Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputies Michael McGrath, Murphy O'Mahony and Aindrias Moynihan.

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate. In the first instance, I would say to the Minister as a representative of the State and the shareholder in the company there is a clear responsibility and obligation on him to the workforce of An Post and to the company. The idea that the Minister is completely at a distance form the board and the policy decisions it takes does not hold water. The Government announced the national planning framework to great fanfare in Cork and elsewhere around the country. That framework refers to "Supporting ambitious growth targets to enable the four cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford to each grow by at least 50% to 2040 and to enhance their significant potential to become cities of scale.” It also states, “A target of half ... of our future population and employment growth will be focused in the existing five cities and their suburbs.” Under the heading "National Policy Objective 3B", the framework includes the phrase "Deliver at least half (50%) of all new homes that are targeted in the five Cities and suburbs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, within their existing built-up footprints”. This decision of An Post, a semi-State company, bears no relationship to those targets and objectives. It annoys people when they hear the rhetoric and all the plans with people congregating in UCC for that big launch and people being told that this is their new future and meanwhile an arm of the State seems completely at odds with the latter's overarching objective for these cities. This is the most modern mail centre in the entire An Post network.

I am not trying to score political points. I have been accused of being the person who is now responsible, according to Deputy Barry, for the centre's closure. I will not go there because there are 230 people who will potentially lose their jobs here and I want to deal with that.

There is no secret that the origins of this - I remember Deputy Sherlock raised this in the Dáil - date back to an agreement in 2017 between the Communications Workers' Union, CWU, and An Post hammered out at the Labour Court. A letter from the deputy general secretary of the CWU to his colleagues states that they will be aware of the Labour Court recommendation, LCR21563, issued in September 2017, which provided for the possible closure of one mail centre. It states that since that time, the union has dedicated its efforts towards keeping all four mail centres open with the surplus staffing which arises from significant letter and mail decline redeployed to the growing parcels and packet mail streams; that while this has been successful to date, the sad reality is the existing letter machinery network of all four mail centres has outlived its usefulness resulting in a major underutilisation of the 19 letter machines at the four centres; and that, in fact, there has been a further 10% decline. The letter goes on to state that as a consequence, regrettably, the union has been advised by the company that the board of An Post will decide, at a meeting scheduled for 27 June, which mail centre will close, and that in advance of the likely decision being made, the union and company has agreed provisional arrangements to deal with this most difficult situation facing its members at the mail centre concerned. The letter refers to later setting up a joint working group to deal with the migration of mail from this centre. Both the company and the national union were well aware that a mail centre was to go. Deputy Buckley said that in a previous contribution to the House as well. I say this as a matter of fact and objective reality.

What was not clear was which mail centre would close. Members sought clarity on that in this House on a number of occasions and did not get that clarity. I met the chief executive officer of An Post - I sought the meeting - and he revealed that Accenture was brought in to independently assess which centre was to close. I sought access to the Accenture document. I was able to read it but was not given a copy. I said to the chief executive officer that it should be published. There is no great differentiation between Cork and the remaining centres. There were three criteria, the first of which is operational feasibility, in other words, An Post's legal obligation to deliver the mail on the next day. The second related to recurring savings on an annual basis. The third related to staff welfare - how easy is it to redeploy and for the local economy to absorb.

On the recurring savings, there is little between the three centres. In Cork, one is looking at a potential €11 million saving. It is €10 million for Athlone and €9.7 million for Portlaoise. In terms of the property, there are once-off capital costs which also are within €1 million of each other.

There seems to have been an assessment made that the Cork economy could absorb the employees a bit better than the other locations, and then there is the talk of redeployment as well. I would raise questions. I have a real fear - I do not like saying this - that the closure of the Cork centre was pre-cooked. I cannot prove that. It will be denied, reference will be made to the Accenture report, etc. Having read that document quickly - I did not have prolonged access to it - it seems there is no compelling reason that the Cork mail centre had to close vis-à-visother centres or why a different approach could not be taken. The remit given was the closure of one centre, not an evening out of cost savings. This arises from the Labour Court agreeing a 2% pay increase but that it has to be offset by savings on the letter mailing system. That is a disappointing outcome. That is where there has been something of a disingenuous approach here. There was no clarity on this, from 2017 right up to 27 June last. People informally held a suspicion. I suspect that was coming from the workers' side, they were picking up something from the monitoring group or somebody on the monitoring group was letting out information, but we could not get a hard fix on it.

The Minister stated An Post's restructuring has been a success. This House voted in the stamp increase. The Opposition here supported it. There needs to be give and take here. The Minister cannot expect Deputies to come in and agree an increase in the price of the stamp, which we did to help secure An Post's future and to help the restructuring plan, and then to be hit with a closure involving 235 job loses overall, when one adds in the part-timers who will lose their jobs.

Neither the company nor the Minister is being sincere when the Minister states there will be redeployment. On the redeployment, one is talking about people who work night shifts, who work part time and who will not easily migrate to or be absorbed by the delivery side of An Post. That is disingenuous as well. Equally, many being made redundant will find it difficult to get jobs, in terms of the position they were in vis-à-vistheir life-work balance but also in terms of getting similar-type remunerative jobs in the local economy.

Structurally and for other reasons, there was a sense in An Post that the Cork one is easier to close than the remainder. I am not satisfied at all as to the underlying criteria that drove this decision.

Having spoken to the workers, much of what has been said is on offer has not materialised. Workers are at a loss. There is no hands-on engagement from the company at present, from what workers said to me as late as last evening, in terms of what options are available to them, in terms of redeployment within the company or in terms of advice, supports and all of that. It simply has not happened, according to the workers there. Likewise, they are unsure of the ultimate supports for those who might want to move on. There has been poor engagement from the company.

Fundamentally, there was little point in Government stating that it wants to grow the city of Cork and that it will double in population, yet the most modern mail centre in the entire network gets closed after an NDP and national planning framework was published six to 12 months ago. Here was a key piece of infrastructure. By and large, it was covering all of Munster.

Another issue raised was that the motorways were a factor. Motorways were meant to open up, not close down, the regions. The comment was made to me yesterday by An Post management that the motorways mean the company can service Munster now from Portlaoise in double-quick time. What are the implications for industry in the regions if that logic is to follow through and is that why we have congestion in the upper half of the country on all fronts?

My ten minutes are up and I will hand over to Deputy Michael McGrath. I would ask the Minister to revisit this matter and review it and to take the spirit of the motion on board.

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