Vol. 421 No. 9
88 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if she will outline the plans, if any, she has for the expansion and development of the postal service; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
My objective is that An Post is in a position to provide an efficient and cost effective postal system, with capacity to adapt to changing customer requirements and to generate adequate revenue to fund the necessary capital investment.
As the House is aware, An Post is in serious financial difficulty and the company have drawn up cost-saving measures to reverse their loss-making. Some of these measures have already been introduced and the company are negotiating with the unions on further such measures. The first priority of An Post is, therefore, to restore the company to financial health.
Notwithstanding its financial problems An Post are making good progress in their modernisation and development plans. The company are providing a new national mails sorting centre in Dublin to replace the existing unsatisfactory building at Sheriff Street. The new centre will provide automation and computerisation of letter sorting through the use of optical character readers and video encoding techniques. New delivery and mail collection centres have been completed by An Post in Dublin 1 and 2 postal districts and await occupation. In addition, the company will continue to introduce new mail products where customer needs so require.
