Taoiseach expresses ‘full confidence’ in An Post

By Cate McCurry, PA

The Taoiseach has expressed “full confidence” in An Post, adding that Cabinet has had no discussion about the organisation “being on the brink”.

It comes after reports claimed that Arts Minister Patrick O’Donovan told Cabinet colleagues that the postal service would have seen a “substantial loss” last year without revenue generated by general and European election post.

An Post chief executive David McRedmond described the reports as “utter garbage” and said the company is “performing extremely well”.

On Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin expressed confidence in Mr McRedmond and the board of An Post.

Mr Martin said he could understand the chief executive’s “anger and annoyance” over the reports on the company’s accounts, adding: “What happened was wrong.”

He told reporters: “I’m not apportioning blame anywhere, I simply do not know.”

However, he said: “There was no discussion about An Post being on the brink or anything like that.

“The company turned a profit last year and had improved its situation significantly from the previous year.”

Mr Martin described An Post as a “very effective company” that under Mr McRedmond’s leadership had “adapted very well to changing trends” in mail, postage and packages.

He told reporters: “In terms of the core business, the company has been very resilient in the face of fairly fundamental change of behaviour.

“There will be challenges ahead, and (the) importance is to be able to identify changing behaviours and changing trends, and then position the company to deal with that.”

Mr Martin said the overall picture for the company was “better this year than last year”.

Earlier, Mr O’Donovan said he is confident about the future of An Post, describing the company as “viable and profitable”.

Mr O’Donovan presented the postal service’s annual report to Cabinet on Tuesday.

Following claims that An Post is in a “dire financial situation”, Mr O’Donovan said that the postal service has been transformed in recent years under the leadership of Mr McRedmond.

Mr O’Donovan said: “The issue here is quite actually extraordinary. A set of accounts was brought forward by me yesterday to the Cabinet meeting, and I’m not going to breach Cabinet confidentialities because I’m constitutionally prevented from doing that, as is everybody else.

“But obviously somebody decided that that wasn’t going to be the case.”

Mr O’Donovan told RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne programme that An Post has returned to profit following some challenging years.

“One of the things that has been conflated as well in some of the media reports, which isn’t helpful either, and I think David McRedmond set the record straight, as people are conflating An Post with the independent postmasters.

“To be quite honest about it, it is showing, particularly from some politicians, a lack of understanding of what An Post is and a lack of understanding of what an independent contractor who works for An Post is.”

Mr O’Donovan added: “But how would a nameless minister or alleged nameless minister or source or whatever, would conflate that into saying that the situation is dire. I don’t know how they would come up with that.”

Speaking to RTÉ Radio 1, Mr McRedmond said he was “absolutely furious” by the claims.

“That report is utter garbage. I’m here in Italy, on my holidays, I’m absolutely furious to read something like that,” he said.

“The company presented its results. The results were presented to Cabinet yesterday. They showed the highest revenue we’ve ever had, over a billion revenues for the first time.

“They showed that we grew our earnings from €38 million to €55 million.

“They showed that our net profit was at 10 million. The company is performing extremely well.

“We’ve got the highest level of parcel growth of any postal operation in Europe. So I just don’t understand it.”

He rejected claims that without profits generated from last year’s general and European elections, it would have made a substantial loss.

“It’s just simply not true, and it’s not how companies work. Yes, we got a big boost in the elections last year, but if it wasn’t the elections, it would be something else, and with the elections, we’ve huge costs with them,” he added.

“It was irresponsible leak from a Government minister, which is wholly unacceptable.

“These are not the actions of a responsible shareholder. The company is doing really well.”

He also rejected claims that cash reserves have fallen below one million euros.

“We have at the end of the year with 38 million cash reserves, and this year, so far this year, we are performing well ahead of our budget, and our budget for this year is to beat last year.

“I’m talking to Government about it. I hope there’s just some big misunderstanding somewhere, and the company, as I say, is doing really well.”