Irish sub-post offices faced with closure
NEARLY 1,300 sub-postmasters trying to secure a 50pc rise in fee-income have been warned that some offices will have to face closure and severance payments.
The Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) conference in Dundalk was told that claims for increases of up to 26m are being considered by an independent assessor appointed by Communications Minister Noel Dempsey.
A former senior executive at An Post, Eamon Ryan is expected to issue his findings within three months. At present An Post pays 52m to its sub-postmasters, 18m of which is part of a transfer it receives from the Department of Social Welfare.
Mr Dempsey told 120 delegates he remained optimistic for the future of An Post and it has “somewhat stabilised its cost base in the past year”, reporting an 16m operating profit for 2005.
“The onus is on all stakeholders to meet the challenge to ensure new value-added business”, he added noting that this would come with the development of a banking link-up with the Belgian Fortis group. They were the preferred partners of the company and of the Government, Mr Dempsey said.
“Fortis has had a deal with the Belgian post office for over ten years and it now has 1.3m customers through a network of 1,300 post-offices. We are very committed to trying to do a deal here which would lead to banking, savings, investment and insurance products and services being available through the An Post network.”
IPU General Secretary John Kane told the conference there was some acceptance by An Post management that the notional 10pc of fees allocated to cover their accommodation costs was too low.
The conference heard that, on average, each employee in a sub-post office handles 120,000 transactions a year.
The IPU has been seeking details of the cost per transaction in the larger post offices operated directly by An Post.
Mr Kane said that he suspects that these transaction costs are much higher.
Delegates spoke of the fear of losing social welfare payment contracts which currently costs the Government 51m a year.
They were told that the transaction charge to the Department of Social Welfare is up to 90c compared with charges of about 20c for payments through banks and ATM machines.
But IPU president Joe McArdle said that he had no doubt that the service provided in every town and village cannot be viewed solely from a commercial perspective.
Gerald Flynn
