Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the future of the An Post mail centre in Portlaoise. For well over a year there has been a question mark relating to the reorganisation of the mail centres around the country and I understand that there may be a board meeting of An Post on 27 June, at which a decision may be made on the future of mail centres. This process has been going on for some time. The case for Portlaoise is outstandingly strong and I ask the board to make the right decision, and to give a commitment to the future of the mail centre at the meeting next week. There are outstanding staff in the area and the 200 staff there have great experience and make good use of technology.

The Portlaoise mail centre has a number of key features. It is the area where all parcels come into the country, where they are processed for onward distribution. Because of this, there is a strong customs presence from the Revenue Commissioners in the mail centre, with sophisticated equipment to detect anything illicit coming into the country, as well as an outstanding dog unit that is regularly mentioned locally in connection with the seizure of drugs or other illicit products. As this feature is unique to Portlaoise and exists nowhere else in the country, it makes no sense to remove it and transplant it elsewhere.

There are four mail centres around the country, namely, Dublin, Portlaoise, Cork and Athlone in Westmeath. However, Portlaoise is the most strategic location outside Dublin. The capital city will need a mail sorting centre because of the large volume of post but Portlaoise is within an hour and a half or so of all the regions in the southern half of the country. I live just outside Portlaoise and I am an hour and a half from Dublin Airport, an hour and 15 minutes from Shannon Airport and less than two hours from Cork Airport. One can get parcels from Portlaoise to all the areas in the south of the country overnight for early delivery the next morning. For mail that needs to be sorted overnight in Portlaoise, we have outstanding motorways in the midlands region, to Cork, Limerick or Waterford and one can get to places such as Kerry within an hour and a half or two hours. It would be an excellent facility to keep, if the decision was made to close some mail centres, because Portlaoise is strategically located. It would be the best location and I ask An Post to confirm that.

Following contact from staff in the past year or so, I have had correspondence from the company about the issue. I have a letter of May 2018 from David McRedmond, the chief executive officer, who wrote that An Post was reassessing its national mail processing capacity, including the mail centres, of which Portlaoise is one of four. On 30 April I received another letter from the GPO, telling me that it is subject to Labour Court recommendations and that the matter was under active consideration. I am pleading to the Minister. Portlaoise is a very strategic location and has the best road network of all the country's mail centres. It is imperative that An Post keeps its centre there. I know the Minister will say it is a matter for the board but I am raising the matter here to impress on the board the case for the location in Portlaoise. I ask the board to commit to the future of the Portlaoise mail centre at its next meeting.

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