John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. One of the things that has happened since I submitted this as a Topical Issue matter last Tuesday is that An Post has issued a helpful explanatory document for consumers. It arrived in my house today. It explains and outlines exactly what the Minister of State said. I just want to raise a couple of questions arising from the Minister of State's answer. I take on board the fact that the EU developed an import declaration because of Brexit and other issues. I also acknowledge the fact that Revenue issued information to both businesses and consumers. It also followed up with relevant advice and information relating to changes that came into effect from 1 July. However, this issue is still swirling around among the public. I am intrigued, because the Minister of State represents the Department of Finance and this is a Revenue issue, as to why An Post has taken this matter into its own hands and seen fit to circulate to the public a detailed explanatory note that is simple to read and follow.

An Post's customer service staff are the ones at the coalface on this issue. They receive the queries from and complaints of the public and listen to their frustration. It is not Revenue staff who are at the coalface in that regard.

I wish to raise a couple of other issues. The following is outside the Minister of State's remit, but this issue coincides with the people being bombarded with fake texts telling them their package has arrived. That is causing a lot of confusion because those texts send the recipient to a link which is probably a spam link that may corrupt a person's mails, etc.

I want to raise another question which I know is for the business side of the House. I have heard from a number of constituents who bought online from a .ienamed address, paid for the product online and then, when they received it, had to pay customs because the product was coming from outside the EU, even though the website in question had a .ieaddress. The people affected thought they were buying from Ireland. It was not the customs they were complaining about, but the fact that they had wanted to buy Irish and discovered the product was actually coming from outside the EU.

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