What's the deal with parcel delivery?

Have our postmen suddenly stopped delivering interesting mail? An unqualified "yes" seems to be the answer from PriceWatch readers, who have contacted us in recent weeks to complain that while bills and junk mail can be delivered without difficulty, the parcels and presents that they look forward to are struggling to get through.

E-mail and texting have dramatically reduced our dependency on paper correspondence while at the same time increasing the volume of parcels being carried through the postal system, as the more tech-savvy take to the internet to order cheaper books, games and electronic equipment from outside Ireland.

According to An Post there has been an increase of 14 per cent in incoming international mail packets over the past two years. Much of this growth is being generated by internet business of one kind or another, as well as by the rapid increase in Ireland's ethnic diversity.

But, according to readers who have contacted PriceWatch, instead of dropping off these bargain parcels as it is being paid to do, An Post is increasingly dropping off lightweight delivery notices detailing an often remote sorting office where the heavy mail can be collected.

Having paid expensive postal charges, people are annoyed to find their parcels diverted to these sorting depots with inflexible and sometimes inconvenient opening hours.

One reader who lives "bang in the centre of Dublin city centre" has given up buying things from the internet because, he says, they don't get delivered. "An Post only brings a card saying I can collect the item from their office. I was home every time they called and they made no effort to get in touch. I've no idea how to contact them about this," he wrote.

Another reader also living within spitting distance of Dublin's GPO now has everything delivered to work instead. "An Post has never tried to deliver a parcel to me, always leaving their collection card instead - and worse than that, twice (that I know of), they actually returned parcels to their original senders, with a sticker saying we no longer lived at this address. In both instances, I hadn't received any notification of attempted delivery."

Whether you get your parcels or not may be down to a geographical lottery. "We recently moved from Dublin to Kinvara, Co Galway," wrote another reader. Before her move, every time she ordered something, "An Post would not attempt delivery but merely shove one of those cards in our postbox. Since I was not working, I was always at home."

She says that having to walk or take a taxi to the pick-up depot for parcels was a "major inconvenience", but since her move west every single large and small parcel has been "delivered with a smile" to her doorstep. She is now convinced that An Post has a pick-up policy in Dublin which forces people to make trips to get their own parcels.

"When one considers how much shipping costs are and that it is a postal employee's job to deliver any item, it is utterly ridiculous," she says.

An Post is insistent that no such pick-up policy exists and is quick to absolve itself of responsibility for the proliferation of delivery cards being left in lieu of deliveries. It claims it is "fully committed to delivering all domestic and international mail provided it is correctly paid and properly addressed".

An Post says that delivery notices are left only after actual delivery has been attempted.

"We are sorry that some customers have been inconvenienced through direct experience of this procedure not being followed," a spokeswoman told PriceWatch.

"We have a policy of investigating all such incidents providing specific details are brought to the attention of our customer-services team."

The spokeswoman also accepted that the opening hours of its collection offices "won't suit everybody" but said it was "simply not feasible to provide collection facilities around the clock".

She said the company was developing a new initiative to allow it to offer customers "more flexible mail collection and delivery options in urban and rural areas. Lifestyles are changing and we are determined that it's essential that our services keep pace with customer requirements".

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), which regulates the postal industry in Ireland, recently published results of its annual report on the quality of service performance of An Post, and it's clear it is not just our readers who have issues with the service on offer. ComReg found that 72 per cent of standard correspondence throughout the State was delivered within one working day - some way adrift of the 94 per cent target it had set. It also found that 97 per cent of all mail is delivered within three working days, against its target of 99.5 per cent.

Commenting on the report's findings, ComReg chairman Mike Byrne said an improvement in the quality of the service was "fundamental" to An Post's well-being. He welcomed its public commitment to improve the quality of service provided, but said its performance "continues to be unsatisfactory". He added that "much remains to be done and continued leadership will be necessary to reach an acceptable quality standard for the benefit of all postal consumers". Speaking after the report was published, Ann Fitzgerald, executive chairwoman of the National Consumer Agency, echoed Byrne's concern and said she viewed the "poor service with concern". She said consumers "deserve a fair service for their An Post products in return for the price they pay".

An Post would be well advised to pay heed to these warnings and to the complaints about its poor parcel-delivery record, as the future is looking tough enough as it is.

The European Commission plans to introduce a directive from January 2009 to open up the postal market to competition and new companies will almost certainly enter the newly liberalised markets to cherry-pick profitable services. Whether or not the delivery of parcels is one of the cherry-picked services remains to be seen.

•To contact An Post, call 1850-575859 or see www.anpost.ie