> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.dublininquirer.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Maybe people shouldn't be able to collect social welfare at GPO, Arnotts lobbies - URL: https://www.dublininquirer.com/maybe-people-shouldnt-be-able-to-collect-social-welfare-at-gpo-arnotts-lobbies/ - Published: 2026-10-21T00:04:14.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-21T00:04:14.000Z - Description: The company behind the Henry Street department store raised the idea with the man in charge of the regeneration of the city centre, returns show. - Author: Lois Kapila - Tags: city centre, City Desk, Taoiseach’s Taskforce for Dublin The company that owns department store Arnotts has suggested looking at whether people shouldn't be able to collect benefit payments at the General Post Office (GPO) as a way "to reduce anti-social behaviour" in the area, shows a lobbying return [filed last month](https://www.lobbying.ie/return/147517/brown-thomas-arnotts-limited?ref=dublininquirer.com). Mark Limby, the operations director at Brown Thomas Arnotts Limited, emailed the idea over the summer to Robert Watt, the recently appointed head of Dublin City Council's Project Management Unit, a team set up to "regenerate the city centre". The unit is expected to morph into a council-owned "special purpose vehicle" later this year, and continue rolling out the big recommendations made by the government's Dublin City Taskforce in October 2024 – including [the](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28824406-building-momentum-reporting-progress-on-the-roadmap-for-delivery-of-the-dublin-city-taskforce-ud/?ref=dublininquirer.com) [redevelopment of the GPO](https://www.dublininquirer.com/office-of-public-works-starts-ball-rolling-on-gpo-redevelopment/). "It's quite concerning," said Rebecca Gorman, head of policy and media at the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU), of Arnotts' input. People who are receiving social-welfare benefits shouldn't be conflated with those engaged in anti-social behaviour, she said, on Tuesday. "People should be treated with dignity." Dublin City Council hasn't replied to a query sent on Monday asking what Watt's, and the council's, response to the suggestion had been, and what other possible measures were suggested or discussed. A spokesperson for Arnotts, which has its store on Henry Street, said, "We want O’Connell Street and the surrounding area to be safe and welcoming for everyone who uses it, including people accessing public services." "As part of our engagement with the Dublin City Centre Taskforce, we discussed a number of topics, including the use of the GPO for social welfare payments," they said. "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," said the spokesperson. "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," they said. On Monday, a spokesperson for An Post said that the suggestion hadn't been passed to it. But "the distribution and processing of payments from the Department of Social Protection is an integral and valued function of the post office network, including the GPO, and of the service it provides to customers and communities", said the An Post spokesperson. ## **The future of O'Connell Street** In June, a statement from the Office of Public Works (OPW) [said that](https://web.archive.org/web/20261020132916/https://www.gov.ie/en/office-of-public-works/press-releases/process-to-redevelop-dublins-iconic-general-post-office-complex-agreed-by-government/) the government had agreed a process for how it would go about redeveloping the GPO complex. The OPW would prepare design proposals for its future use, it said, which would be approved by government. Before that, it'll hold a "wide-ranging public consultation process". As part of that consultation and engagement process, the OPW "intends to bring some of the, presently, under-used parts of the current GPO Complex into use on a temporary basis". That "meanwhile use" is to provide office space to government, and community and events space, it says. Building on all that, the statement said, it is anticipated that the future complex will include "at least some, or all" of the following: a public post office, culture uses, better public realm, government offices, and retail. Nial Ring, an independent councillor who sits on the advisory board set up to guide the work of the Project Management Unit – and, once it is set up, the SPV – said that his understanding is that at all stages there will still be a post office in the GPO. And, that the post office will offer all of its existing services, Ring said. Arnotts' thoughts on the future use of the GPO, and restricting collection of benefits at the GPO counters, haven't been floated to the advisory board, he said. "To be honest, I would be appalled if that did come in front of us. I'd be totally opposed to that," Ring said. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9f/78/9f782dda-9dc9-44d1-b817-fe80588bdc76/content/images/2026/10/History-and-the-GPO.JPG) A plaque at the GPO. Photo by Lois Kapila. Ring has a particular affinity for the GPO, he said. Not just because his grandfather and grandfathers' brothers fought as part of the GPO Garrison in 1916\. His grandfather was also a master carpenter in the Board of Works, who later helped to rebuild the GPO, he says. "Making those counters." ## **At the GPO** At a little after midday on Tuesday, Ken O'Toole stepped through one of the wide doorways of the GPO and back out onto O'Connell Street, and into a patch of bright October sunshine. He walks over from Talbot Street to collect his pension, he says, and he doesn't see how the post office services, and what happens at the GPO, are any business of Arnotts. "The GPO is not for Arnotts. It's for all of the people," says O'Toole, firmly. It always has been, he says. Arnotts should know he has an account with them too, he said, as he walked away. The spokesperson for Arnotts said they only asked that the GPO's use as a social-welfare payment centre be considered. "It is not for Arnotts to determine where or how social welfare services are delivered; that is rightly 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,” they said. Gorman, head of policy and media at the INOU, said that those who have concerns about anti-social behaviour should talk to communities affected. The focus should be on considerations of the kind laid out [in the recent](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28824594-sl-south-west-inner-city-report/?ref=dublininquirer.com) *Socioeconomic Analysis of Dublin's South West Inner City*, she said, and progress on poverty. "People who need the day-to-day activities of living, they shouldn't be deprioritised for profits," she said.