In this digital era of e-mail - and with An Post losing €2.5 million a month - are the days of the postman numbered, asks Conor Pope
How much post of genuine interest have you received this year? How many letters that took more than a moment of your time before being crumpled up or neatly filed away never to be looked at again? For a growing number of people the answer is few.
The days of anxiously waiting by the letterbox to see if the cheque really was in the post have pretty much gone for many people, and that time when the gentle sound of mail being pushed through the front door might have heralded thrillingly unexpected news is fading into memory.
In the past, paper was the medium and the messenger was the postman, but increasingly the medium is digital and the messenger is virtual. We have electronic fund transfers, direct debits and standing orders to manage our finances and we have, in e-mail, a much more effective method of correspondence than the humble letter ever was.
The Internet allows you to read your magazines of choice without the need for a costly and untimely mail-reliant subscription service. It also allows you to check and pay bills and access your bank balance.
All that's left for the 21st-century postman to deliver are depressing envelopes with windows, the occasional festive card or invite and, of course, bundles and bundles of junk mail. Is it any wonder our postal service is in crisis?
The severity of the crisis was illustrated this week by the Minister for Communications, Dermot Ahern, who told the Dáil that An Post was "in deep financial trouble and no amount of wishful thinking can airbrush away this reality. The simple facts are the company is losing €600,000 every week - or €2.5 million each month. This is the stark reality that all sides have to address."
There was no sign this week, however, that either management or unions at An Post were addressing the reality as 550 staff were suspended and post boxes across affected areas were sealed in a row over working practices.
Although small businesses and social welfare recipients - particularly pensioners - have suffered badly in the dispute, its impact on the average consumer seems to have been minimal - which begs an obvious question: are the days of traditional mail numbered? For how much longer will we need our postman and An Post?
Such questions are being asked all over the world. Last year a presidential commission in the US - where the Postal Service is the second-largest employer - called for significant modernisation of the service and predicted a dire future without major changes. Its recommendations included widespread post office closures, dramatic staff reductions and an increased range of services - such as personalised stamps featuring photos of customers' children or dogs. The commission noted that in the era of computers the future of paper mail hung in the balance but wryly pointed out that "the future has a way of surprising us all".
The Chambers of Commerce of Ireland (CCI) is concerned about the current postal dispute, but it is optimistic that electronic communication will help to undo the damage.
"The dispute is going to cause problems but it is not going to have the same impact as the major disputes of the 1970s had," says CCI chief executive John Dunne. "It will force companies into looking at alternatives.
"There is still a fair amount of paper floating around out there. That's going to change in the future and over time our reliance on the postal service will become less acute but for now, this dispute is a real problem," Dunne says.
One reason technology hasn't made this dispute irrelevant is that many people don't have computer access. This week, many older people were forced to travel long distances into hotels and other central locations to collect pensions.
"Older people have enough concerns without worrying about whether they are going to receive their monthly pension or their weekly magazine in the post," Age Action Ireland spokesman Paul Murray says. Although they "are becoming more e-mail conscious and a significant number have access to computers", poverty inevitably means that many older people are still cut off.
The Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association (ISME) carried out a straw poll of its members last week and found that 13 per cent rely almost exclusively on An Post. Close to 20,000 ISME members will be severely hit by the dispute, according to chief executive Mark Fielding.
"A lot of the calls we've been getting have been from business people who say they haven't been able to get money in because of the dispute."
It's not only cash flow that's a problem - March and April are peak months for mail marketing, and more than 40 per cent of companies rely on An Post to deliver their promotional mail to a waiting public. The dispute means it's mounting up in warehouses across the country (no cheering down the back).
Like Dunne, Fielding thinks the dispute has "a silver lining", which will see slow starters pushed towards technology, reducing even further the dependence on An Post.
The emergence of courier firms will also lessen the impact of the dispute. Every day, couriers deliver approximately 100,000 packages nationwide. An Post's courier arm, SDS, which remains unaffected by the dispute, takes 60 per cent of that business.
Another firm, accounting for 15 per cent, is Nightline, which delivers on behalf of FedEx. "The dispute provides opportunities for us," admits its sales manager Aidan McCann. The company has seen a surge in calls recently and, according to McCann, one in four of these are from An Post customers. If the dispute spreads, that number will certainly rise.
Surprisingly, An Post's business has not been badly affected by electronic communication - it delivered 800 million letters last year and is dramatically outperforming comparable businesses in deregulated countries such as Finland and Sweden.
"In the heady days of the late 1990s we experienced remarkable growth, rates of growth running at about 7 or 8 per cent. That level has diminished but we haven't been as affected by the emergence of new technology as many would believe," says An Post spokesman John Foley. He says the company is "well geared to deal with challenges", but the dispute could force its customers to look towards alternative forms of communication.
"But at this point in time there isn't much we can do about it except keep saying: 'This is bad for business. This company could go under'."