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

The programme for Government clearly states the Government’s commitment to actively encouraging payments at post offices. While responsibility for An Post and the post office network rests with my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, I want to highlight the size of my Department’s business with An Post, which was over 38 million transactions across the network in 2015, at a cost of €54 million to the taxpayer.

I recently had a constructive meeting with the Irish Postmasters' Union and will be meeting Bobby Kerr next week. A few weeks ago my Department wrote to a cohort of jobseeker customers, who are classified as casual jobseekers, offering the option of payment into a bank account. These customers are in work and claim a jobseeker's payment for two to three days per week, or work week on, week off. They were paid by cheque each week due to the changing nature of their work and claiming patterns and the short turnaround time to issue and collect payments. This group of customers was not paid by post offices under the Department’s existing cash payments contract with An Post, although I expect many of them cashed their cheques in the post office. The vast majority have responded and opted for payment to a bank account.

I can confirm to the Deputy that no further letters are being issued to this group. My Department has developed its payment capacity in respect of changing work and claiming patterns, and is offering payments direct to accounts in financial institutions for casual jobseeker customers. This is in line with departmental policy where the focus is on ensuring that in-work customers are paid by the most convenient method possible.

I want to assure the Deputy that my Department will no longer take any measures which seek to actively influence customer choice in the manner of payment away from cash payments at the post office, rather, customer choice will be facilitated. In light of the programme for Government commitment, staff in my Department will be formally advised by circular next month that, when dealing with payment options, customers can choose between payment at the post office or by electronic funds transfer, EFT, where possible, and will not be encouraged to move to a bank.

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