An Post cannot compel customers to accept deliveries to a post-box at the side of the road in place of a doorstep service, the Office of the Communications Regulator has stated.
The State company has plans to end some doorstep deliveries, particularly in rural areas, in order to cut costs. Introducing 500,000 letter-boxes with locks to these areas could save An Post €20 million a year, the company has said.
However, the Communications Regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, has stipulated that any change to the existing postal arrangements is "subject to the overriding consideration that there must be mutual agreement".
A spokeswoman for Ms Doyle's office said yesterday that An Post would not be permitted to force the new letter-boxes on people who did not want them.
"If people don't agree to take the new post-box, An Post will still have to deliver to the door," she said. "People are under no compulsion to agree, and that is not going to change."
In response to concerns from groups representing the disabled and the elderly, An Post has said that it will continue to provide a home delivery service to people who may have difficulty in collecting mail from an outdoor letter-box. However, a spokesman said yesterday that other customers would have to accept the new boxes.
"We are conscious of the problems people with disabilities, the elderly, immobile and invalids may have with the new mechanism, so we will continue to provide deliveries to their doors," the spokesman said. "However, we will provide roadside boxes to houses that are 10 metres or more from the public road, and people will not be able to opt out of that." An Post was "under no obligation to deliver to a door", the spokesman said, but it did have an obligation to deliver to "an address".
The Oireachtas Committee on Communications has sought a meeting with An Post. The committee had hoped to meet the management of the company tomorrow, but An Post's chief executive, Mr John Hynes, said that he would be unable to attend.
The committee would be putting questions on the matter to Ms Doyle at a meeting on January 29th, according to its chairman, Mr Noel O'Flynn TD.
