Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

I was just thinking about how Senator Finucane rightly expressed his anger over what happened to the train, yesterday. It is about time that many of us got angry and demanded better services. I am also thinking of An Post. Every summer the same thing happens with our postal service. Postmen have to take holidays, but no system is put in place to ensure that the post is delivered every day. How can companies in this country function, where the post may come only every second day? In some cases, I have been told, people are waiting for post for three or four days. That is not good enough and it happens every summer. It will happen at other periods, too, when one knows the postman is on holiday. These matters have to be planned and systems should be put in place to ensure that services continue as they should.

At the very least, An Post should tell us that during the summer we will only get post every second day, or twice a week. It should just let us know what is happening. The present system is unacceptable. We have come to accept that things do not work properly. We do not shout loud enough and demand we get a proper service. This is one area where the service provided is not good enough.