An Post apologises for delivery delays in West Cork area due to illness

AN POST has apologised to residents in Glengarriff over delays in receiving mail, but said that claims that some people in the area had not received post for more than 10 days were “absolutely untrue”.

Fine Gael West Cork Municipal District councillor Caroline Cronin told The Echo that, due to a shortage of postal workers, a number of residents had not received post since Friday, February 16.

“Since last Thursday [February 22], some workers have started to address the backlog, beginning with parcel post,” said Ms Cronin.

However, she said workers may not have been able to start working on the backlog of letters until late this week, leading to potential delays in deliveries of up to two weeks.

Waiting

Ms Cronin said that people were waiting for tax discs, bank cards, and important correspondence including medical appointments.

She attributed the delays to the relocation of the sorting office in Glengarriff to a new facility in Bantry.

In September of last year, it was announced that postal workers for Glengarriff, Drinagh, Dunmanway, and Kealkill would be moved to the new delivery service unit in Bantry.

However, An Post said the delays were due to a higher-than-normal level of staff absence affecting one postal route.

“An Post apologises to customers on the Glengarriff postal route area for some disruption to deliveries in recent days due to a higher-than-normal level of staff absence affecting one postal route. Every effort has been made to cover as much of the affected route as possible by relief staff, and these efforts are continuing,” he said, adding that full delivery service had resumed now.

“Allegations that the route has had no deliveries for a week are absolutely untrue,” he said.

Mr Laverty continued: “All other postal routes in West Cork are operating as normal, with delivery staff operating out of a modern, custom-designed delivery depot in Bantry which replaced a number of antiquated, no-longer-fit-for-purpose local depots last autumn.

“All delivery operations have additional staff in place to cover sick or other absence. Unfortunately, on the very rare occasion when a number of staff are unavailable for work due to illness, services may be disrupted.

“Local management and staff are doing everything possible to resolve the problem as quickly as possible and restore the high quality of service usually provided to Glengarriff customers,” he concluded.