I propose to take Questions Nos. 14, 19, 26 and 30 together.
The Department is committed to providing a high quality service to our customers. It offers a range of payment options to customers which include payment at the post office of the customer's choice. Alternatively, most customers, other than those in receipt of jobseeker's payments, can choose to be paid into either a bank or building society account or to certain credit unions that have been authorised by the banking and credit union regulators.
The Department currently issues approximately 2,200 payments to the post office in Lucan village on a weekly basis and a further 590 on monthly basis. The number of customers involved is not readily available as customers may be collecting more than one payment, for example jobseeker's allowance and child benefit.
While the Department is the largest retail customer for post offices overall, An Post also provide agency services for a large number of other companies including the delivery of front line banking services, foreign exchange and the payment of a range of utility bills etc. However, An Post has advised that due to an exceptionally heavy volume of business in week-ending 3 September, 2011, Lucan post office experienced a greater demand for cash than usual. As a consequence, the postmaster was concerned that he might not be able to deal with all customers, including welfare customers, pending receipt of a further cash delivery from An Post. He therefore asked a small number of customers if they would agree to delaying the collection of their entitlements. The payments to customers were not refused. Additional cash deliveries were made by An Post to Lucan post office on Saturday 3 September and again on Monday 5 September. An Post has advised that the ten to twelve social welfare customers who were not dealt with on the Friday or Saturday had their payments effected by the following Monday. The Department has engaged with An Post to ensure that all our customers are paid on their due date and An Post has given assurances that measures have been put in place to ensure that this will not happen again.
As the Deputy can appreciate, for security reasons, it is important to ensure that excess cash is not unnecessarily held in its offices. It is also important that An Post offices have at all times an adequacy of cash to meet the needs of its customers. This involves on-going active management of cash at its offices. With regard to the availability of funds at the post office in Lucan, An Post has confirmed that Lucan post office never ran out of money.
With regard to queuing times at Lucan post office on Fridays, An Post monitors queuing times in post offices across its retail network on an ongoing basis. This monitoring is carried out by an independent multinational research company. An Post has confirmed that it is not aware of any customers having to queue for up to an hour.
An Post is not aware of any health and safety concerns at Lucan and advise that it is extremely vigilant in relation to these matters. An Post has also confirmed that there have been no queuing incidents whereby Garda presence was requested or required at Lucan post office. The Department was made aware of delays on Friday 23 December when longer queues developed at Lucan post office. The Deputies will appreciate that this was one of the busiest days of the year for all businesses and commercial bodies. As all banking and financial institutions were closing for the Christmas period for up to five days, the queues experienced at post offices were exceptional as they were throughout a range of other financial institutions. The Department has been advised that no Garda presence was requested or required to manage queues. However, we understand the Gardaí were in the vicinity as part of their own operational deployment that day and advised people waiting for service in the post office that pickpockets were active in the locality and of the need to be vigilant.
An Post and the Department have taken a number of measures to address the large numbers of customers receiving payments on Fridays. The process of changing payment days is complex and must be managed closely to ensure customer service is not interrupted. Work was undertaken to move some 240 customers who normally received payments at Lucan post office on a Friday to Tuesday. I understand this change in payment day has had a very positive effect on the queuing times for DSP payments in Lucan post office on each Friday. In addition, Lucan post office has extended its opening time to 8:00 a.m. on Fridays with a view to catering for customers.
I would like to assure the Deputies that the Department will continue to work closely with An Post to ensure that together, we provide a high quality service to our customers, and in particular to monitor any issues emerging in Lucan.