Management at department store Arnotts has said antisocial behaviour in Dublin city centre could be tackled by ending the use of the nearby GPO as a facility for paying out social welfare entitlements.
The retailer made the suggestion in an email to Robert Watt, the senior civil servant who has been seconded by the Government to the role of Dublin’s regeneration “tsar” and lead the Dublin City Taskforce.
The taskforce is looking at improving the city centre, particularly the O’Connell Street area – known for its long-term antisocial behaviour and dereliction.
As a working post office, the GPO on O’Connell Street pays out social welfare payments in cash to eligible recipients.
The email was sent to Watt by Mark Limby, operations director of Brown Thomas Arnotts Ltd, the company operating the store.
The communication appeared on the Register of Lobbying, which is maintained by the State’s ethics watchdog, the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO).
Brown Thomas and Arnotts, Dublin’s best-known department stores, are both owned by the Selfridges Group.
In a statement, Arnotts management said it had engaged with the taskforce on the use of the GPO for social welfare payments.
“Given the concentration of multiple services at the GPO, we asked that the location for social welfare payments be considered as part of the wider plans for the area,” the company said.
“The GPO is an iconic and historic building and an important tourist destination, and we believe its use is a legitimate question to raise in the context of the taskforce’s work.”
Details of the retailer’s lobbying about the GPO were first reported by Dublin Inquirer.
Arnotts said the use of the GPO for social welfare payments was a matter for the Department of Social Protection and An Post.
“We would expect any such review to be guided first by the practicalities and the impact on the people who rely on these services, ensuring a modern, accessible and dignified setting, with no one disadvantaged in receiving their payments,” Arnotts said.
Most An Post staff have vacated the GPO and moved to new headquarters in the Dublin docklands, but the post office facility remains and is likely to continue there even if other uses are confirmed for the building itself.
The Office of Public Works is preparing a public consultation regarding the future of the building, including the possibility of alternative uses by arts groups.
An Post said it was not aware of the proposal from Arnotts that the GPO cease paying benefits.
“The distribution of Department of Social Protection benefit payments is an integral and valued function of the post office network, including at the GPO, and it is a vital service for customers and local communities,” the post office operator said.
Watt did not respond to a request for comment.
At the start of this month, the former Department of Health secretary-general said north inner-city Dublin had been unfairly burdened with a “large over-concentration” of services for “people on the margins of society”.
He believed services for homeless people, refugees and people with “particular needs” were concentrated in an area around O’Connell Street, “which has been subjected to neglect, a lot of dereliction, a lot of underdeveloped sites and, sadly, a lot of antisocial behaviour”.
Watt told the Irish Planning Institute’s autumn conference that the area was one where a “large number of various services for people on the margins of society have been located and that has contributed to what is, at times, a very difficult situation”.