Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputies need to be mindful of that because up to one quarter of the population wishes to use An Post services for a variety of reasons that we have all discussed.

The Department of Social Protection and I as Minister have specified that we want people collecting jobseeker's payments to go to An Post in person to guard against fraud. That is an extremely important part of the service that An Post provides for the Department.

Some of what the Deputies suggest would endanger An Post's success in winning the contract because it comes very close to saying not only could An Post become the preferred bidder in an open competition, which is in effect what happened once the tendering and competition process got under way, but also that European competition law and a previous ruling of the court should be pretty much set aside to provide for An Post being the only company. That is not allowed under EU competition law.

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