Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A point to bear in mind is there are three contracts for the front office, the back office and card production. Some of the contracts are going better than others. The front office contract has been a particular problem. The RSA put in additional resources because people were experiencing problems and these needed to be fixed. I was not willing to wait three years for another contract to fix these. This is why extra staff and resources were introduced. There will be a claim and a financial discussion with the company about this. There will be an interesting discussion and debate between the RSA and the company as to who meets the cost of these additional resources. I stand over the fact they were put in. We could not have had a situation where the delays continued for years.

I am a big supporter of the post office and it is a great institution but An Post needs to move with the times. If it is to win contracts it must provide the services which people now expect. People expect services to be available on Saturday morning and they expect availability in the evening. An Post needs to modernise before it starts complaining about not getting work.

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