Mr. John Daly:

They are completely different entities. A post office is different from a PostPoint outlet. As Mr. Sheehan outlined, PostPoint outlets offer limited services such as mobile top-ups, bill payment services and so on. PostPoint is not alone in providing these services for retailers. There are other competitors providing these services. If PostPoint does not do this, the competitors of the post office and An Post in general will grow stronger.

Rates of pay are an issue for the postmaster, as they are for Tesco and SuperValu. We pay on the basis of the activities performed. Post offices receive a higher level of remuneration than PostPoint staff, but the post office provides the full range of services, exclusively, for An Post. This has implications for it, as opposed to a PostPoint outlet, in terms of security and cash controls. There is a rationale for paying the staff of post offices a greater fee because their services are exclusive to us.