The advent of the giro going directly into banks, e-mail and parcel post has taken away from the Post Office the biggest part of their business, and now we are in the hard world of commerce and progress and that is not all to our advantage.
"What we are actually talking about, is loss of community, which fits in with the closure of small schools, the loss of the bread van and grocery cart. All of those things that made up the small community are disappearing and is affecting everyone.
"You can't whistle back the wind, what we have to do is construct a new sense of community. A community where older peoples needs will be looked after, with people keeping an eye out for the elderly, creating safety in the community and at home. Also that in rural areas to ensure the elderly are not excluded or isolated from the rest of the community.
"The older people are losing the sense of community and meeting place if the Post Offices are allowed to close."
Also conveying how these closures hit the vulnerable, spokesperson for the Omagh Trade Union Council, Olive Wylie commented that there doesn't seem to have been much forethought in how this affects the staff facing redundancy.
"We are deeply concerned by this. These Post Offices provide a very important service for communities and we would think that these proposals will hit the most vulnerable people in society," she said. "There are a lot of people that do not have access to cars as well as the elderly and benefit dependant and those people will be deeply affected by this.
"We would have concerns about the impact this will have on the staff of the Post Offices, particularly as we are talking about those working in small work places and are now finding themselves in a redundancy situation. These are often people that have served their communities very well for a very long time.
