An Post caught between profit and public service

EDITORIAL columns in a few of our leading daily newspapers over recent weeks were loud in condemning An Post's latest application to the Communications Regulator (ComReg) for an increase in the ordinary letter postage rate.

They must be conveniently forgetting that postal rates have lagged very far behind most other commodities for quite a while now.

Between 1992 and '96 letter rates were 32 old pence - about 41 cents in today's money. The rate then went to 38 old pence and thereafter to 48 cents.