Tag: Republic of Ireland

Minister for Social Affairs Seamus Brennan has said An Post will have to greatly improve its services if it is to keep its social welfare payments business. Mr Brennan said his department had “held off” on promoting electronic-transfer payments for social welfare recipients where they can have payments made directly to their bank account through the electronic transfer fund (ETF) system. He said that 31 per cent of social welfare recipients availed of this service, 11 per cent were paid via cheque and the remaining 58 per cent received their payments in cash through post offices. He had held meetings with An Post, along with Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey, during which he stressed that changes were needed.

An Post has agreed to lift a pay freeze and pay part of the national wage deal to its workers – but the four postal unions have rejected the proposed compromise. After 18 months of growing bitterness, union chiefs cannot persuade their members and post office pensioners to settle for a partial increase.
Both sides were at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) yesterday to give their responses to a suggestion by two independent assessors that the company, which had pleaded inability to pay, increase wages by 5pc. The full Sustaining Progress pay deal is worth over 13pc cumulative and the 8.1pc balance would be subject to “cost off-setting measures”. As their report is not binding, the issue can now be referred on to the Labour Court. The assessors had recommended the 5pc payment but only back-dated to last January.

The four An Post trade unions yesterday launched a nationwide campaign to outline their vision for a profitable future for the postal service. The ‘Vision for Growth’ blueprint was launched in Cork by the Communications Workers’ Union which publicly rejected what it slated as the “graveyard” scenario outlined by An Post management. CWU general secretary Steve Fitzpatrick said that the postal service has a bright future if specific commitments and changes are made. He warned that the trade unions were now “declaring war” on the doom-and-gloom outlook for the service by both An Post management and the Government.