The announcement on Thursday  27 June by An Post that they will close the Cork mail center at Little Island in Cork was shocking but not had been rumoured and was not unexpected to the employees at the center. An Post had been flagging the closure of one of the four mail centers currently in operation in the company network due to what they say has been a dramatic nationwide drop off in mail being processed by An Post. This move will leave everywhere in Ireland south of Portlaoise without any Mail Centre.

The decision of An Post to scrap 216 workers at the centre, reflects the latest in a series of moves by neoliberal CEO of An Post David McRedmond, who is clearly interested in asset-stripping the organisation and running the service down, allowing the private sector to take on the bulk of the delivery services in the country.

We call on An Post to ensure no workers are made redundant and for the company to improve its parcel delivery service and continue to utilise the Little Island Mail Centre. There is still ample and growing demand for parcel delivery in Ireland however it seems the management of An Post are more interested in allowing the private sector to carry out the majority of this instead of providing a viable alternative state postal service.

An Post as an entity should be structured in a way that benefits the public good – it should not be corporatised to compete with profit-driven courier services but should be adapted to meet the changing needs of society. This means not closing Mail Centres and scrapping jobs, but assessing what services society needs and providing them based on public need. It means that the organisation should be asset-stripped but the infrastructure within An Post needs to meet the needs of the public.