Small firms seek special rural postal deal

SMALL businesses association ISME yesterday demanded special arrangements for mail deliveries to companies in rural areas whose operations could be threatened by prolonged industrial action at sub-post offices.

An Post said disruption to mail schedules yesterday was minimal, but the Irish Postmaster's Union (IPU) warned of postal backlogs before the weekend. IPU general secretary John Kane said "industrial action will continue indefinitely and its bite will be felt by the end of this week." An Post is making special provision to avoid delays today in CAO offers being posted to 47,099 third-level hopefuls, though a majority of students were expected to access results from 6am on a CAO website, www.cao.ie.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises' Jim Curran said the An Post decision to isolate CAO offers from the general mail was commendable, but suggested the special service should be extended to the business community.

"The postal service is crucial to the business community, in particular smaller business enterprises," he said. "They rely heavily on cheques and business orders coming through the post. Cash flow is the lifeblood of all businesses and any undue delay in payments will negatively impact on companies," said Mr Curran, head of

research at ISME.

The association, he said, was also concerned about the dispute impacting on An Post services long-term, particularly in light of recent postal increases, up to 18.4%, which will have a significant impact on smaller companies. "If you're looking for increases, you have to provide the service, although our members believe the recent An Post increases were not justified," he said.

The IPU's Mr Kane said there was no move yesterday by An Post management to resolve the dispute, which primarily centres on a claim by more than 560 rural postmasters and postmistresses for increased early-morning allowances. An Post, however, said the sub-contractors received increases which totalled almost 74% since 1977.

Delays up to two hours were experienced yesterday by tens of thousands of An Post customers in rural areas as postmasters and postmistresses refused to accept mail deliveries from central locations until 8am, on day one of industrial action.

An Post spokesman John Foley said adjustments had been made to postal schedules and the only disruption, which was minimal, was in the timing of deliveries. "There's no explanation why there's no urgency by management to address the problems," said Mr Kane. "Maybe An Post felt the action would fail but we can report that it was very effective, with 100% co-operation by all our members to take action."