Socialist Party member and Solidarity TD Mick Barry said this morning that it makes no sense to close the Cork Mail Centre with the loss of 216 jobs at a time when the demand for parcel post is going through the roof.
Parcels volumes have grown by 60% since 2017 while the demand for letter delivery services is declining year on year by 7%.
Deputy Barry said this morning that the rise of parcel post offers the company the opportunity to diversify and to grow the business without resort to redundancies.
He said: “The plan to shut the Cork Mail Centre should be put to one side. Instead negotiations should be started between the company and the workers’ trade union representatives to hammer out a national plan which allows the company to transform itself from a letter delivery company which handles parcels to a parcel delivery company which handles letters without resort to redundancies.”
Deputy Barry said he was concerned that An Post are planning to flog off an important asset in the form of its Little Island Mail Centre premises as part of a short term fix.
He said: “An Post made a very poor decision by getting out of the parcel delivery business back in the noughties when it shut down SDS. That kind of shortsighted approach should not be replicated here.”
The Cork North Central TD said that the Mail Centre is a major employer in the Cork area and that many households rely on it for paying the bills.
He said: “In fact, there are some households which have more than one person working in the Mail Centre. I’m told that there was a lot of upset and anger at the meeting last night, this is coming as a real blow to many, many workers who have given long years of service.”
Deputy Barry concluded by saying that he will raise the issue vigorously on the floor of the Dail today.
"The European train will be leaving the station on January 1, 2013 and the Irish people should be on board." So declared Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the Dail on Wednesday morning in response to a question of mine relating to the Referendum on the EU Fiscal Compact which the government has been obliged to call. The Taoiseach was speaking in Irish as it was ‘Lá na Gaeilge’, with Leaders’ Questions in Irish. However, the impression he was trying to convey was false in any language, which is that rejecting the Fiscal Compact would somehow mean not continuing as a member of the European Union or indeed as part of the Eurozone.
Before leaving office, the Fianna Fail Minister for Energy, Pat Carey, signed the key consents for the much disputed last section of the Corrib gas pipe line. This action stands as a testament to a party that has spent the last 14 years in direct service to big business interests.
The Irish Independent reported over Christmas that the government are planning a mass state-wide leaflet drop in early February encouraging people to register for the household tax and threatening them with dire consequences if they fail to do so.
With the prospect of a so-called double-dip recession looming in the world economy, pressure is once again mounting on the eurozone. The prospect of one or more countries opting out, or being forced out, of the eurozone is becoming increasingly real as the crisis deepens and tensions between the capitalist classes in northern and southern Europe rise.