Wheelchair-bound man’s desperate plea to save service

A quadriplegic is pleading with An Post to reverse their decision and reopen Cleggan’s postal agency which has been described as another nail in the coffin for the village.

The sub-post office at Coyne’s in the village closed last Friday after the shop lease changed hands.

Around 70 pensioners and social welfare recipients will no longer have access to their payments in Cleggan, which also has no ATM. They will have to travel the 4km to Claddaghduff – which has no public bus service – or Clifden, which has the nearest cash point and public bus service that takes up to 75 minutes to travel the 11km.

The closure could threaten the very survival of Cleggan’s only shop.

When Joe Rogan took over the lease of Coyne’s a fortnight ago, he believed it included the postal agency, which is vital to attract regular customers from as far afield as Inishbofin and the surrounding hinterland at least 10km away.

The footpaths leading to the shop had all been modified for one of those customers, Marty Coyne, who lives just across the road.

He uses a chin stick to get around in his wheelchair but is otherwise totally dependent on round-the-clock carers. Collecting his disability benefit himself is one of the few things he can do unaided.

“It’s going to cause such an inconvenience for me and all the pensioners who don’t have a car and rely on this service – all for the sake of a paltry amount of money that An Post are saving; they’re not even paying a postmaster’s salary,” exclaimed Marty.

“My sister has power of attorney but she’s a widow who doesn’t drive. I would have to get a neighbour to drive me to Claddaghduff and back. I could give my carers my PIN but it’s not something I really feel comfortable about doing. It’s awful inconvenient.”

The post office was downgraded to an agency six years ago after four decades of serving the people.

An Post said the contract ended with the previous shopkeeper, Geraldine O’Toole, who decided to move. There were no plans to renew it with the new leasee.

“Postal agencies are essentially for paying out social welfare. It’s not a post office. There are only 140 of them in the country. They’re not part of our network at all. We have a completely automated network of 1,134 post offices around the country and they’re not part of our business model anymore,” said spokesman Angus Laverty.

“DSP [Department of Social Protection] customers have been transferred to Claddaghduff Post Office. If there are other post offices in the vicinity which would better suit customers that transfer can be arranged. In this case obviously we regret any inconvenience to customers and we will do what we can to offset that.”

However local resident and photographer Heather Greer who set up the local information website, said villagers felt this was another nail in the coffin for Cleggan – and all to save a couple of thousand euro at most a year.

“Cleggan has been an embattled village for some years.  It has suffered badly from its roads and harbour area being completely clogged with cars and camper vans parked willy-nilly while their occupants catch the ferry for holidays to the nearby island of Inisbofin.

“Its national school is almost every year in danger of closure or being downgraded, due to numbers falling below the magical figure of 20. The people of Cleggan and its environs feel the very existence of their village is under threat as a viable place in which to live.”

The new shopkeeper Joe Rogan who runs a shop in Renvyle has invested a considerable amount to install a butcher counter and revamp Coyne’s. He is now worried the business is unviable without the postal agency. Pleas to An Post to renew the contract have gone unanswered.

“It’s a disaster. I knew it would be a hard slog to get it up and running – the postal agency was a necessity as you know people would come in for their pensions on a Friday and you have tourists coming in looking for stamps and buying postcards,” he explained.

“I wouldn’t get any money really for providing the service, a very minimal amount per transaction, but it’s a big service to the people and it brings them into the shop and the village.”

Marty insists that the post office is a vital service for those without their own transport.

“I would like somebody from An Post to ring and explain to me the decision made by some faceless person in an office in Dublin – what would they think if they had a son or daughter, sister or brother in the same position?”