Call For Urgent Meeting Over An Post Crisis

Fianna Fáil is calling for an urgent meeting to be held over a pay dispute for sub-contract workers at An Post mail centres, which is causing major disruption to the postal services in Ireland.

Spokesperson on Communications Michael Moynihan TD has contacted to the Clerk and Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources asking for a meeting of the Committee with representatives of An Post and the Communications Workers Union.

Deputy Moynihan commented: "This dispute has been allowed to fester and grow into a crisis that is now directly jeopardising businesses and affecting the lives of people across the country. In the total absence of any political leadership from Minister Alex White, it now falls to the Oireachtas to take on that role.

"The Minister's decision to entirely remove himself from this issue has been a strategic mistake. It has created the space for escalation and the hardening of positions that now sees small businesses unable to deliver invoices or collect payment, families waiting for details of medical appointments, blood samples that can't be sent to laboratories, social welfare cheques that can't be posted, and the thousands of other problems that people are dealing with this morning.

"The formal industrial relations infrastructure will of course take effect in due course, but in the meantime, there is an imperative for political leadership and a need for a strong message to both the unions and the management of An Post to sort this out and to sort it out quickly."

(CD/LM)