An Post 'spent €2m on PR during staff pay freeze'

AN POST spent at least €2 million on external consultants last year while insisting it could not give staff overdue pay increases, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

It also emerged that ex-financial director Ronan Byrne a member of the team that overestimated the company's profits by close to €50m two years ago has been on paid sick leave since autumn 2003.

But while, addressing the Oireachtas Communications Committee yesterday, An Post's chief executive Donal Curtin declined to comment, when questioned by Labour's Tommy Broughan, on the fact that An Post's chairperson Margaret McGinley succeeded in more than doubling her salary to €50,000 last year as worker wage increases went unpaid.