Dempsey offers to meet postal workers

The Minister for Communications revealed that he had invited members of the Communication Workers' Union to meet him.

"I want to discuss with them the future of our postal services and the future of An Post," said Mr Dempsey. "I want to hear their views and ideas."

He wanted to initiate a debate with them on the liberalisation agenda, he added. "I do not intend entering into negotiations on industrial relations issues, but I will be impressing upon the union representatives that both sides must approach the difficulties now arising in a spirit of partnership, while at the same time making full use of the available industrial relations machinery."

The Minister said both sides in the dispute desperately needed "to get out of the trenches, to stop fighting and refighting the battles of the past". They needed a "heads-up approach" to tackling the radically different problems of the future.

"We believe An Post can provide the universal service, the innovation and the seamless adaptation to change required, and I will be hammering home that when I meet the An Post board and the CWU later this week to share with them the Government view on the future of the postal service," he added.

Mr Dempsey stressed that the universal postal service provided to every address in every part of the State was enshrined in European and Irish law.

But if An Post was to prosper and grow, it must adapt to changing circumstances, to the demands of its customers and develop a genuine partnership relationship with its employees that placed delivery of quality services to its customers as its primary focus.

"An Post lost €43 million in 2003," said Mr Dempsey. "This fact cannot be disguised and nobody can possibly argue that, following losses on this scale, the workers, management and the Government were not facing a crisis... Thankfully, during 2004, management and unions working together have made some progress in dealing with the situation."

The Minister was responding to a Labour Private Members' motion which called on An Post management to immediately pay the arrears due to employees under Sustaining Progress and arrears due to pensioners.

The Labour spokesman on communications, Mr Tommy Broughan, said the 1,500 post offices and sub-post offices were a great national communications network that should be cherished and developed along the lines proposed in two reports.

"The Labour Party is also alarmed at the failure of successive Fianna Fáil ministers to clearly set out the Government's position on the future of An Post, and to clarify the deep confusion which exists among the workforce, the media and other interested observers such as the Oireachtas, on the financial history and outlook for An Post and its subsidiary SDS."

The House will vote on the motion tonight.