An Post ‘had money for PR, but not for staff’

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

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

Addressing the Oireachtas Communications Committee yesterday, An Post's chief executive Donal Curtin confirmed that Mr Byrne was still being paid.

Mr 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.

In a series of heated exchanges, committee chairman Noel O'Flynn also attacked An Post's management for failing to communicate with unions representing An Post's €10,000 workers after it emerged that Mr Curtin has never personally met with the chairperson of An Post's group of unions.

"As a committee we're alarmed and amazed that people aren't even talking to each other," said Mr O'Flynn after hearing a series of critical submissions from all of the five unions.

With industrial relations continuing to worsen at An Post, both sides are due to enter Labour Court discussions next week.

In the meantime, the committee agreed to ask Communications Minister Noel Dempsey to develop "a strategic vision" for post offices in a bid to find a way forward for all sides.

However Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants (AHCPS) general secretary Sean O'Riordan described negotiating with An Post as "like going into a black hole."

"It's like a parallel universe," he said. The rules are different and the only thing you can be absolutely sure about is time will stand still.... it's like trying to eat a bean with one chopstick."

"Is it acceptable that the management of a state company should ignore fundamental organs of the State?" asked Eoin Ronayne from the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) .

Criticising the company's failure to support rural post offices John Kane of the Irish Postmaster's Union (IPU) accused management of stifling member's efforts to make counter services more viable.

However, Mr Curtin said he felt the company was "in the final stages" of recent industrial relations trouble.

But he added: "At times I wondered whether the amount of time we were spending on industrial relations was having a serious impact on the business."