Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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An Post has been trusted over generations. Families worked not only in the core postal business, but also in the shops and outlets. Those postmasters have a very valuable commodity, namely, public trust and recognition in the State. However, as much as he says the environment is challenging, I can think of no other company whose core business is guaranteed to decline by 5% per annum. We must start preparing for real cliff drops because some of the banks are now competing with new Internet banking mechanisms, which do not perform any postal functions, and will start taking a huge amount of customers and business. At some point very soon - within a timeframe of five to ten years - we cannot expect that 90% of letters will come, as Mr. Divilly says, from utilities and banks if we are to lose one or two of those customers-----