Paul Murphy: Superhub Move Threatens Local Post Offices

Thanks a lot Leann Comhairle. I welcome the Bill, I welcome the additional investment in Unpust, but I'll tell you there is a fundamental problem with Unpust. And it's why week after week you'll hear TDs in here rightly complaining about post offices closing down, about sorting offices moving, about the terrible treatment of pensioners in Unpust. And the fundamental issue at the heart of it all is the so-called commercial mandate for Unpust. The fact that Unpust has to legally behave like a company that is solely focused on profit and not the reality that Unpust is a public service, it's a community service and it should be seen as such and that should actually be its priority. And because it isn't, well then you have a whole load of decisions that are to the detriment of the workers, to the detriment of communities and to the detriment of their own pensioners. I want to talk about two aspects of this. One is the move of sorting offices and the other is the treatment of Unpust pensioners. I think the Minister took a topical issue from the TDs in our constituency, I had to miss it, I can't remember, for some good reason anyway I couldn't be here, but you're therefore aware of the proposal. At that stage the topical issue was about the move of Edmundstown, which serves Dublin 16 from Edmundstown, the sorting offices moving to Lucan, to a big super hub out coincidentally beside the Amazon warehouse, supposedly to prioritise parcels. Added to that now, also in our constituency, is the move of the Tala sorting office from the centre of Tala, currently, also to Lucan into this super hub. And the communities are up in arms about it, and rightly so, because this is going to be a disaster. It's going to be a disaster in terms of workers. So workers are saying to us, I've built my life, I live in this area, I don't drive a car, I cycle to the sorting office and then do my route, I'm not going to be able to go from Dublin 16, from Edmundstown to Lucan on a daily basis. The new hub is 17km from the Edmundstown sorting office, it's 11km from the one in Tala. If you don't drive for the workers, that's out. Even if you do drive, your quality of life, your life at work has just gotten worse. Because now, a large portion of your working day, and we'll come to the impact of this in terms of home residents in a minute. But the impact for the workers is instead of their working day primarily being delivering post, talking to people, etc, instead you're talking about sitting on the M50 on the way to Lucan, on the way back from Lucan, and then another two times later on in the day. Hours and hours of your working day now spent in traffic, as opposed to delivering post. The impact on residents will be a dramatically worsened service. Because obviously they're going to have to apply, more staff will have to be involved in delivering, and in theory that's something you can do. But the issue that you can't take account of is that the traffic on the M50 is different on each given day. So on some days there's going to be a big pile up on the M50, and therefore the routes will not be completed. And the post and the packages at the end of the day will go back to Lucan. So you have a worse service for the residents in Tala and in Dublin 16. The biggest issue for people, and you can imagine this yourself, is if you miss a package, as we all do, and this is why we know our local sorting office because it's the place you go to get the package after you miss it, you get the delivery slip, and you bring it and you get it. But if you're living in Tala and you miss your package, or you're living in Dublin 16 and you miss your package, you're now going to have to go to Lucan. Lucan. I mean, it's crazy. If you don't have a car, you're literally talking about hours and hours. You'd have to take a bus from Rathfarnham into town, out to Lucan, or from Tala into town, out to Lucan and back again. Hours and hours of your, like, two to three hours. Obviously, if you do have a car, you're in a better situation, but still, you know, it's hard enough for people to go to the sorting office to collect the parcel, never mind driving all the way to Lucan. It's going to be immense. And what our post has said, kind of behind the scenes, is don't worry, we're going to make arrangements with local post offices to make sure that the packages go there and you can collect them from there. But we've spoken to local post offices who say, we don't have the space to do it, we don't have the opening hours to do it, there's been no contact with us to make this happen. And so I think we're kind of being lulled to sleep by saying, don't worry, this is going to be fine. But ultimately, it's not going to be fine. I'll give you a quote from a mother living in Dublin, South West, about the impact of this on her. I'm the parent of a child with additional needs and I do not drive. Having a local on-post delivery office is not simply a convenience, it is essential. I rely on being able to access postal services close to home and travelling further. To collect missed deliveries or resolve delivery issues would be extremely difficult. Caring for a child with additional needs already involves attending appointments, managing therapies and balancing many daily responsibilities. Without access to a car, any additional journey by public transport or on foot creates extra stress and practical challenges, particularly when travelling with my child. This is a huge issue. And it's why, in Dublin 16, we had a very, very well attended public meeting. We then, a few weeks ago, had a very well attended protest. Thousands, over 4,000 people now, have signed a petition against the move of the Dublin 16 post office. And we're just getting started in terms of the campaign in Tala. We have a public meeting next Monday night in Tala, which I also believe will be well attended. The result of that is that the campaign is having an impact. On post, I've now said that they say it's due to time constraints of staggering the consolidation of Font Hill and Tala. The fact that it will take a number of weeks for both offices to settle in new surroundings. And we're so close to the very busy Christmas peak period. We've taken the decision to defer the move of Edmundstown until Quarter 1, 2027. And Tala is also planned for Quarter 1, 2027. So the campaign is having an impact. We've forced back the decision. But this isn't the answer. Just going back to Quarter 1, 2027, getting a six month reprieve, it was due to happen in Quarter 3, 2026, is not what we're looking for. This plan has to go off the table. And this is, I'm telling you, I know there's other issues in terms of sorting offices across the country. This is a big, big issue. We're going to have a big meeting in Tala on Monday night. And then we'll be proposing to bring the campaigns together, bring it to the Dáil in September and say, look, this is not acceptable. And fundamentally, this is a political issue. The minister needs to say to us, this is not a runner. It doesn't make sense. And to be clear, both buildings, where the sorting offices currently are, are fully usable. Ironically, the plan after moving Edmundstown out to Lucan is to move a different Dublin 14, I think, what's currently in Churchtown, move them into Edmundstown. So they're moved from one place to another, and then Edmundstown is moved to Lucan. So from the point of view of workers, from the point of view of residents, this proposal, which I believe is about prioritizing Amazon over people, that needs to be dropped. I also want to just briefly mention the issue about unpussed pensioners. You have a scandalous situation where workers who gave a huge service to unpussed, gave a huge service to the communities that they were serving, transferred over to unpussed, were given guarantees about the value of their pensions and so on not being diminished, which have all been broken. They supposedly exist in law, and are going into pension poverty. I mean, you have an incredible situation where you have a cap on pensions. Pensions can only rise by 2% a year. And so you have a cost of living crisis that we've seen over the past number of years, people's real income being massively, massively eroded, and workers are expected to just accept it. So you have a situation where if we continue on the trajectory we're on, the state pension, inadequate and all as it is, will actually surpass the unpussed pension for many workers. That is no way to treat workers who were working directly for the state, then got transferred over to unpussed, and have been left in the situation of deepening and worsening pension poverty. We all know the rates of inflation we've had over the last few years. Some of these workers were for the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport in May, Paul Moreland and John Hearn, and they put the case extremely well in terms of how poorly unpussed pensioners are being treated, and that situation needs to be rectified. Thanks.