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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Nov 1982

Vol. 99 No. 3

Adjournment Matter. - Overseas Postal Packages.

The matter I wish to raise concerns the unreasonable delay in the entry of packages to this country by post from overseas. The information I am working on comes from large institutions who receive many such packages every day, often to libraries, laboratories and so on. There is a large volume of package post coming in from overseas and there has been a drastic slow down in the entry of them, and this has coincided to a large extent with the imposition of VAT at the point of entry. It is too much of a coincidence that this has happened not to connect up the two. There seems to be some haphazard and random method for dealing with VAT on packages at the point of entry. Whether they are being dealt with or not, whether they are being categorised correctly or not, I am here to protest at the undue delays which have been taking place recently in package post from overseas.

I hope the Minister of State can give some explanation for this delay. His predecessor in June 1978, when I raised a related problem — the problem on that occasion was the delay in the Anglo-Irish post, not just packages, all the Anglo-Irish post was delayed — gave a most enlightening explanation: the delay in Anglo-Irish post on that occasion was due to problems in the tomato industry. The Minister of State may recall what the problems were, the contract for Anglo-Irish post involved sharing a plane with a tomato-grower. There was one-fifth of a plane load per night of post going from Dublin to Britain and the tomato-grower took four-fifths of the load. The tomato-grower got into some sort of trouble and was not going to hire the plane any more. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs did not have enough mail and the planehire operation went wrong, and that was the reason for the postal delays as given by the Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, Mr. T. J. Fitzpatrick, on the Adjournment on 7 June 1978, as reported at columns 677, 678 and 679 of the Seanad Official Report.

There is some administrative problem which is currently holding up packages and their postal delivery. I believe it is in some way connected with the administration of the system of VAT at the point of entry, but that is only a surmise. I do not know. On the occasion that I raised a similar problem in 1978 the Minister of State said we had one of the finest postal services in the world but recently when reading some diaries of a relative who lived in East Cork 100 years ago I learned that in that area 100 years ago there was a postal delivery daily including Sundays and Christmas Day. If one posted a letter in East Cork early in the day one could be sure, in 1881, it would be delivered in London the following evening. We may have one of the finest postal systems in the world but it has not greatly improved since 1881 in that respect. What we know is that the volume of mail has increased. There have been difficulties of certain types in administration and I have the greatest sympathy with the Minister, and his officials, who are trying to deal with these. One of the things that worries me when I have to criticise an essential service such as the post is that if many people are getting the reactions I am getting and adopting an attitude similar to mine, the problem is that the important post will not be sent via our postal service. We have seen a great outgrowth in courier services between Ireland and overseas. Those services are prepared to deliver parcels or packages the next day in various foreign cities. They are expensive. I recently had recourse to one of those services. I sent a valuable document in a package, a single copy of a manuscript to be made into a book by a photographic process. I felt, not because of the timing but because of the uncertainty of the postal service, that I could not consign this to the postal service. I had to employ one of those couriers at a very hefty charge but it was worth it because one knew the package would be delivered the next day to its destination abroad. The point was that it was not the timing but I knew that it would be delivered, unless there was a plane crash or some act of God.

That problem is serious because if the organisations who have some leverage and send important mail and packages abroad, or receive them from abroad, start to short circuit our postal service it will mean a spiral of decline. It reminds me of the admission some years ago when there was an inquiry into the London transport services that every member of the London transport board had been supplied with a car by that board as a result of which no board member ever used the London transport services.

They never saw what was going on. The people who could have exerted the pressure and rectified the faults never used the service. I am worried that if our postal service in general is not straightened out, and if the problems, whether they are concerned with VAT at the point of entry on packages or other problems of administration, are not dealt with, something similar will happen, there will be a short-circuiting of our postal service by organisations with influence who could be relied on to put pressure on the politicians, and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, to rectify the matter. The matter will lie and there will be an eventual and serious decline.

I am making this complaint on behalf of many people who have corroborated my evidence that there seems to be a serious series of delays currently. Whether it is connected with VAT at the point of entry is not clear but, certainly, there is some administrative problem. I hope by raising this on the Adjournment that the Minister of State, and his Department, will rectify these problems so that our postal service will resume its normal, reliable and efficient operation.

All packets and parcels imported into this country by post are subject to customs scrutiny. The point raised by Senator West about VAT at the point of entry should not apply. It is a matter for the Revenue Commissioners, and I will investigate it as soon as possible.

The general position with regard to delivery is that, in normal circumstances, the items should be delivered on the next or succeeding working day following release from customs. Senators will no doubt be aware that books were exempted from value added tax from 1 May last. My information is that, prior to that date, delay may have occurred from time to time in clearing books through customs, mainly as a result of incorrect or incomplete documentation. The present position is, however, that customs scrutiny of books coming into the country should not add appreciably to postal delivery time.

With regard to postal delay to mail coming from abroad, I should first say that the frequency of despatches, method of transmission and routes used are matters which are decided by the originating postal administrations.

Most books are despatched by surface post. Those despatched from Britain are conveyed by the daily B & I service in containers. In the ordinary way, these should be delivered in a matter of days. There is, however, a temporary problem — a shortage of servicable transport — which is affecting the transport of parcels between the North Wall and the Central Sorting Office. This is causing a few days' delay in the treatment of parcels from Britain and some surface parcels from the Continent. It is hoped that this problem can be quickly resolved.

In the case of surface post from the USA, the US Post Office despatches letters and parcels in containers which are filled at New York and forwarded to the port of Dublin via Britain. The containers are taken in at the Central Sorting Office and processed for delivery of the contents as quickly as possible but, depending on the number of containers arriving at one time at the port of Dublin, clearance may be spread over a number of days.

So far as the Continent is concerned Continental countries forward surface mail, comprising printed paper items including books, via Britain and it arrives here on the Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire sea service. A small number of books may arrive from Continental countries as surface parcels to Ireland on direct shipping services, some of which are very infrequent, but the vast bulk of surface parcels is despatched via Britain, and arrives in Dublin with parcels from Britain on the B & I Liverpool—North Wall containerised service. They would be subject to the temporary delay due to transport difficulties which I have already mentioned.

As regards airmail, which, I should say, is not often used for books, a very large proportion of airmail from the United States is forwarded first to London, for onward transmission to Dublin. The remainder is flown into Shannon and brought to Dublin by rail for countrywide distribution. There are at present no suitable connecting Shannon—Dublin flights which would ensure more expeditious treatment. A considerable proportion of airmail from the Continent also arrives at Dublin via London — the remainder on direct flights into Dublin from the country of origin.

From this brief outline of incoming mail services from abroad, Senators will appreciate that, depending on the route and method of transmission, postal packages could suffer some delay prior to despatch, or in the course of conveyance to this country. In fact, monitoring of incoming foreign despatches has revealed that, in some cases delay occurred between the date of posting of an item and its actual despatch.

With regard to treatment of mail after its receipt here, there is no reason apart from the current transport problems, which I hope will be solved shortly, why items arriving by air or sea should, generally speaking, suffer delay in the postal service, and complaints about delay are relatively few, taking into account the volume of mail handled.

I am disappointed to hear the comments by Senator West that he has utilised a service which is not the Irish postal services. We are proud of our postal services and the staff working on them. The Senator pointed out that the courier service cost much more than our post office. I request Senators to refrain from using courier services when we have a service provided by the State at a reasonable price.

The Seanad adjourned at 8.15 p.m. sine die.

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