Mr. David McRedmond:

With regard to Project Ireland 2040, Cork and the economy, unfortunately, a number of factors mitigated against Cork. One factor is that the road infrastructure in Munster tends to be better than the road infrastructure in other parts of the country. A critical issue for mail is ensuring we can provide next-day deliveries. If we had closed a centre in the midlands, we would not have been able to guarantee next-day delivery to Donegal so the road infrastructure is one factor. Another factor that was of significance and one of our four criteria was the possibility of re-employing staff. This was a very important criterion, which the Deputy can imagine would be important for the unions as well. The ability to redeploy staff in the Cork area because of the growth and strength of the economy in Cork worked against Cork in terms of keeping the centre in Cork open. Since then, there have been a high number of applications - probably slightly higher than we expected - for voluntary redundancy. We have also had a very successful job fair with a range of companies in Cork. Those two factors were specific to the local economy.