Joint Committee on Transport and Communications debate -
Wednesday, 16 Oct 2024

The purpose of today's meeting is to meet Mr. Kieran Mulvey to discuss his appointment as the chair designate of An Post. I am very pleased to welcome him back to Leinster House. He is not a stranger to these halls.

I remind witnesses that they are to be cognisant of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech which might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I would also like to remind members of the constitutional requirement that they should be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate when they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to discontinue. In this regard, I ask that any member participating from their offices here in Leinster House or via MS Teams to confirm prior to making their contribution to the meeting that they are in fact on the grounds of Leinster House.

Mr. Mulvey has a long-standing relationship with these Houses going back many years.

This is a great opportunity for the committee to hear from him about his vision for his appointment. I invite him to make his opening statement.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and committee members. It is a great privilege and pleasure for me to be here today to listen to what they have to say regarding An Post itself and what they expect from me and my role. I have made a comprehensive statement to the committee, which I submitted as required prior to this meeting.

It is a great privilege and honour for me to be recommended by the Government for the chairmanship of An Post. As members will be aware, this was through open competition by the Public Appointments Service, transmitted to the Minister, who recommended my appointed to the Government.

An Post is a great public company that serves the population of this country - the Government, citizens and the business community - the length and breadth of the country. It played a starring and prominent public role during the Covid crisis in the continuity of business within the country and, in particular, in ensuring vulnerable people such as pensioners and others were able to receive appropriate social welfare payments in cash, which was very important. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Chambers, said yesterday that he wants the Government service to continue to have a cash option. We very much welcome that. We believe the footfall in post offices should be increased to ensure their continuity in townlands and cities, in both urban and rural Ireland. That is very important.

I pay tribute to my own board, to our previous chairperson, Carol Bolger, who in the past ten years has worked with the chief executive to bring An Post to the robust position it is in at the moment. That is not to say we do not face challenges, but her leadership at the time was very important to the board. I also pay tribute to our management team and our workforce the length and breadth of the country. We have 10,000 employees who, daily, visit businesses, communities and individuals throughout the country, and postmasters and their colleagues in postal services on the front line who provide an invaluable service, which I hope is a very efficient and effective, to the people of this country. It is important that we pay tribute to post people who, day and daily, whatever the weather, provide that service and deliver what is required to be delivered in this country.

In the coming months we face considerable challenges, but we believe we are amply and ably equipped to address them. We have a significant number of social welfare payments to make in the coming months by virtue of the decisions made in the budget. Significant payments will go through our post offices to very vulnerable communities and individuals, including pensioners, in an array of services. We are in a position to provide cash payments as a better alternative to banking, on occasion, as has been proven in the past.

We will also have the peak period when there will be a massive generation of parcel services to both the business community and individual citizens. I will give some figures on that later. There has been a boom in the parcel business during Covid - when it escalated, which was building prior to it. Parcel delivery is a highly competitive environment but our services have performed extraordinarily in that regard.

I also want to speak to the challenges we face. I do not want to go into detail, but I have outlined in my statement the financials of the company, our new gaslight strategy policy and the headline issues around that. However, I will talk about both that and the challenges we face. An Post is a great public company. We are a very successful one. We have been transformative in recent years, in particular under our current chief executive. We have a great relationship with trade unions. I pay tribute to them on their spirit of co-operation with change within the company. We are a company that is at the forefront of technological change, not alone in mails and parcel delivery but also in our financial products. If you are not radical and ahead on that, you die. I like to think we are very adept at our adaptation and innovation in those areas. It is a challenging environment but it is one we have met very well.

On the post office side, we have close to 1 million weekly consumer transactions. We have 84 million post office transactions each year, including 26 million transactions with clients of the Department of Social Protection alone. It is worth mentioning that this most extensive retail network in the State has 500 post offices that serve communities with no bank branch within a 5 km radius, each one providing local communities and local businesses with cash services six days a week. We are the only financial entity that has taken up the challenge that the bigger banks have left behind when they closed branches around the country for whatever commercial reason. We have entered into agreements with them to be able to provide a continuity of services, in particular for those banks that have left the country in recent times, but also with Bank of Ireland and AIB. We will further engage and we hope to do that. I will come back to one particular banking issue in the future. We have been the recipient of many awards in recent years for our services and innovation. I pay tribute to all our people in An Post involved in that.

To a large degree, it would be better if I concentrated on the services and extent of the challenges we face. I have given the committee details on the commercial financials of the company. We are treading water but we are doing well. We will turn another profit this year but it is a marginal profit in terms of the overall business. We have a significant workforce. We are conscious of the pay rounds and what has to be paid there and the importance of retaining staff, which is a challenge in particular at senior management level. We have an increasing burden of regulation and oversight compliance, which adds considerably to the cost of the company. We are also in a competitive environment, in particular in mails delivery. We also face the inexorable decline of the use of the stamp, even though I believe our philatelic section is doing wonderful work. The level and quality of stamp production in Ireland is world-class. We use it very effectively and efficiently. Recently, our iconic voices in Ireland stamp was very successful. The most recent one I did with the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler, was to launch mental health awareness week, which has been very well received. Our offering for 2025 and 2026 will be really exciting. I pay tribute to the committee involved. All the stamps are Irish designed and sourced. That is a particular achievement by us. We are internationally renowned for the quality of our stamps and we have a big business around it.

I mentioned the challenges. As I said, we will be a €1 billion turnover company within the next year or two, which is significant. We receive no subsidy from the State. We do not look for a subsidy from the State. There may be disagreement on that given what other postal services receive, in particular the Royal Mail, which receives heavy subsidies from the UK Government, especially for the rural mail environment. We had a €30 million loan from the Government, which we repaid this year before time and in full. We are a good corporate client of the State. We also have a very positive working relationship with all the entities of the State, from Customs and Revenue, for whom we, incidentally, collected €60 million last year. The Department of Social Protection and many other Departments engage with us. There is also the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, which involves the management of almost €26 billion of citizens' savings. That is an enormous amount in terms of what we are trying to achieve.

Of the challenges facing us, a significant one is what An Post will look like, going forward, in the next five years. I was a member of the strategy committee that spent a long period last year looking at whether we need to do what other post offices are doing and where we need to be ourselves. We are now engaged in that policy arising from the strategy decision on the gaslight, as we call it, over the next five years, subject to board review every three to six months as to how we are progressing on that. There are also reports from our management team on that. Intrinsic to that is meeting the challenges of next generation mail.

How do we balance the fall in letter post vis-à-vis the increase in parcel post? Do we need to look at our routes? How many days do we do each-day delivery or should we truncate that to a manageable proportion? Most people understand there are not many letters coming into their letter boxes too often. We have been able to balance the inexorable decrease in the use of the stamp and the retail element of stamp with price increases. There is limited capacity in that. We introduced the digital stamp for business and citizens, which is going well. We also balanced the parcel services we offer and its pricing to a manageable proportion for businesses that are multinational and indigenous. We need to do more for small business and design communities and industry. There are unique designers in this country who have products and would like to get them on the international market, such as food products and clothing. We have looked at how we can assist them in doing that by giving them a good parcel pricing option. We increased and retained our parcel services and clients but are trying to extend that to international markets. Irish people are great online shoppers and we need to meet that market but also balance it against the big needs of business communities in their transactional arrangements nationally and internationally. We have the biggest database in the country. With the number of businesses and homes we visit, we have a database second to none. How to monetise that without breaching the regulations such as GDPR, etc., is something we are looking at.

I wrote to the Minister about an issue over the past number of years, which is raising the borrowing cap of the company. It is limited to €74 million and has not changed in 49 years. We are seeking the lifting of that cap to €100 million. We would like as a company to explore joint ventures in a number of areas. We would also like to consolidate our mail delivery centres perhaps around one national consolidated centres or regional consolidated centres, which needs capital investment. We want to expand the capacity of our financial products such as An Post Money, a tremendous service we offer to all our customers through our banks, post offices and other banks. There is room in the State for a third banking force. We could play a prominent role in achieving that. I think the Government would like to see that happen now that its investment and shares in Bank of Ireland have diminished completely. It is also in the process of selling shares in AIB. There is a need and the general view is that for the good of competition, it is important to have another resilient bank in the country with a strong commitment to citizens of the State, not just in urban business areas or business communities but throughout rural areas. It will fit into the rural policy of the Government and the policy statement about ensuring that our rural communities, townlands and small towns and villages are not denuded of services. We are conscious of that in what we do and intend to achieve.

There is also a question the kind of joint ventures. We have a big fleet, a big logistics operation and a big property portfolio. We are not a property management company so we need to look at that. There has been some divestment where appropriate and proper and we have gone through the appropriate investment protocols. There will be a capital commitment down the line to improve the look of our post offices, the technology that needs to be invested in them and the front-of-counter experience. That costs money and capital investment. Technology is not cheap. We are engaging in an investment policy around that. We have replacement fleet requirements and we have to meet sustainability directives. We are a strong sustainability company and we want to retain that image. We recently moved from the GPO to our new building. It gives a clear image and message that we are a modern company. The problem with the GPO, historical and all, was it associated itself with an older Ireland. I do not want to interfere with the new suggestions around the GPO, being chairman. That is for another day. That area needs to be revitalised on a broader basis. We managed to effect that transition with the co-operation of the trade unions. I recall in my previous career years ago every redeployment caused a row or strike and a lot of disaffection. These have to be handled sensitively and effectively. It has worked. My feeling from being in the building over the years is that staff enjoy the new premises. It gives them a new zest of life coming into the premises and working there.

Another area of business of An Post is looking for other opportunities that may be available to us. Commercial opportunities exist. It is a crowded credit and business card environment but we are making reasonable gains in those areas, with additional customers coming to our An Post Money product who are loan possibilities. Perhaps there are more creative ways of managing the billions of euro that have accumulated in NTMA accounts. Are there areas where some of that money could be released for investment capital or business purposes? If we are to enter in any future joint venture or partnership, we must go in as an equal partner with sufficient capitalisation that we do not go in as the poorer partner but in a business proposition that is good for both entities or whatever entities wish to come along. We are obviously in competition with Revolut and all of those providers that are attractive to young people. We need to adapt and build but that requires technology, investment, marketing, giving a service people feel safe with and is user- and customer-friendly. Given the financial product and our customs, excise and Revenue requirements, we face greater regulation and compliance, which comes with a cost. It is not a cost we can pass on to the customers or defer to some other service; we have to take it. We need to do that in terms of good governance but it is a burden in that it requires the recruitment of experienced professional staff and not alone that but keeping them. IT, procurement, compliance, and financial services staff are required in a tight labour market with bigger players in the market than us with more resources.

Our stakeholder, the State, is very important to An Post. We have to be conscious that the Government, Members of the Oireachtas and local authority members, etc., are conscious of post offices and the necessity to retain them. We are trying to adapt post offices or change their location to do better business where footfall is. There is no point in having a post office away from the footfall of clients, where people do their shopping in malls or shopping centres or where they go to coffee shops. We need An Post to be there as part of that offering so that they see it. That requires us to make investments. We made an investment of €10 million capital investment in modernising them and giving them a better front-of-office experience. A vital component of our business is the arrangement with the Government through the Irish Postmasters' Union, IPU, of the current €10 million grant to postmasters for the running of post offices. They are self-employed under franchise from An Post. That is vitally important. We made a proposal to Government that this be extended. We believe the €10 million should be increased to at least €15 million per annum and for the security of maintaining post offices where we have them, a five-year arrangement should be entered into to stabilise and incentivise the market in that direction.

More and more when we have postmasters and postmistresses coming to an age and maybe other members of the family do not want to continue the business, we have to go looking for a franchisee who will come in and run the business. They are not going to run a loss-making business. Over the past number of years, the average pay to postmasters, given all circumstances, has hardly changed from approximately €75,000 per year. That is not a great return for running a business. We are not asking for subsidies, but through the representations of the IPU, to support that around those parameters. It fits in with the Government policy on rural Ireland. The recent policy document talks about sustaining rural communities, villages, townlands and small towns through the local library and the local post office. Many government services that used to be provided through the post offices are now closed and centralised. We are not proposing that. We want to sustain as many post offices as we can. However, international evidence suggests that probably 600 post offices are viable in Ireland in the future. We are not saying we will move to that figure and we have no plan to do so but we look at every situation, as we have, and we have a cluster going out at present. However, nearly all of these are designed to maintain the post office, to bring it to a new location and to sell premises that are perhaps too large for our needs, where there was a lot of backroom activity like mail delivery previously. They are no good to us. As I said, we are not in the property management business. It makes sense to us to try to enter a new lease arrangement on other premises and see what we can get. Some of these are iconic premises. They are in good order and in good locations, but not the locations An Post requires. They may come with additional facilities or buildings that we do not need because of the regionalisation of the mail centres and the delivery of post. I am open to questions and I will be as helpful as I can.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mulvey, for your comprehensive statement and remarks. They are very much appreciated. I have a speaking rota and I happen to be first on the list and I will then take Deputies Crowe and Smith, just to be fair to everybody. If any members come in later, they can contribute as well.

I am an suburban TD and to the best of my knowledge, there are four post offices within 5 km of my home. From that perspective, I am very well catered for. However, I am very conscious of my non-suburban and urban colleagues from around the country who live in what might be termed the rapidly changing world that An Post and rural communities find themselves in. Even with working from home being a lot more prevalent than it was, we are seeing it ebbing away slightly. Nonetheless, I know there is great viability and vitality in rural communities but I often wonder about sustaining those post offices and ensuring there is a viable business and livelihood for the postmasters within the system. Mr. Mulvey touched on this, which is a very welcome place to start the conversation about how An Post can diversify into the rapidly changing world he mentioned. I am keen to explore the potential for joint ventures with further remarks from him regarding what sort of joint ventures has he in mind. He outlined one or two but is there the capacity for the organisation with that borrowing limit and most of its capital tied up? What sort of companies would An Post be looking to partner with and what services would it be looking to provide? What actions are required from the Houses of the Oireachtas to achieve these goals?

We have seen a transformation in the postal market. I have been a public representative for 20 years and I recall quite vividly the number of letters I used to get, even up to 13 years ago, when I became a Member of this House. A good half of my communications were letters. Now, it is notable when I get a letter in the post from a constituent. I got one last week and I got one in my constituency office on Monday. I have not checked the post this week. My team probably has but I cannot say I saw a letter. This is an indication of the change that has occurred. As a result of not getting letters, I am not sending a lot of letters back. That is the challenge for An Post.

Mr. Mulvey identified the parcel business and about how Irish people are good online shoppers. My wife will be pleased to hear that because packages arrive constantly to our house. We recently installed a Ring doorbell so I know when An Post calls because I am able to see it on my phone. This is obviously a market An Post is perfectly set up to dominate in Ireland. How would An Post like to try to achieve that? I understand that there are a lot of private operators doing it at cut prices but with the network An Post has available, this is the clear path in terms of the traditional function of An Post, which is delivering the post. We can then consider all the other benefits An Post wants to bring to it and has done over many years.

The most important aspect of my remarks is to emphasise the retention of post offices in rural Ireland. They are essential, not just in terms of social welfare but also because of the social aspect they bring. As our population ages, there are many people for whom their only social interaction is the trip to the post office. The organisation is very important in facilitating this social interaction. We need to find a way to increase the average annual salary of €75,000 that Mr. Mulvey mentioned, to make the postmasters' businesses more viable, particularly outside of urban and suburban environments like mine. Mr. Mulvey's remarks on these points would be very welcome.

An Post has been the beneficiary of new technology but new technology can be a bit of a curse as well. We identify this in the volume of letters sent. Our letter volume, post and stamps, is decreasing 8% to 9% per year. That is not unusual as the same is occurring in other parts of Europe. People are simply not sending as many letters as before. That is a fact of life. They are using email, WhatsApp or whatever other technology or device they are linked into. This creates no income, except for the over-the-top providers, which are always international, not domestic. This is a big issue in terms of how we go about rectifying this potential decrease in our income. Reluctantly, we have had to go the price increase route for a period. That obviously has a limit to it, as I said.

In terms of the mails, we are in a competitive environment with two or three other big suppliers in Ireland. They are building facilities, warehouses and others to meet this new high volume of traffic. It is a difficult and highly competitive market. We are at the upper end of it in the sense of quality of delivery. We are also probably competing with non-unionised organisations, which has a labour cost element to it. It is not an area we are going into. We have a very well established trade union tradition with An Post. I was involved in mediating in some of the labour disputes in the past but we have a very positive, engaged workforce. They have been very co-operative with us on the changes we need to make. The mails is a big competitive environment for us. For example, one is not too worried about the Monday to Friday or even the early part of Saturday but Saturday afternoon or Sunday is premium cost. The question is how do we manage to deliver.

I always tackle our management in An Post and ask why am I seeing Amazon parcels being delivered on a Sunday and not An Post delivery. It is a bit of a rhetorical question because I know the answer. It is a sensitive issue with our trade unions but it is one that we are going to engage with them on. We have to look at that. Our employees are attuned commercially and probably more commercially at times than we are in the sense that they see the volumes and the traffic. We are looking at what will be our future next-generation mail delivery and we are actively involved in that as part of the strategy.

The Cathaoirleach identified the volume of mail delivery. In a sense, it is trying to get businesses to continue to transact postal mail. Some of those that still do bring the mail out of the jurisdiction into Northern Ireland or other jurisdictions where they can do it cheaper or, if they are part of an international company, they are mailing from abroad. That is a particular problem for us.

We had an interdepartmental committee. I do not know what happened or what the total outcome was on government services being looked at in terms of provision to An Post. I do not think anything substantially material came out of that, which is disappointing. As I said earlier, the rural policy document issued by the Government recently identified the importance of it. I hope our cris de coeur around that will be heard for our managing it. I think the statement made by the Minister, Deputy Chambers, around cash is very important. Many of our customers, particularly in vulnerable communities or who have a vulnerable profile – I do not want to go into specifics – need that cash engagement and need that ability to get cash. Of course we have the currency situation, which is very good and is increasing all the time, for foreign travel. That is a particular other end of the market on which we are succeeding.

Obviously I have to be careful commercially around how this relates to our strategy but we see ourselves as having a significant financial presence. Is that presence big enough or strong enough to attract a wider investment and a wider product delivery? We are looking at that as part of our strategy nationally and internationally. I cannot go into it for commercial reasons but we are active in that area in conversations. I cannot say more than that. However, we are also conscious that the Government’s view would be to establish another Irish-based, Irish-owned entity that produces financial services to the people of the country now that certain foreign banks have left the country in recent years. This is a sensitive area and this work needs to be done sensitively for the parties involved. It might have stock market implications for some companies. I assure the committee that we are kind of active in that area.

We had some very successful joint ventures over the years with One4All and the national lottery. We have one or two businesses in the UK that have been successful. We are looking at the possibility of selling them off now that they have reached a capacity that would help our own capital injection.

There is a limited capacity to get out of the post offices that we have for sale. We are conscious that we have a social responsibility in regard to some of them. Clearly, we have a responsible investment policy in our post offices, in particular. It is not just in the small towns and villages but, as the Cathaoirleach mentioned, the suburban areas as well. We have to watch where the footfall is going and where housing is being built. The reason the Cathaoirleach has four in his particular area is that north Dublin, as we know, is expanding exponentially, as are south Dublin and west Dublin. We have to go where the population is. In some cases, we have to bring new post offices into service that did not exist before. It is not as if we are approaching these on a group basis. They end up being done on a group basis because we accumulate decisions in regard to them. Where we have engaged locally and we are looking at options, we are ensuring we maintain the postal service in that town or village in a suitable location. That is it in many of those cases. In some cases we need to manage this better by communication. Our local authority representatives need to be made aware of these changes because we do not want controversy around them or individual post offices.

The difficulty around this, as committee members will know from their own experience, is that the narrative gets distorted sometimes as to what the reason is and so on. We have to engage sensitively with current postmasters and postmistresses who want to get out for personal, family or other business reasons. We then have to look to others to see if they are willing to come in. We publicly advertised today around that. It is a sensitive, difficult commercial experience for those factors but I would like to think we do this in a responsible way. Compared with some of the banking entities, we are still the only cash provider, which we believe is very important. When we are making decisions on closures, which are limited enough among the post offices, we look for a new location as the primary alternative. That is the best way forward and that is what we engage in. It also depends on the footfall. I am originally from a rural town, Roscommon. There was a lot of controversy around Roscommon post office. I was back there for a school reunion last weekend and I walked around the town again. It has a vibrant business community and there were a lot of people out and about. It is vital that we have a post office there for a lot of reasons. It needs to offer a multiplicity of services. I am very conscious and aware of that.

When I am travelling in rural areas, I always go into the post office to find out what is going on and to buy a stamp. They would be wondering why I am in there or who I am. They might say they have never seen me before or something like that. I am always delighted to see the parcels stacked up. The other thing is that we have to supply security for the cash that is in there. That will be a big issue in the coming months with the delivery of the budget material. There is a lot there.

You must look at who your customers are. It is difficult to make that social decision. That is where Government policy and Government support for postmasters comes into play. If your primary customer base - 60% to 80% of customers - is of a certain age, is that a viable entity? As the Cathaoirleach has quite rightly said, that has to balanced against the interests of the citizen, which is paramount in those considerations. That is where the State has a role. That role can be done by trying to maintain the viability of the postmasters’ offering.

I think it is vitally important. This nation is subject to a scam tsunami. There are scams on everything. There are even scams trying to use An Post. It is all over the place. People do not know whether opening their email accesses a link. One hears stories on certain radio programmes about how people are taken in. We have seen that in one or two of our post offices where we have alerts up. People withdrawing cash from their accounts wonder what is going on. Obviously we have to work with the Central Bank and others on this in our reporting. There is a tsunami of scams going on and people, particularly older citizens, do not know how best to proceed when they are paying for things. It is important that the State moves to online services but there is a risk in online services. Certain people in the community, for whatever reason, are not comfortable with going online or find the technology difficult. They would like to go into the post office and pay it in cash or withdraw the cash from their account and pay it over the counter. The Government has to balance that with offering online services. People will be the same as me. After about five minutes of waiting on the phone, I am fed up of the opera they are playing. I love opera but after five minutes I am fed up listening to it and being told "your custom is important to us”. If it is so important, why not answer the phone with a person? We have to be conscious that we can go too far with the technology line and forget the human interaction.

There is one thing that post offices are great for, which is human interaction. That cannot be said of all financial services, which I will not name.

I welcome Mr. Mulvey here this afternoon and I thank him for his opening statement and presentation. Before we discuss An Post matters, I thank him as he has engaged in different processes arising from committee work we have undertaken, particularly with regard to the Irish Coast Guard so I thank them for that as well.

I have perhaps five or six points I wish to raise. I will go through them quickly and perhaps we might have a little exchange on some of these. One of the points that postmasters would make to me is that they are very eager to have an expanded range of services provided in order that they can sell foreign currency but they cannot buy foreign currency in. That is quite problematic. If one takes west of Ireland towns, which have a huge influx of tourists over the summer, that old traditional foreign exchange service does not exist but some form of it exists in a post office. While I acknowledge that many people are using Revolut, cards, phones and digital payments, there is still a need for foreign exchange. They can sell currency but they cannot buy. They are wondering if An Post would consider this because this would just be an overhaul of that function?

Would it also consider an expansion of State services, including the completion of State forms?

Certainly, Deputy. Interestingly enough, I brought the issue of foreign currency up at a recent board meeting before I was chairman because I was in Greystones post office, which is my own post office where I collect my contributory pension every few weeks. An American was there trying to change foreign currency and could not understand why the post office could not take his currency back from him as he wanted Irish currency. He wanted to sell back the dollars he had and wanted Irish currency for dollars. I brought it up at the board. Our finance people are looking at that and at the technology they could use. I believe it is a bit unreasonable to be able to sell the currency and not be able to buy it back. We have a good offering on that and we should increase it. Certainly, we are looking at that.

It is part of my answer to the Cathaoirleach on that whereby we need to develop more technology that will allow us access to it. If it is online in the post office, then we would have to ask the postmasters because that has an employment content to it for them and for us. This would be how we would have some people from normal postal transactions coming through to help citizens with tax forms, with a car registration or getting online services. It takes a bit of time with things, as the Deputy would know, to try to get on and it is a question of how we would manage to do that. We need Government assistance and certainly the postmasters, as part of whatever arrangement might be entered into in the future, would allow the financial cost of that to be offset by the Government in promoting Government services itself at point of contact.

I was not aware of this until a few years ago but many post offices in rural areas have a backroom sorting room at the rear of a post office where two or three An Post employees could be there in the back. There is a trend at the moment to try to consolidate these to An Post-owned post offices, as opposed to contractor post offices and the term "consolidation" is used. People often think that consolidation means saving money but I know of an analysis done in County Clare where two or three of these backroom sorting offices would be closed and brought in centrally, and the costs of that have been laid bare to me. It is costing far more. It is bringing people from a place of employment they have been in for years into a town centre location, which is not very sustainable or cost saving. I know that Mr. Mulvey will not have the answers to this question here today but the board of An Post need to have a little bit of oversight on this on consolidation and rationalisation. All of these terms are part of the 21st century running of a business but they do not always save costs and are not always sustainable. I ask that An Post might reconsider some of these or at least have a fresh look at some of these in terms of the costings involved.

I will bring that to the attention of the management team of the board. I do not want to just set it aside but we are in a period of consolidation where the parcel volume is so enormous in An Post that we need to consolidate our centres by which that would be done, and the mail volume is so low. This is really trying to cope with that with the fleet we have and how we deliver that more quickly to customers. I would say to the Deputy that we are undertaking consolidation and are looking at that. We are also trying to look, particularly around the mails, at a very strong single absolutely full technology mail centre that meets not just business and our own delivery requirements but meets custom and revenue requirements, as well as our own logistics. This is about the cost of servicing that and of trying to ensure that we have the best efficiency. Over the years I am very conscious in other employments and companies how that has been the trend. I do not see that as necessarily being reversed. Obviously, I will talk to the board and see what is happening there. The big issue around that would be information, engagement, consultation and discussion.

My next question is about pensioners. I received an email during the week in advance of this meeting and it is from an An Post pensioner. He was explaining that over the years there have been different iterations of postal delivery and services in Ireland. He and many of his colleagues migrated across from the then Department of Posts and Telegraphs. To all intents and purposes, they were civil servants who migrated across to An Post over the years as employees. He said that there was a pension issue that those ex-civil servants continue to have. Is the board watchful of this or is much being done at board level for them? To illustrate the problem, the email stated that many pensioners from the lower grades are now on less income than the State pension for a couple and that is after 30 or 40 years direct service to the State. Has the board had eyes on this situation?

No issue in that regard to my knowledge has been escalated to the board. The An Post pension scheme, thankfully, is in rude good health and has an €500 million surplus in it at the moment. We have engaged with the unions around that and the unions have been very flexible with the company on the pension. I am not aware of the issue raised by Deputy Crowe but I will inquire because it is an issue I have been through in other employments, namely, about the transferability of pension benefit. That initially would be a matter of the trustees, who are the payees.

I have two final questions. The first is on the GPO site, which Mr. Mulvey has already touched on briefly. The media have been speculating all week as to the different functions which could happen there. I even saw a report that Dublin City Council was looking at the possibility of some RTÉ presence being at the site of the GPO, which may not be the worst thing in the world. Could Mr. Mulvey gives us a flavour of where all of that is at because it is an iconic building? I know M.r Mulvey says it speaks to an older Ireland but its preservation in some form is very essential to everything in inner-city Dublin. Is there talk at board level as to what will happen to that iconic building in the future?

I was chairman of the North East Inner City Task Force on the north inner city regeneration but O'Connell Street, Parnell Street or anything else did not come into my purview. I have been through that building. The front of the building, with all of the Palladian features, is very iconic as it was the centre of the revolution that led to our independence. It has that iconic image. Unfortunately, over the past number of years, the image of that has deteriorated because of anti-social drug activity. I have been in the post office myself on pensioner welfare day and it is not a pretty sight to see what happens in there. We must have a greater respect for our employees in that regard and for other people who legitimately go about their business there.

The back of the building has been the subject of discussion and engagement with business communities over the years. Then of course we created the 1916 gallery in there, which is a great museum and facility and has been modernised. I have heard the reference to RTÉ and that is where RTÉ started, in the GPO. It was called RN or something. I knew some people who did their first stint there. The late judge, Liam Devally, was a personal friend of mine and used to broadcast from the GPO. I also understand some of the facilities which were used by RTÉ at that time were of the art nouveau variety, given when it was rebuilt after the destruction, and those features are still there. One could possibly have a section of RTÉ that could operate from there. I am not going to suggest what section that would be but I know that when Kevin Bakhurst has been addressing staff, he has mentioned to them the necessity to relocate some of their facilities and productions.

As I always say, sometimes you have to think the impossible and it will happen. It might revitalise part of our city because we cannot have the main street of the capital, that has such historical import to the country, be a no-go area.

I thank Mr. Mulvey. I ask him about the idea of an ongoing financial support. The State gave €12 million in 2022 and it was divvied out by An Post to contractors around the country. It proved valuable and was a lifeline to many of them. Mr. Mulvey stated in his presentation that some kind of financial model is needed to keep things buoyant and above a level of difficulty.

The board has had a discussion over the years about selling some of the assets which we had, for which we got a good return on investment. We are at the end of that now. There are one or two potential strategic assets but they will not bring in more than €10 million. We need to have the borrowing cap lifted to the level I indicated if we are to go in as a strong character into any joint venture or any other arrangement. To build and extend the business, we need to be in a good financial position. If the Government gave us that facility, we have had a good arrangement with the banks over the years. We have been a good customer of the Government with regard to the loan it gave us. We repaid fully and on time. We managed the savings. There was the engagement with the NTMA. We started our money product almost de novo and have built it to the level it has been built. It is one of the more successful entities in An Post.

Without asking for subsidy from the Government, which our strong opinion is that we do not want, though I might add that we are not necessarily of the same opinion but that is for a future discussion of our board, our board is certainly very conscious through our audit and risk committee that we need some capacity above the profitability we have each year. That goes back into the business and is not at a level with the scale of our business. As I say, we will be a billion euro business by the end of next year.

I feel we can be trusted. I think we are a good public company. We are a company that has a significant and unique footfall. We provide a unique service and I think we provide it well. I am not aware of any controversies relating to us. Hopefully there are none. I will find out about any like those which Deputy Crowe raised with me and see how best we can manage to address those. We have proven ourselves to be a good company to invest in. Remember the investment in us goes back to the citizens, not a private entity, to deliver services to them. That is the image we need to have as a good public company. We do not want to have what happened across the channel or in other postal services. We are considered to be a very fine postal service within the European Union. We do it well but there are matters that would assist us considerably. They are areas for the Government decisions that I outlined about the borrowing cap and future assistance to the postmasters in the context of their requirements and requests.

I conclude by wishing Mr. Mulvey the best in his role. I thank Mr. Angus Laverty and all of the team in the GPO. I thank the local agents of An Post, the postmasters, postmistresses and the postal delivery team that we meet every day around the countryside. I thank Mr. Mulvey and wish him the best in his new role.

I welcome Mr. Mulvey to the committee. I am delighted with his appointment as chair of An Post. In the end of his engagement with Deputy Crowe, Mr. Mulvey summed up perfectly how An Post is viewed by the public as well as by itself, as a proud, unique public service offering in this country, which needs to be protected and re-energised to evolve with modern times. I think it is doing that, by and large.

The one issue I wanted to focus on today relates to An Post pensioners. It is an issue I have raised a number of times with the Minister in the Dáil Chamber. Given Mr. Mulvey's professional experience, who was described an industrial relations troubleshooter when he got this role, which I think does a disservice to his full professional achievements but is nonetheless not untrue, he might give this some attention. It stems back to section 46 of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983. Civil servants who were forcibly transferred through that Act were given a commitment that their entitlements would never diminish but there has been a failure to apply pay parity post the 2008 crash in accordance with the Civil Service rules. It is not dissimilar to the section 39 rules whereby, at that time, people who were being paid out of the public purse in some fashion and were obviously active workers, were not getting the increase. There is a similar principle at play here with these pensioners. I imagine many of them are watching here today, because any time this comes up in the Dáil or in committee, they are a very engaged group. They feel hard done by and rightly so.

Since vesting day, their contribution became a class D contribution, and the way things have evolved, their real income is less than what it would be on a State contributory pension. That is the fact of where we are now. Mr. Mulvey will know, with pensions, pension transfers, multiple items of legislation and so on, that there are complications, but ultimately these pensioners have found themselves in a disadvantageous financial position. That could be remedied and rectified if there was the will to do so. I think they would be welcomed here. The pension fund is in rude health, as Mr. Mulvey said in his previous contribution. When dealing with these pensioners, they are not just formal meetings. I am stopped on the street. I was stopped most recently on Monday in Portmarnock by a pensioner. They are still proud of the fact that they are An Post workers, despite feeling they have not been treated well with regard to their pension entitlements, but they are still proud ambassadors of An Post. They are proud of the careers they have had and the time they have given. They are connected with the organisation. You see that in a number of organisations in the country that have proud public service records and traditions. An Post is one. It is a group that is worthy of a bit of attention. There are enough resources there. It is between An Post management and the trustees to work on that. We have been trying to lever the Minister on it as best we can but ultimately it is down to management. If Mr. Mulvey has any further comment on that, I would really appreciate it.

Obviously the issue of pensioners is always emotional. It is a period where people are most vulnerable. That is their income for life and determines their lifestyle. I always say to people who are thinking of retiring early to remember that their pay will be cut in half and to ask whether they will change their lifestyle by cutting it in half. It comes as a big shock to people when that happens at a particular stage in their career. The Deputy is quite right about An Post. An Post has an extraordinary history of long service commitment to the postal service. I sign these acknowledgements every so often. Yesterday, I think I signed about 17. I look at the service. There were 41 years, 46 years and, in fact, somebody had 47 years' service. I sign our acknowledgement of that and how we deal with that. The Deputy is quite right that they have that very strong loyalty. People are proud of it.

It has gone through a few manifestations. An Post was separated from telecoms, and then there was the sad history of telecoms afterwards. Thank God we did not go that route, with what happened and the multiple changes. I did the Waterford Crystal pension scheme many years ago. It was another debacle but we managed to extract a settlement relating to that. I will take this up with management and see if there are ways by which this can be addressed. Pensions are always a minefield of expectation, entitlement, perception and actuality, which is what actually happens.

I am certainly not unused to pension disputes. Let me put it that way. I have been involved in a few such disputes. I will undertake to look at the issue.

I would appreciate that. I might follow up with a letter to Mr. Mulvey with some observations. I thank him.

I want to discuss the future of the GPO site, which has been raised. The RTÉ link was curious because the GPO was where the organisation started. I do not know if RTÉ needs to relocate or outsource but it would seem to be quite an unusual place for a broadcaster to go back to. I am not sure where the suggestion came from.

O'Connell Street has struggled in recent years with dereliction and antisocial behaviour. It is our main thoroughfare and I love it dearly, as most Dubs do. Notwithstanding what Mr. Mulvey said about particular behaviour and some difficulties in and around the area, the GPO has remained a beacon of vitality. I hope the connection with the post office will be retained and not just for sentimental and historical reasons but because it has managed to sustain itself in the heart of that street when other parts of the street, buildings and former cinemas, have added to the dereliction. We need to recognise that the GPO has done a lot of heavy lifting to retain some degree of positivity towards the main thoroughfare. I want to put that point across.

I have been in the GPO many times over the years. The Deputy is right. I hope I did not give a misleading impression. It is the side streets around the GPO that are, unfortunately, areas of antisocial activity. I think we have struggled for some time with O'Connell Street and the fact that buildings have been left abandoned. Companies have come in to try to purchase the building. I have heard stories that, for one reason or another, they have not had the best engagement with the city council or whatever else, or there have been protests about the use of a building and everything else. Some of the buildings have gone to rack and ruin. One does not want to put anybody out of business but the GPO is not the best place to have gambling establishments or drinking engagements around it. Is that what we want? When you go to other capital cities, they do not have the same element around the areas they wish to promote as their first places. Anybody coming from the airport passes through O'Connell Street to get to the southside of the city. It is not the best site to be going through if you are looking out the window and things are happening. The council has done great work with the pavements, the central landscape and everything else. It is a great thoroughfare and has a vibrancy with the bus services and the Luas crossing it, and in other ways. We must preserve, protect, support and encourage the other business entities in O'Connell Street, which are doing a decent day's business.

I thank Mr. Mulvey and sincerely welcome him to his still newish role. I wish him all the best. I also thank his team. In my short time as a TD so far, and previously when I was a councillor, any time I have had to engage with An Post's communications department to get information about a closure, a change of location or whatever else, and some of them have been sensitive matters, the engagement has been dealt with expeditiously and sensitively. I have always got clear information, which is sincerely appreciated. I thank Mr. Mulvey.

I wish Mr. Mulvey every success. There are three areas I wish to talk about. We are proud of An Post and the men and women who work there. It has evolved over the years and has become a very professional organisation. We are all proud. An Post has come through difficult times. One area I am interested in relates to borrowing. An Post borrowed €30 million from the Government. It is a unique arrangement that works for everybody. Can any other agency do the same? I do not know what the interest is but it is probably 0%. If An Post pays the money back in time, it is a great arrangement if the Government has funding. I say, "Well done."

When I was growing up, everybody seemed to put their money into prize bonds. I do not have more than €50 worth now. I know somebody who was getting cheques through the door. The prizes have decreased because of interest rates and so on, and that is putting people off taking out bonds. I am not saying a prize bond is a loss earner or anything but that could be an area worth revisiting if people have disposable income to invest and felt they were going to get a dividend in the form of a prize. That could be an area worth paying attention to but Mr. Mulvey probably knows better than I do.

I also raise the TV licence. Does Mr. Mulvey have any views as to the best way for people to pay? Is there a better way than what we have been doing for the past 40 or 50 years? Perhaps I am putting Mr. Mulvey on the spot. I wish him every success. As Deputy Duncan Smith said, An Post has a very good public relations, PR, department. I was on the local radio because there were issues about post offices moving into Sligo, which was agreed 14 years ago. I got an email from a representative of An Post to state that the company was working on it. My correspondent went on to say that they heard my interview on the local radio. An Post is keeping in touch with us and Mr. Mulvey can take that as a compliment.

I thank the Deputy very much. There has been engagement recently, within the past six months, about prize bonds. There were criticisms about the fund and claims that cheques were not arriving with the frequency that was expected. The basic went from €50 to €75, but I am open to correction on that point. As a holder of prize bonds, I seem to win €75 quite often but I do not get anything more than that. I wonder why I do not get the bigger amounts.

The Deputy would have to knock a few noughts off that amount. I am in the same territory as he is. It is a great way for people to invest their money with the reassurance that they will not lose it. That security was very important after the crash. It is not limited to the €100,000. What you put in, you get back, which is important. It has slowed down this year but is still a big investment for Irish people. There are also offerings on savings bonds over three to five years. We believe they offer good and competitive returns. There is not much we can do. We have considered the situation and have tried to increase the availability of bonds and the numbers of people who have availed of winnings in the monthly prize bond draw.

The Deputy asked about transfer, which is related to what Deputy Cathal Crowe said. Where we have smaller entities, we are trying to bring them into a new and better office with higher technology and everything else. That does mean amalgamating some of the smaller offices in the region. We have an agreement with the unions for the protocol around that. Even though it might be hot and heavy for a while, it materialises after a while and people settle down with the arrangement.

Will the Deputy remind me of the other issue he raised?

I do not know what I can offer that would bring greater enlightenment on that issue. An Post made a submission to the committee at the time it was being discussed. I am not up to speed on the detail of it. We will still be operating the TV licence collection system. Some people in the organisation would perhaps say there is not great value in doing so. My argument is that we cannot keep asking the Government to give us services and then, when there is a service, we say we do not want it. Our loss on this service is up to €2 million this year, between the whole debacle that happened and so on. I do not know whether we are getting anything back in the new subsidies being given to RTÉ. I am not up to date on the detail of that. What I do not like is that it is up to us to pursue the prosecutor element of it. I do not like the negativity of us, or any entity, being associated with taking people to court. One does not want that kind of image. However, it goes with the territory.

Overall, on the TV licence, I would say the current system is established. The Government made a decision in this regard. People would have a reaction to Revenue collecting the fee. We have been through the taxation issues arising out of the water charges. We would not want the same to happen again. People will live with an existing arrangement but will sometimes have a difficulty with a totally new arrangement. If it becomes strictly mandatory, they react to it. As we always used to say about Irish people, they will walk on paths until a sign is put up telling them not to walk on the grass; then they will walk on the grass. They do not want to be told what to do. It is part of the psychology of the people.

I thank the Deputy for his support and encouragement and his acknowledgment of what our postmen and postwomen are doing. I am glad to hear, which Deputy Smith also mentioned, that our public relations team is performing excellently. That is good. I am glad the team members are here to hear that.

My outfit is not that Christmassy. However, we will talk about that another time. I thank the Cathaoirleach again for noticing.

I thank Mr. Mulvey for being here. There is no doubt that he is more than suitable for, and capable of, doing the job. Well done on his appointment. I am delighted he is taking on the role, to which he brings so much experience from many different aspects of Irish life. An Post is like the water service and the electricity service in that it delivers to every house.

There is a business opportunity that has not been tapped into enough by An Post. The company currently does not have the 166 local electoral areas, LEAs, and 43 Dáil constituencies mapped. A lot of politicians, both councillors and candidates in general elections, want to be able to deliver leaflets to voters. Delivery companies generally do not deliver to houses with a "No junk mail" sign. If An Post were able to map the 166 local electoral areas, which I am sure it is more than capable of doing, and offer a service to both sitting councillors and prospective candidates, on a ward-by-ward or LEA-by-LEA basis, the councillors of Ireland, who make up a very significant part of my electorate, would benefit from that.

When I was a councillor, I did not regard my leaflets as junk mail, but some people would say they were. If An Post guaranteed delivery of such leaflets to every house in an LEA, people would pay a premium for that service. I understand An Post does not have such a system at the moment. My understanding is that it is possible to secure delivery across Dublin 12, Dublin 14, County Dublin or whatever, but delivery is not done by LEA or Dáil constituency. There is an opportunity for An Post to investigate whether such a service is possible.

The arrangements for postcodes are up for review this year. We have part of that contract and we will be tendering for the full contract. That will allow us to extend eircodes to all business and family addresses. A problem that sometimes arises at the moment is in respect of the multiplicity of apartments that now exist and the transition of individuals within those apartments. That is a particular issue, of which I am sure politicians have experience. When blocks of apartments go up, the first question is whether there are post boxes and, number two, who the people are living in those apartments and whether they are registered.

This certainly is an issue we are conscious of, having recently had the local and European elections. We did our own assessment of what went on there and whatever complaints we might have received. In the local elections, there was a larger number of candidates than ever before. The European elections tend to be different, with a smaller number of candidates and larger constituencies. We have had a discussion with each of the political parties regarding the experience in those elections. Some issues have come up, which our director of mails, Garrett Bridgeman, is addressing at the moment. An Post has a big role to play in ensuring the democratic system operates with total effectiveness and efficiency and that public representatives, whether at national or local level, get their mail delivered under the provisions setting out what is required of An Post in this regard. There is an immediacy and urgency around those communications.

I have seen the "No junk mail" signs the Senator mentioned. I agree with him that communications from politicians, whatever people may think, are not junk mail. The communications I receive refer to developments in my local area and constituency and give details, for example, of when the politician's office is open and when a public engagement is taking place. Recently, I received information from a number of local politicians, particularly those from the Government parties, on the social welfare provisions in the budget. Such communications provide a very useful directory of information. I accept the Senator's point in that regard. The political parties, in their meetings with us, have conveyed that message to the director of mails. We hope to move on that.

The Senator asked about a constituency-based service. That is always a difficult one because the Electoral Commission tends to move things around from time to time with the reorganisation of constituencies. The Cathaoirleach made an observation earlier regarding suburban areas. Wherever I drive, I see more and more buildings going up everywhere. I do not know whether they are social housing or homes for rent. There is no constituency in which I have travelled recently, particularly in suburban areas, where there was not a myriad of houses being built.

Whatever about the houses, it is the apartments that are the problem. Often, there is a security lock in place for the benefit of the apartment dwellers. It is very difficult to get one's message even as far as a post box. There is an opportunity for An Post to charge people for a service that would ensure delivery. I am not talking about the official litir um thoghcháin but other types of leaflets. If I am a local councillor or Dáil candidate and I want to be able to deliver leaflets to an area, An Post would be able to say to me it will guarantee that every single dwelling in the area gets my leaflet. It could charge a premium for that. I do not expect An Post to do it for nothing. On the other hand, I expect it not to charge €1.35 per leaflet.

We do well out of them. It is a case of the more the merrier. However, that is for another day. It is a question of trying to ensure we have that correlation. We have good engagement with the political parties in this regard. We want to ensure we play our role, as a State institution, in promoting democracy.

Mr. Mulvey referred to constituency changes. Electoral areas might change every five or ten years. They are not changed on a weekly or monthly basis. There are adjustments to be made but they can be made when the change happens. It would be useful to homeowners and politicians and of benefit to the democratic system if the service we have discussed were to be introduced.

I thank Mr. Mulvey. His contribution is highly valued and I thank him for coming before the committee this afternoon. I am conscious of time as we must conclude because another meeting, with the Minister of State, is starting in this room in 15 minutes. This meeting will adjourn and the next meeting of the joint committee will be at 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, 17 October 2024 with Cyber Ireland. A meeting of the select committee will take place at 3.15 p.m. today with the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth.