All-Ireland tickets and false teeth get stuck in the post
An Post sends all post from Limerick to Cork to be sorted even if the letters are destined for Limerick. Under the system, introduced last weekend, a letter posted by a firm in Limerick to another firm in the same building has to be sent on a 132-mile round trip to Cork for sorting, before being delivered.
The system is delaying deliveries in the city by two to three days.
Limerick Chamber of Commerce last night demanded urgent action from An Post.
Postal workers were frantically trying to cope with a backlog of more than 20,000 mail items.
An Post said the pile-up was a teething problem arising from a new automated sorting system.
Communications Workers Union, Limerick spokesman Joe Collopy warned: "This is only the start of it. Knowing An Post as I do, I can't see these long delays being sorted out in the foreseeable future."
He said they had been inundated with agitated customers.
He said: "We got calls from the Regional Hospital about some 50 blood samples they were expecting in the post and did not get. There were others wanting to know about All-Ireland tickets that had been posted to them. A man was on about his false teeth, he couldn't eat his dinner. Anybody waiting for a hurling ticket posted in Dublin might have to sweat it out."
Up to last week, Limerick mail was sorted in Limerick.
