An Post looking for bids to help reply to thousands of Santa letters from Irish children

An Post has sought bids for providers seeking to deliver the service from each November for an initial three-year contract, extendable up to 10 years. File picture: Denis Minihane

An Post has sought bids for a contract to process and reply to thousands of letters posted to Santa by Irish children each Christmas.

The postal body has sought bids for providers seeking to deliver the service from each November for an initial three-year contract, extendable up to 10 years.

An Post said it had been helping to reply to children’s letters written to Santa for “more than 30 years”, at an average of 130,000 such letters each year.

The successful bidder would be expected to reply to up to 55,000 children’s letters each year from early November to the last day of postage in December, with An Post staff voluntarily processing the rest.

“Santa also needs some external assistance with this important activity which has been part of the lead-up to Christmas in An Post since the 1980s,” a spokesperson said, adding that replies are also available in braille or via audio, though such instances are not specifically covered via the new tender.

No specific value is placed on the public contract. The minimum threshold for which a public contract must be put to public tender is €50,000.

An Post said that while the tender’s value is commercially sensitive, it would equate to a “relatively low value contract per year”.

The successful contractor would be expected to take delivery of all Santa letters, not just those with a return address, and to keep them “in a secure area for the duration of the project”.

An Post stressed that the contractor has no part in composing the replies, and is “only required to handwrite the name and address details on the envelopes”.

“The services will commence in early November every year and all replies to children are collected from the successful tenderer's premises during the last week before Christmas depending on the last date of posting,” the tender documents state.