Delivering letters can be a pain. That's what Mrs Justice McGuinness concluded yesterday when she awarded £43,500 in damages to a Dublin postman, Mr Ian Barclay (43), for straining his back to reach low-level letterboxes on housing estates.
The High Court judge said the case was of considerable public importance and she blamed the "negative attitude" of the Department of the Environment for failing to amend the building regulations to ensure that letterboxes were placed at the right height.
The Department said it had urged local authorities and other relevant bodies in 1996 to comply with the voluntary Irish Standard Specification (IS 195, adopted in 1976), for fixing letterboxes at least 30 in from ground level.
An Post says the Lilliputian level of many letterboxes presents "a serious problem" for postmen and women.
Ms Anna McHugh, press officer of An Post, said it has been lobbying architects, builders, developers, door-makers and porch manufacturers to get them to change their ways. It even produced a leaflet on the issue, headed "Delivering letters can be a pain".
The leaflet pointed out that postmen have to bend down to insert mail into low-lying letter boxes, often with a full bag on their backs, and "repetitive bending can cause back strain".
"These low-level letterboxes started appearing in the mid-1980s and became something of a fashion," said Ms McHugh. "But people wouldn't have a keyhole at the bottom of their front door, so why should they have a letterbox there?"
It was an issue nobody really thought about, other than An Post and the Communications Workers Union (CWU), which represents the State's 4,500 "postpersons". They had been working together on a campaign to change the Building Regulations.
"It's mainly a suburban problem," Ms McHugh said, and when new estates are being built, "we talk in advance to developers . . . but in the absence of legislation, it really is an uphill battle".
Mr Chris Hudson, of the CWU, said that if the former Minister for the Environment, Mr Brendan Howlin, had acted in 1995 the problem could have been sorted out. "But he told us it would not be appropriate to change the regulations."
Mr Michael Goggins, director of the Irish Home Builders Association, said it was primarily a matter for the planners, though he added that yesterday's judgment would be discussed at its executive meeting next month.
Both An Post and the CWU paid tribute to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for taking action to ensure that all letterboxes were at the right height. The councillor who proposed it, Mr Denis O'Callaghan (DL), was a postman.
