An Post - national infrastructure?

Bray Head

Bray Head wrote: »

I've posted elsewhere that their choice of locations for post boxes doesn't have much of a logical basis, and that they do not even provide a map or list of them on their website.

I looked for the raw data previously. They cited security concerns, they didn't want people to know where they all were....for the 5 foot boxes.....painted bright green.....that are designed to be seen easily

The mind boggles :rolleyes:

lawred2 wrote: »

Businesses use mail extensively

Everyone used cheap plastic bags too. People got around on horseback. Change can be made

Carawaystick

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I know no who writes letters. The number of people writing letter is tiny! The number used letters as a vital link to their social peers is smaller again.

Do you have a car?
How do you get your motor tax renewal without post?
How do you get your insurance cert?
How do you get your original no claims cert to your new insurer?
If you sell your car, how do you get the vrc to Shannon?

That's just one everyday example of letters to everyday people.

LeinsterDub

Carawaystick wrote: »

Do you have a car?
How do you get your motor tax renewal without post?
How do you get your insurance cert?
How do you get your original no claims cert to your new insurer?
If you sell your car, how do you get the vrc to Shannon?

That's just one everyday example of letters to everyday people.

Insurance renewal online.
No claims via email.
Motor tax renewal via email

The disks are a once/twice a year examples of pieces of paper I get in the mail I haven't already gotten via email. And both of these disks are on their way out.

plodder

Do you really need a next day service for these anyway? I think we are passed the time when the wheels of commerce depended on all post being delivered the next day.

Sam Russell

The problem is that as the price of the stamp goes up, them the chances of people using it goes down. I think 60c is about the point of decline - currently it is 72c and they are looking at north of 90c. Madness money and will be counter productive.

Idbatterim

Sam Russell wrote: »

The problem is that as the price of the stamp goes up, them the chances of people using it goes down. I think 60c is about the point of decline - currently it is 72c and they are looking at north of 90c. Madness money and will be counter productive.

yeah it is madness money. Will be interesting to see what happens if it goes up that drastically. Might be time they have to start putting up mail boxes at start of driveway in rural properties ...

Ferrari3600

Sam Russell wrote: »

An Post, in conjunction with Postbank (Belgium) was set up as a joint venture between An Post and Belgian bank Fortis in early 2007. (In May 2009 French bank BNP Paribas took control of Fortis.) Postbank was closed in 2010, as the joint venture was dissolved.

Postbank was a brilliant service that would suit An Post. It was a deposit taking service, offering good interest rates, and allowed withdrawals on a Saturday, upto quite a large amount without notice. It was beginning to venture into giving credit and debit credit cards, and expanding into a full banking service.

It could be used by Dept of Social Protection for the payment of all their payments and An Post would benefit by retaining the business of social welfare. Many of the functions of Credit Unions could be incorporated into it as well. This would also allow a safer place for bachelor farmers to keep the few bob rather than under the mattress.

The NTMA could be brought into the underwriting of the service and handling the back office functions.

I could never understand why it was just closed down with all the deposits returned. The infrastructure is still in place, I would think.

Could it be restarted?

My understanding is that the Postbank joint venture was closed down because of the financial crisis.

I was told circa the Lehmann Brothers collapse that there were massive inflows into state sector An Post savings accounts due to the crisis in the Irish banks.

My personal view is that the building society sector should be re-invigorated. We now have no independent building societies in Ireland - none survived the financial crisis. However, in the UK, many of the small building societies that didn't take on risky commercial lending are still in operation.

Ferrari3600

I see from media reports that the chief executive of An Post Donal Connell has retired recently.

I think we should all wish him well on his retirement. He will have even more time now for his golf.

LeinsterDub

Sam Russell wrote: »

The problem is that as the price of the stamp goes up, them the chances of people using it goes down. I think 60c is about the point of decline - currently it is 72c and they are looking at north of 90c. Madness money and will be counter productive.

The price of a stamp has no impact on my and many others decision to use the service. It could be free and I'd still only use it when electronic forms of communication weren't available.

lawred2

Deleted User wrote: »

Everyone used cheap plastic bags too. People got around on horseback. Change can be made

sure - best of luck with getting the banks and legals to change their ways any time soon

seamus

Carawaystick wrote: »

Do you have a car?
How do you get your motor tax renewal without post?
How do you get your insurance cert?
How do you get your original no claims cert to your new insurer?
If you sell your car, how do you get the vrc to Shannon?

That's just one everyday example of letters to everyday people.

lawred2 wrote: »

sure - best of luck with getting the banks and legals to change their ways any time soon

You'd be surprised how quickly businesses manage to change when there's money on the line.

Banks have stopped sending out statements for the most part. Solicitors don't use an post for important documents.

Insurers have stopped sending out paper documentation, it's print at home now. Tax & insurance discs are outdated, not really necessary anyway. If An Post started restricting the available services, all of these things would start finding ways to work without it. There is no longer any real need for most paper mail; it persists because it exists, so businesses don't bother thinking of ways to do without it until it hits their bottom line.

my3cents

Sending letters is very much a thing of the past, but online ordering is growing so An Post need to grow their service so it is more geared towards delivering parcels at a competitive rate.

In rural areas every postman has a van which is for the most part empty when he is driving around so I feel An Post have a competitive advantage over couriers for rural deliveries given that they pass close to almost every rural address every working day of the week. For a courier to call out to me if he has no other nearby deliveries one drop will take him at least 30 minutes off his main run of town deliveries and thats if he knows where I live.

In towns the problem is the opposite and the postman isn't geared up to carry a lot of parcels so thats a problem that needs sorting but there has to be something more that can be made of having your staff visit nearly every address in the country every week.

L1011

I can see less than daily rural deliveries before anything else is changed. They already do Good Friday and more Christmas Saturday deliveries in urban/business dense areas so there is precedent for that.

my3cents

L1011 wrote: »

I can see less than daily rural deliveries before anything else is changed. They already do Good Friday and more Christmas Saturday deliveries in urban/business dense areas so there is precedent for that.

Then you either have part time postmen or ones that do more than one run? Is that likely to happen?

L1011

my3cents wrote: »

Then you either have part time postmen or ones that do more than one run? Is that likely to happen?

More than one run. Done abroad.

Skommando

I wish people would look at the big picture and the importance for ordinary people (whether they realise it or not)

The local post office is an extremely valuable (in society terms) local resource for the community in any locality, rural or urban, and an extremely valuable network that can be used for the common good by the state. People tend to see the post office as some sort of narrow ranged place that's only for buying stamps and posting letters. That's only a very small proportion of a post offices business these days, and local post offices could be used to a far greater extent for 1001 services for the common good if only there was better management and planning. Beware, once you local post office is closed, it's gone for good.

Sure, either urban or rural, you could hive it all off and close everything locally, from the local shop, to the local pubs and small business, to the local police station, and instead we can just all drive miles in traffic to some massive car park in some faceless super centre owned by some faceless international mega corporations and swipe virtual credit units from our virtual credit cards, tricked into thinking we're just being 'modern' with our every move digitally recorded, observed and tracked, while people are afraid to have a face to face conversation, with a live human being. That hasn't turned out too healthy for communities in other countries like the USA etc. but some people seem hell bent on allowing politicians beholden to the corporations ruin local community, urban and rural alike.

Bray Head

Skommando wrote: »

Sure, either urban or rural, you could hive it all off and close everything locally, from the local shop, to the local pubs and small business, to the local police station, and instead we can just all drive miles in traffic to some massive car park in some faceless super centre owned by some faceless international mega corporations 

Personally I find the arrival of these faceless mega corporations has been fantastic for the Irish consumer in terms of selection and price.

Do you remember how absolutely awful the retail landscape was in small Irish towns c 1995?

Skommando

Bray Head wrote: »

Personally I find the arrival of these faceless mega corporations has been fantastic for the Irish consumer in terms of selection and price.

Do you remember how absolutely awful the retail landscape was in small Irish towns c 1995?

Mega corps were around long before then.

Why do you think for them to win, the local community must loose ? Do you not think with a little care and good governance both can exist ?

Stand alone Post Offices that are not viable should close. Same services can be offered in a convenience store, many of which already offer most of the services a Post Office does, apart from paying social welfare. If a Post Office was so vital to a community then we wouldn't need any discussion, they would be used and profitable. As a country bumpkin, I would have no problem with post being delivered 3 days a week rather than 5. If people wish to have 5 days post, then they could have the opportunity to hire a post box in or closer to the town and collect their post themselves.

The J Stands for Jay

Carawaystick wrote: »

Do you have a car?
How do you get your motor tax renewal without post?
How do you get your insurance cert?
How do you get your original no claims cert to your new insurer?
If you sell your car, how do you get the vrc to Shannon?

That's just one everyday example of letters to everyday people.

I would be so happy of all these bits of dead tree were done away with.

Skommando

Deleted User wrote: »

Stand alone Post Offices that are not viable should close. Same services can be offered in a convenience store, many of which already offer most of the services a Post Office does, apart from paying social welfare. If a Post Office was so vital to a community then we wouldn't need any discussion, they would be used and profitable. As a country bumpkin, I would have no problem with post being delivered 3 days a week rather than 5. If people wish to have 5 days post, then they could have the opportunity to hire a post box in or closer to the town and collect their post themselves.

You see that's the actual problem. Post Offices, if they were properly managed and governed nationally, can offer so many more state services than just the narrow minded out of date view than they can only be for letters and stamps and making profit for someone like a private centra shop. On a bean counter's ledger, no community or social service by it's very nature, from health services to schools to policing are in any way 'profitable' but they have a critical role in local community that needs to be recognised. There is a difference between the cost of something and the value of something. And it's not an urban vs rural argument. Local community services are as critical in a local Dublin community as they are in a rural one.

LeinsterDub

Skommando wrote: »

You see that's the actual problem. Post Offices, if they were properly managed and governed nationally, can offer so many more state services . . .

I can't think of single public service brick and mortar post offices would offer that the Internet can't beat

Charles Babbage

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I can't think of single public service brick and mortar post offices would offer that the Internet can't beat

One example, to open an internet account you nowadays need ID documents, these could be brought to a post office, checked and verified. There should be a single system for this rather than every bank etc having different requirements.

Skommando

Skommando wrote: »

You see that's the actual problem. Post Offices, if they were properly managed and governed nationally, can offer so many more state services than just the narrow minded out of date view than they can only be for letters and stamps and making profit for someone like a private centra shop. On a bean counter's ledger, no community or social service by it's very nature, from health services to schools to policing are in any way 'profitable' but they have a critical role in local community that needs to be recognised. There is a difference between the cost of something and the value of something. And it's not an urban vs rural argument. Local community services are as critical in a local Dublin community as they are in a rural one.

The point is that they are not really as critical as An Post would have us believe. Is there any difference between Family A making their living in a convenience store or Family B making theirs in a Post Office? (Most small town Post Offices are run from an office in the family home)

my3cents

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I can't think of single public service brick and mortar post offices would offer that the Internet can't beat

I can't get my Amazon deliveries without a post office.

tbh prefer online deliveries to come with An Post because when you have a decent postman the service is massively more reliable that any of the courier companies.

AddressPal is a step in the right direction.

my3cents

Deleted User wrote: »

The point is that they are not really as critical as An Post would have us believe. Is there any difference between Family A making their living in a convenience store or Family B making theirs in a Post Office? (Most small town Post Offices are run from an office in the family home)

You can't argue the closure of Post Offices is OK because they can move the business to a local convenience store when due to "faceless mega corporations" we are loosing the local convenience stores.

my3cents

my3cents wrote: »

You can't argue the closure of Post Offices is OK because they can move the business to a local convenience store when due to "faceless mega corporations" we are loosing the local convenience stores.

All the more reason to amalgamate and form one viable business.

LeinsterDub

my3cents wrote: »

I can't get my Amazon deliveries without a post office.

That's not a public service service like the poster was suggesting such as welfare payments or household tax payments

Skommando

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I can't think of single public service brick and mortar post offices would offer that the Internet can't beat

same thing could for every single local community brick and motor service from Dublin to Cork, close them all ? Or do they actually offer something more than a website ?

Skommando

Deleted User wrote: »

The point is that they are not really as critical as An Post would have us believe.

That's only if you take a very narrow view of what state services a local post office can deliver to any local community urban or rural. You need to get past the old fashioned notion that a post office is only for selling stamps.

Deleted User wrote: »

Is there any difference between Family A making their living in a convenience store or Family B making theirs in a Post Office? (Most small town Post Offices are run from an office in the family home)

Yes, the state has no say in what services they deliver to local people. If it's only about delivering services that a bean counter says on paper makes profit, then no state hospital or police stations or health clinics, or any state serves for hat matter, should ever exist. Why not get the local centra shop to provide police and health services ? These services deliver a lot more benefit to society than mere profit.