Tag: Republic of Ireland

A dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of An Post will be announced later this week. Figures revealed to the Sunday Independent will show that the troubled semi-state firm made an operating profit of EUR16m in 2005. The surprise profits are due to be presented to the Cabinet at its first post-Easter meeting this week. They compare very favourably with a 1.8m operating profit in 2004 and with a loss of 43m in 2003. The figures represent a considerable success for Donal Curtin, the company’s chief executive, who is leaving An Post in June. Mr Curtin took over the company at a time of serious industrial relations problems and severe losses, but will leave it in a relatively healthy financial condition.

The quality of An Post’s service continued to decline for the third straight year, according to a report released yesterday by communications regulator ComReg. Meg Shreve reports.

The survey reported that between January and December 2005 only 73 per cent of single piece priority mail made it to its destination within one working day, missing the 94 per cent target set by ComReg. This was a 1 per cent increase from the previous year. Between October and December 2005, delivery within one business day dropped to 63 per cent, compared with 67 per cent during the same period in 2004.

“ComReg is concerned that quality of service performance is falling well off the target of 94 per cent,” commissioner Mike Byrne said in a statement. “This is the second successive quarter in which An Post’s quality performance for next-day delivery has fallen by 4 per cent by comparison with the corresponding quarters in 2004,” he added.

The European Commission yesterday accused Ireland of illegally giving a contract worth EUR50 million a year to An Post. The contract, which provides for the payment of social welfare benefits to about 1.1 million people, is one of the main sources of revenue for the Irish postal service. At the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg yesterday, the commission alleged that the award of the contract to An Post without a tender breached the EU directive on the procedures for the award of public service contracts. Commission lawyers argued that the contract should have been advertised before being awarded. Private companies may have been in a position to offer the same type of service, they said.