| An Post blasted for poor service
IRISH postal delivery rates are among worst of any postal service within
the EU according to a major new survey.
More than a quarter of all mail posted in Ireland is not delivered on
the following day with just 72 per cent of deliveries made on time.
Only the postal services in Greece, Latvia and Cyprus have a poorer record
on meeting next-day delivery targets.
The findings are contained in new research on postal services in Europe
published by the EU statistical office Eurostat.
Although the figures relate to 2004 the latest year for which comparative
figures are available the most- recent survey by ComReg shows that An
Post’s next-day delivery performance has only improved marginally
to reach 74 per cent last year.
ComReg has set a 94 per cent delivery rate as an acceptable level of performance.
The vast majority of postal services in the EU manage to deliver more
than 87 per cent of all mail on the following day after postage.
A spokeswoman for An Post acknowledged that next-day delivery rates were
behind general EU standards.
She said: “We have spent a long time getting the infrastructure
in place to improve on delivery but we still have some way to go.”
Although Ireland has the sixth highest penetration of post offices of
anywhere in Europe with one outlet for every 2,495 citizens it still has
relatively few employees compared to similar-sized services in other countries.
An Post employs around 7,500 staff in a network of 1,614 post offices.
By comparison the Belgian state postal service employs over 32,300 people
in just over 1,300 outlets. |
