Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I agree with the Deputy that the circumstances have changed in the last two years. The reduction in mail volumes have accelerated far quicker than anyone could have expected. Rather than being a motivation for maintaining the status quo, it reinforces the need that we will have to do something different. We will have to operate our postal services system in a different way. If we try to maintain the existing structure, operational arrangements and marketing approach in a dwindling market, it will lead to an ever-contracting service that would not be able to cope. We will have to reinvent and create new business opportunities that provide revenue and income streams for a highly skilled and committed workforce in An Post.

We raised these scenarios a year ago at a forum we held on the issue. What happens when the development of the Internet leads to a reduction in mail volume, but potential increases in other volumes? What do we need to do and how do we do it differently? The Bill going through the Oireachtas at the moment creates a better environment for an invigorated An Post that goes after new business opportunities.

Senator Quinn is a former chairman of An Post, and the speech he gave on Second Stage of the Bill in the Seanad was reflective of an attitude where we will have to look at doing things differently, allowing other providers in at various streams within the cost of business, and to give An Post a sense of new opportunities and new growth, rather than trying to maintain business as is happening at the moment.

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