“Parents paying fees due for the Junior and Leaving Cert and other State Bills should be able to make those payments at Post Offices and not be required to go to a Bank”.
That’s the view today of Independent TD for Roscommon/Galway Michael Fitzmaurice.
Michael Fitzmaurice says that enabling such payments would give a great boost to the Post Office network. “The whole area of the future of the Post Office network is very much in the news and with that in mind it is incredible to realise that in 2017 the fees for the state examinations cannot be paid though a Post Office or a credit union. When the plan for new business being introduced into Post Offices is being drawn up, this would certainly be one way to improving the service. It makes no sense that people, particularly in rural areas that may not have transport have to go to a bank to make those payments”.
“This is one of many things we can do to improve the service available from post offices. I was talking to another person today who tells me that if you want to become an Irish citizen the first payment is for €175 and a postal order is not acceptable which is unbelievable. We are talking about trying to save the Post Office network while at the same time we are preventing them from doing other business. It may be worthwhile for people to come up with ideas of increasing revenue for post offices and make them public. All those ideas should be fed into the plan so we have a viable sector going forward” he concluded.