Postal deliveries hit across country after second day of strike

POSTAL deliveries in small communities across the country were delayed again yesterday morning on the second day of industrial action by members of the Irish Postmasters Union.

An Post put special arrangements in place to ensure the 47,000 CAO offers arrived on students’ doorsteps as dispute over payment for the early morning sorting of post continued.

IPU general secretary John Kane said the industrial action resulted in almost 600 postmasters again refusing to sort mail between 6am and 8am. This delay led to deliveries arriving up to two hours late from rural sub post offices.

With no breakthrough in sight, Mr Kane said the industrial action will continue indefinitely. And he said he expected there would be backlogs of undelivered post by the weekend.

But this claim was denied by an An Post spokesman who said all the post offices were clearing mail on a daily basis. Talks held at the Labour Relations Commission last week failed to resolve the dispute and both parties say there are no plans for further talks.

According to the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises association the prolonged industrial action could damage small companies in rural areas.

ISME chief executive Mark Fielding said these companies depend for survival on the speedy delivery of cheques and orders.

Also yesterday, nurses began a work-to-rule and staged a protest march in Dublin in a dispute over patient care and staff safety at one of the busiest hospitals in the city. The dispute centres on conditions in St Clare’s Ward of St Vincent’s Hospital in the southside of Dublin.

Ten hours of talks at the Labour Relations Commission on Monday broke down with no solution in sight.