An Post service falls 20% below next-day target

AN POST’S performance in delivering standard mail has fallen to 20% below target, the latest report shows.

Figures released yesterday by the communications regulator, Comreg, show that 74% of standard mail was delivered within one working day throughout Ireland in the first quarter of this year.

That is against a next-day-delivery target of 94%, and is a drop of 2% in quality of service copmared the first quarter of 2005.

The figures were published as senior executives from An Post attended a hearing of the backbench committee on Communications in Leinster House, to discuss its annual report for last year, a year in which the semi state company returned to profitability.

Chief executive Donal Curtin told the committee that An Post was exploring the provision of banking services across the counter, in an alliance with Fortis Bank.

Mr Curtin also strongly dismissed any suggestion that the company was pursing a policy of closing post offices.

Members of the committee, chaired by Fianna Fáil TD Noel O’Flynn, contended that the number of post offices in Ireland had fallen from 2,400 to 1,400 in the past decade and that the rate of closure had accelerated in recent months

“There has been no policy of closures,” he said emphatically.