What's Going On with An Post?

Does anyone have any inside information as to what the situation is with An Post and letter/parcel deliveries?

I saw the end of a snippet on the 6 O'Clock news one day last week mentioning a possible strike before Christmas and a backlog of mail.

Has anyone experienced mail being delivered late?

I've just started up a nice little business on ebay, am doing quite well and would like to maintain the momentum, but am worried I might get negative feedback if the items take a long time to reach their destinations, or worse still don't arrive at all!

delgirl said:

Does anyone have any inside information as to what the situation is with An Post and letter/parcel deliveries?

I saw the end of a snippet on the 6 O'Clock news one day last week mentioning a possible strike before Christmas and a backlog of mail.

Has anyone experienced mail being delivered late?

I've just started up a nice little business on ebay, am doing quite well and would like to maintain the momentum, but am worried I might get negative feedback if the items take a long time to reach their destinations, or worse still don't arrive at all!

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i am still waiting for a letter posted on the 7th...

One of the morning radio news shows mentioned that 100+ (approx 9%) of their Dublin postmen were off sick yesterday.

Apparently it takes 3 weeks to get an A4 envelope delivered (according to a guest on The Last Word last week)

This is what we were told in work more or less, small white envelopes and A5 (C5) envelopes, will take 2 or 3 working days to be delivered within the Dublin area and to the rest of Ireland. A4 (C4) envelopes and larger packages sent within the Dublin area and to the rest of Ireland will take 5 or 6 days to be delivered.

There's always talk of strikes around Christmas but I think there's a ballot in the next week or two just can't remember where I heard that.

I'm still waiting on a letter posted 8 days ago!! And it not arriving has cost me money.

I've been waiting for two parcels from the UK for stuff bought on EBay. One of them was posted more than two weeks ago, the other morea than three!! Just got refunds from both as they were able to claim from Royal Mail as the parcels hadn't arrived within 15 days. Anyone else having these problems? These make it five parcels that have gone missing in the post to me this year!
Leo

I was waiting on two packages from England. One took 3 weeks and the other took 6 weeks from the dispatch confirmation emails!! On the other hand, I ordered something from America on a Wednesday and had it the following Monday.

From a good pal who works in the GPO... Results from the ballot to strike are due this Friday and he informs me that from speaking to colleagues in An Post, that the strike is 99% certain to go ahead!

I too ordered some stuff from ebay and received 2 packages on the same day one with a postmark of the 26th sept and the other the 8th of Oct .Both arrived the 14th of October. I had almost given up on the first arriving at all. This is a marked change since last year when I was receiving parcel post from the UK which arrived within the week

My postie told me that the problem is simply not enough people to deliver the post so it piles up in the sorting offices. Our local one is one of the worst affected - took 6 days for package posted in GPO to arrive here in south dublin. People who retired, left, sick etc were never replaced due to cutbacks so those who come into work can only do so much, hence the bags left unopened. No recruitement cos they say they cant afford to pay new staff. Overtime is severely cut back and as my postie said, he would be only able to deliver so much extra post to another area after doing his own even if they paid him huge overtime to do it. Posties are still owed money going back several years from some pay agreement yet management have been able to pay themselves nice wage increases since. Maybe time to sort it out once and for all?

I got a letter from Scotland today 18/10 which was postmarked 29/9.

I had given up on it coming. Half A4 size (whatever that is) posted air mail £1.47stg.

tomthumb said:

My postie told me that the problem is simply not enough people to deliver the post so it piles up in the sorting offices. People who retired, left, sick etc were never replaced due to cutbacks so those who come into work can only do so much, hence the bags left unopened. No recruitement cos they say they cant afford to pay new staff. Overtime is severely cut back and as my postie said, he would be only able to deliver so much extra post to another area after doing his own even if they paid him huge overtime to do it. Posties are still owed money going back several years from some pay agreement yet management have been able to pay themselves nice wage increases since. Maybe time to sort it out once and for all?

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Exactly what I heard from a neighbour up the road who works in An Post - as he put it, they go to a retirement party and say to each other "well, one less to do the post"

More insider ( dad was a postie, though not in Dublin) the staff are due arrears of SP from November 2003. An Post told them they were broke because the 'last' management company had invested badly ie new sorting machines, SDS depot on the Naas Road, and a company in Spain and UK who sold mobile credit by computer. In comes new board and together with a new Chairperson who was a political appointee. She states that 25,000 per annum isn't enough for her and hey presto - her €25,000 is doubled to €50,000 after a week in the job. Is it any wonder the posties are pissed off. and those 'bad' investments by the previous board - the company spain and uk cost €15m and was sold off this year for €85m - a profit of €70m in two years. Wish I had made a few bad investments like that one! and as for the Naas Road site, how much is it worth now compared to when an post bought it in the 1980's or early 1990's? Think the current cx and top brass not popular with staff. They are all ex esb apparantly but that asks the question why aren't they still with Esb a company who can get almost anything they want off this government. with an election in the next year or so Labour should be able to make hay out of it anyway.

Go a pile of about 25 letters yesterday! Felt so popular!!! Never usually get more than 3 letters if any. But some were almost 2 weeks old!!

fobs said:

I too ordered some stuff from ebay and received 2 packages on the same day one with a postmark of the 26th sept and the other the 8th of Oct .Both arrived the 14th of October. I had almost given up on the first arriving at all. This is a marked change since last year when I was receiving parcel post from the UK which arrived within the week

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I had the same issue. 2 parcels from amazon in the UK.
1 dispatched on the 27th sept and 1 on 8 oct - both arrived on the 14th as well!

Maybe Royal mail are holding off on deliveries to the republic knowing the difficulty an post are in, or maybe it's like others have said they just waited in the sorting depot until someone got around to them.

Might I suggest we all really do something to change things and complain to An Post? I believe they have a customer service department and if every late delivery, etc. was logged, surely they would have to take on more people especially with the heavy post of Christmas coming up very soon?
Letter Post Section, GPO, Dublin 1
letterpost@anpost.ie

Putting complaints in written (not email) form to businesses/organisations is usually more official and more likely to get a response in my experience. Have you voiced your complaints to them already tomthumb? If you don't get a satisfactory response from An Post then take it up with [broken link removed].

It quite amazing my post alwys seem to take ages to arrive except for my TV licence renewal notice which took 1 day to arrive!!!!

I know the sender of the package we received 5 days late had sent a written complaint regarding it. He received a fairly standard letter apologising etc. but nothing to actually explain exactly why it took so long and if the stack of letters was big enough complaining something could happen to change it!! He has sworn to register these packets in future!