David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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72. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment further to Parliamentary Question No. 45 of 16 November 2023, to report on the funding provided to An Post to date as part of the €10 million per annum from within his Department’s existing capital provision for the period 2023 to 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27424/24]

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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This is to give the Minister an opportunity to report on the funding provided to An Post to date as part of the €10 million per annum from within his Department's existing capital provision for the period 2023 to 2025.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy Stanton. An Post is a commercial State body with a mandate to act commercially. It has statutory responsibility for the State's postal service and the post office network. The Government is committed to a sustainable An Post and post office network, as a key component of the economic and social infrastructure throughout Ireland. In line with this commitment, my Department is providing €10 million funding per annum over a three-year fixed term from 2023 to 2025 to An Post. This funding is being disbursed across the post office network, with An Post being responsible for operational detail.

The network of almost 900 post offices comprises company offices and contractor post offices. All contractor post offices are benefiting from the funding, with the objective of securing the stability of the network during the three-year funding period. There has been over €13.8 million claimed by An Post for the period 2023 to the end of May this year for that network. The provision of funding to postmasters contributes towards ensuring both that the public have access to important socially valuable services across the post office network, and that the network is of sufficient scale right across the country. The funding provides time and space for An Post to accelerate the transformation and commercialisation of the network to ensure a relevant, commercially viable network delivering more services to citizens and small businesses. Decisions relating to the network, including actively seeking new business and exploring opportunities to develop new or enhanced product lines, are a matter for An Post directly.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his response. I am sure he will agree with me that An Post is a very important institution or organisation in the State. It does great work, especially what it did over Covid. The work the postmen and postwomen who went out and linked with people who were isolated at that time did was hugely important. I draw the Minister's attention to the publicity post An Post operates. The Minister mentioned small business in his reply. Publicity post zones have not been changed for quite a while. Many of them are very arbitrary. They are very awkward to work on for businesses in that they cross county boundaries and so on. Has the need for these zones to be looked at and amended been brought to the Minister's attention? As a member of the relevant committee, I have been in contact with An Post on a few occasions asking it to consider this. It has agreed there is a need for it but nothing has happened in the last number of years. Will the Minister comment on that please?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Coincidentally, I was only talking to one of my team earlier and we were raising a similar issue. My understanding is that the delivery of publicity post or direct mail cannot or does not operate within electoral boundaries in many instances. We were asking ourselves the question as to why that is the case because when it comes to An Coimisiún Toghcháin communications, it can. I agreed earlier on this morning that I was going to write to the CEO of An Post to ask that very question. Why is it that the boundaries there seem to be so restrictive compared with others? "Yes" is the answer. I do not know if the Deputy's concerns came about as a result of representations similar to those I have been receiving. I will ask An Post to look at the matter.

Making the broader case, An Post is an extremely important and trusted organisation. Those 900 post offices are probably some of the most trusted institutions within our State for people's money, the social welfare, their savings as well as for mail, parcels and so on. An Post is in a challenging situation. Mail volumes continue to drop significantly. We all know this when we think about when the last time was we sent a letter. We have to see the expansion of other businesses, particularly the parcel business which has been successful and is being very well run by An Post. However, it is in a difficult and stressed situation. That €10 million per annum, €30 million over these three years, is an important support as the company transitions to a new commercial future. It is a commercial business and that is not without its challenges.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Aire.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We have to work very closely with the company to help them towards a prosperous future.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his response. Certainly, it did come from small businesses. I am also aware of the electoral and boundary issues to which the Minister alluded. It seems that some of these publicity post zones were designed at the time the stagecoach was in vogue. They are quite unwieldy. I am not sure if other colleagues in the House would agree with me but they do not seem to make any sense. They cross county boundaries and so on. Talking about getting business for An Post, would the Minister agree with me that if these publicity post zones were changed, made smaller, more localised and more workable for everybody - including politicians by the way - that An Post might actually garner more business through publicity post and this method of doing it?

Will the Minister comment on whether any of the funding is earmarked for the sustainable post vehicles that are increasingly used across the country? Is that campaign succeeding? We have heard of issues with charging, range anxiety and so on. An Post is doing a good deal of work in that space.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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There is one comment I want to make about An Post in the context of its parcel service. The Minister mentioned it as well. Every road in the country we go down, we see nothing but couriers delivering all kinds of stuff. They are all private businesses and they are all obviously able to compete and make money. It seems very strange to me that An Post cannot be in that field and cannot be doing an awful lot more of that work. An Post is a State company that has had years of experience and that has a depot in practically every second parish in the country from the point of view of its post offices. However, we see that the vast majority of all of this work is being done by private companies. That just does not make sense. I know perhaps some of the working conditions of the people who are delivering for some of these private companies may be well below the standards we would expect to see the An Post drivers working to, and certainly would be lower, but it is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Any assistance we can give to An Post to allow it to compete better in that market should be offered. It is clear that there is a huge opportunity in this regard. There will be further opportunities as we move forward. More people, unfortunately, are buying online and half the stuff they buy they send back. All of this needs to be addressed, but An Post is in a central position to do more of that work.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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First, direct mail is a very good, profitable and important business for An Post and a very good marketing mechanism. Therefore, I agree with the Deputy. That should be an area in which we hopefully will see further expansion. Regarding the route networks, I do not think they go back to the stagecoach but I remember when we were establishing the Eircode system that this network is based around the postal delivery going back to where the local post person is working. That is a core part of An Post's business. How it uses it is something I hope it can amend or I hope it can further develop the resource it has.

Second, regarding electric vehicles, An Post deserves huge credit in this regard. I remember up to five years ago, someone came to the chief executive of An Post at the time with a proposal for two or three electric vehicles. Instead, the ambition was that it would change the entire fleet and really think big. That has been very successful. It is a real example of a State company showing real enterprise and real capability that benefits the company and the community with cleaner, quieter vehicles with lower emissions. An Post has done very well in that. It is a real model of how businesses can be changed quite dramatically.

In answer to Deputy Kenny-----

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Aire. We are over time.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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-----An Post's parcel business is very successful. It is very active, very competitive and one of the largest, if not the largest, players in that market.

The company is expanding that business quite successfully and quite rapidly. The challenge for the company is how it can manage that at scale as well as other diverse income streams to cope with the natural decline in its former core business, as is happening right across Europe. An Post is now a very serious large player in the parcel delivery business and I am very glad it is.