Martin Brady (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister. There are some key issues which I wish to discuss with regard to this Bill. They include the reliability of the service and job losses. There is also the connection with people in rural areas who are disabled and whose only contact with others for much of the time is the postman or postwoman.

An Post is the last national postal operator. It receives no subvention from the Government. If one posts a letter to Donegal or Enniskillen from Dublin, it costs 55 cent. The service is delivered to any part of the country for the price of a stamp. What does liberalisation mean? To liberate something means one gives it its freedom, and to liberate a market simply means that one makes it a free market. A free market is one in which anybody can compete to provide services, with products and prices determined by what the market will pay. I am concerned, like Senator O'Reilly, that where there is a free market, like in transport and other areas, competition is sometimes not on a level playing pitch. Operators cherrypick the best areas and do not bother with rural areas where the service is vital. I was born in a rural area and I remember that the postman would bring a pound of butter and other messages from the shop for people living alone. The postman was the only person they might meet for a week. That is very important.

What have been the effects of liberalisation in other countries? The Members were briefed on this issue so I will not go through all the statistics. The effects were a decline in the quality of service and very significant job losses. New jobs were created, of course, but at low pay. In other words, the companies got rid of people and brought in others on lower wages. We do not want that to happen here, particularly in our current situation. An Post employs 10,000 people. If it were liberalised under the route we are taking now, it would mean very significant job losses, not just for postmen, postwomen and sorters but also for clerical staff, and fewer promotional outlets. It would demotivate people and morale in the service would drop to an all-time low.

The Communications Workers Union, CWU, of which I was a member, and our MEPs are seeking a moratorium on this. In other words, they want it put on ice for a while until there is a further study to evaluate the effects it will have on the Irish postal market and on other issues, such as jobs and so forth. The viability of the universal service obligation in a liberalised market is another serious issue. Senator O'Reilly referred to this. Consider the experience with the Royal Mail in the UK, which I have studied. One can see how important it is to get downstream access right. If this is handled badly, it could spell the end of An Post and the 10,000 jobs. Access to the An Post network must be on a commercial basis, not based on a price imposed on it by the regulator. In addition, access to the network must not be below the mail centre level as this would render useless much of the investment An Post has made in technology in recent years. It would require the entire delivery network to be reconfigured, which is another issue.

Senator O'Reilly spoke briefly about cherrypicking, a commonly used word. What does it mean? It describes the process where competitors of An Post will, after liberalisation, enter the Irish market and pick only the postal routes which they believe will generate significant profits, that is, Dublin, Cork, Limerick and other cities. They will provide postal services in these areas and extract a profit. However, this is the profit that An Post currently uses to fulfil its USO on rural routes, which are not profitable, and subsidise them. Removing this revenue from An Post in the form of profit taking by other operators would present a significant and grave threat to the postal service currently provided in this country. Furthermore, this approach also does nothing to guarantee the social benefits the postal services currently yield, which are particularly important in Ireland's dispersed rural community.

Overall, we should consider this carefully for the reasons I have outlined. Many unions and MEPs across Europe, as well as concerned citizens' representative groups, are calling for a moratorium on the liberalisation of postal services. Why are they demanding this? Such a moratorium would simply pause the process where it stands at present, not stop it, and provide the necessary time to evaluate it.