Freepost survey exposes Irish An Post

Loss making An Post has exploded with rage following Sunday Independent revelations of glaring ineptitude in the policing of its ‘Freepost’ letter system. Despite its fury at being caught out, the bloated semi-State operator has vowed to pull up its socks and try a bit harder.

In a sample test conducted by the Sunday Independent, some 13 of 15 letters posted over the last fortnight arrived at their destination. None had a stamp but all were marked Freepost. This follows revelations that similar abuses of the service are widespread in the UK.

“It is disgraceful that the Sunday Independent should conspire to defraud An Post of postal revenue and to present such dishonesty under the guise of investigative journalism,” fumed the loss-making semi-State.

“Systems to check Freepost mail at delivery offices evidently failed on this occasion but as a result of the Sunday Independent bringing this issue to our attention, more stringent checks will be put in place to ensure that un-licensed Freepost mail is returned to sender.”

The Sunday Independent posted 15 envelopes to a variety of addresses in Dublin. None of the addresses or businesses to which the letters were sent held a Freepost licence. The letters were sent to both residential and business addresses and were posted at a number of locations around Dublin city centre. All of the letters arrived with the tell-tale orange marking codes indicating that it had passed through the post operators’ sorting system.

One piece of good news for An Post, was that well over half of the letters arrived the next day. An Post delivered 87 per cent of its letters on the day after posting last year. However, one of our Freepost letters took almost 10 days to reach its destination. The Sunday Independent is to send 7.20 to An Post to cover the cost of sending the Freepost letters and exposing the flaws in the system.