Sir, – I am absolutely appalled at the decision by An Post to raise the price of a domestic letter from 72c to €1.
To put this into some kind of perspective, our nearest geographical neighbour, the UK, will be raising its rates by exactly one penny at the end of March, to 65p for 1st class and 56p for second class delivery. The former is comparable and the latter is already substantially cheaper than the existing An Post rate of 72c at current rates of exchange.
Bearing in mind that the UK Royal Mail also offers both standard postal collections and deliveries on Saturdays, a six-day service rather than Ireland’s five-day one, there is definitely “something wrong in the state of Denmark” to misquote the Bard of Avon! I have also just received a letter from Austria, which charges just 88c for a letter within Europe, considerably cheaper than the existing rate charged by An Post for such items. What is going on here?
We are told that An Post’s financial position is insecure, but should their customers be held to account for a clear inadequacy on its part to solve its own internal problems?
Arcane practices must surely be rooted out and the financial status of the company put on a surer footing without the usual thoughtless “quick fix” solution of simply fleecing the paying customer. The result will surely be predictable – far fewer people will use the mail service than do so now. – Yours, etc,
Dr DAVID J RHODES,
Waterford.