Tag: Republic of Ireland

The price of a stamp will rise by 7c tomorrow, and the bad news for consumers is that a further hike is also on the way.

A regular stamp is going up from 48c to 55c in what An Post dubbed an “interim increase” to be followed by another one in 2008. Tomorrow’s price hike was the first since 2003, and the company will seek another price rise next year to improve the quality of service, such as next-day delivery rates, a spokesperson said.

The regulator ComReg has ordered An Post to supply full accounting details of its services later this year and to review its prices based on that data.

ComReg said tomorrow’s price increases were less than the rate of inflation, as prices generally had increased by 11pc since the last stamp price increase in August 2003.

From tomorrow, letters up to 100g will be covered by the 55c rate – previously the standard charge only applied up to a limit of 50g, so the cost of posting an item between 50 and 100g will fall from 60c to 55c.

Discount

Business customers will receive a discount of 1c per item when they use meter franking machines or the permit system, making the cost of posting a standard letter 54c.

An Post said that they had been faced with significant cost increases since the last postal hike, as their wage bill alone had increased by 20m because of national partnership wage increases, while fuel costs had also soared.

The company is also facing the threat of having their most lucrative business cherrypicked away from them when postal services across Europe are liberalised in 2009.

The measures announced recently by EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy will be debated at a seminar in Dublin tomorrow – organised by postal trade unions, with Communications Minister Noel Dempsey highlighting the challenges this will bring.

An Post has offered to pay euro12 million to its 1,300 postmasters as part of a move to end a long-running stand-off with the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) over pay and the future of the post office network

Two working parties will also be set up – one to look at the viability and make-up of the post office network and the other to examine a long-term pay deal for IPU members. Both are expected to produce recommendations by the end of the year.

An RTÉ report yesterday suggested that about 500 post offices could close under the restructuring plan.

However, An Post and the IPU said that no figure had been placed on how many post offices might close. This would not be decided until the working group had issued its report, they added.

At present, An Post owns and directly runs about 80 post offices around the country. Another 1,300 are operated under licence by members of the IPU.

It is understood that the viability of each post office will be scrutinised. The IPU had previously warned that 300-400 post offices could close in the next few years if its members were not paid more by the State-owned postal service.

Since 2001, about 450 post offices have shut, according to the IPU.

It is understood that a deadline of February 28th has been set for a deal to be reached on these proposals.

Minister for Communications, Marine & Natural resources, Noel Dempsey, has tabled plans to introduce some form of standard postcodes by 2008. Recommendations due soon from the National Postcode Project Board (NPPB) are expected to set out the format of the proposed codes which are being designed to improve efficiencies in sorting mail, and are also seen as facilitating the entry of new players into the Irish postal market if it is liberalised in the future.

Lynch is aiming to publicise bespoke address management software called Quick Address-Pro from Experian subsidiary QAS. He belives the nature of Irish postal communications — whereby companies often use a separate address from their ‘official’ one — could cause mayhem during the changeover expected next year.

“When postcodes are introduced in Ireland, a standardised postal address will be provided to every building in the state. However in Ireland, many people tend to use a ‘preferred’ address rather than their official address, particularly where it is perceived to have an impact on property values. While postcoding should deliver a more efficient mail service by establishing a national standardised address system, its immediate introduction may lead to confusion and delays in matching a customer’s previous or preferred address to their new standardised address,” he explained.

Experian is pushing its Quick Address-Pro package as a solution as it is designed to overcome this problem by taking an address and comparing it against a GeoDirectory file, jointly developed by An Post, the Ordnance Survey and Experian’s own PostAim data. The file should return both the official postal address and the ‘resident preferred’ address.

James Kennedy is a director of CRM Ireland which offers consultancy on customer relationship management (CRM) software. Speaking with ENN, Kennedy said the possible introduction of postcodes was a “massive opportunity” for software makers and vendors who specialise in customer contact solutions.