28% of standard post ‘undelivered by next day’
The report by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) shows the postal service under-performed in some key aspects of its delivery service, with customers in Dublin receiving a “a substantially inferior level of service”.
However, the results were disputed by An Post, which insisted that its internal monitoring system showed an overall performance level “in excess of 90%”.
The ComReg report shows that just 72% of single-piece priority mail - standard correspondence - is delivered within one working day throughout the country.
“This result falls well short of the target set by ComReg of 94% and represents only a slight improvement on the corresponding result for 2003 (71%),” the report notes.
Mail posted in Dublin for delivery countrywide received poorer levels of service than mail posted outside the capital for delivery countrywide - 69% compared with 73%.
Similarly, mail posted outside of Dublin for delivery within Dublin received a low level of service - 70% is delivered the next working day.
“This suggests the delay occurs when mail is moving either in or out of the Dublin area,” says the report. The majority of post nationwide (96%) is delivered within three working days. This falls outside of the target set by ComReg of 99.5% and remains unchanged from the previous year.
ComReg says the long-term viability of An Post depends on a “significantly improved” quality of service performance.
However, An Post public relations head John Foley said it disagreed with the narrow scope of the survey, which was conducted by TNS mrbi and based on the statistical methods set out by CEN, the European Standards Institute.
“They monitor a small proportion of overall mail; we monitor it all with an independent system that shows we are getting a higher level in excess of 90% for next day deliveries,” he said.
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