Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I thank the Minister for his reply, it did not provide much enlightenment. We now know that responsibility for An Post has reverted to the Minister, which is welcome because it caused problems for all of us when three Ministers had responsibility for the company. While, strictly speaking, the Minister is correct that operational issues are a matter for An Post, he is a shareholder on behalf of Joe and Mary Soap and the general public. He has a responsibility and cannot, therefore, act as a spectator. The reviews of An Post have been ongoing since 2014. The Kerr report appears to have been buried, while the McKinsey report has not yet been completed.

What is the future of the four mail centres, including the centres in Portlaoise and Athlone? Some 200 people work in the former, which takes on an additional 150 staff every Christmas. Every night, 450 mail deliveries enter and leave the Portlaoise centre, which deals with 28,000 parcels per day. It is a very busy facility that operates at far in excess of the capacity it was built to handle. A separate facility built recently to handle distribution at the centre, including leaflets, has been a great success.

The public owns the post office network and An Post is a semi-State company. I am fed up with Ministers telling us the company operates at one remove from the Oireachtas and Ministers cannot act on operational matters. They take the information provided to them by chief executives of semi-State companies at face value. Deputies take an interest in An Post on behalf of the public and the Minister is our representative. I also met the chief executive of An Post to discuss the issues that concern all of us.

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