€40 million Hi-Tech Mails Facility Opens

4 March 2002

The extension was built to house a major element of the company’s €80 million national mails automation programme. The programme will equip the company to meet competition arising from liberalisation of European postal markets.

The extension has doubled the size of the centre, which is the largest in the group’s Letter Post division network and which handles 1.7 million letters daily - almost 60 per cent of the country’s total daily mail volumes.

Construction work on the extension began early last year and concluded in July when the installation of new automated mail processing technology was commenced. Each element of new machinery is capable of processing 30,000 letters an hour.

With a total area of 170,000 square feet, 750 workers are based at the mail centre. It was built to cater for Dublin’s mail volume growth, which in the last six years has increased each year by up to eight per cent.

The DMC became the processing headquarters of the An Post Letter Post division in 1994 when it moved from Sheriff Street in Dublin city centre to the present location at Knockmitten, Dublin 12.

The addition of 77,000 square feet through the new extension will greatly increase capacity and enable the company to meet rising new quality standards, for next-day delivery, being set by the Postal Regulator.

The chairman of An Post Mr Stephen O’Connor said the investment of €40 million was part of a national automation programme that would cost the company more than €80 million euro. An automated centre is already in operation in Portlaoise.

“We have completed construction work on a new mail centre at Athlone and work is already under way at Little Island in Cork. When completed they will provide us with an integrated overnight next day delivery capable of meeting the highest quality requirement of Irish business,” he said.

Minister O’Rourke said An Post was to be commended for the development of its national network of automated sorting centres. It was part of a programme which in recent years had seen major new investment in mail centres in Athlone, Mullingar, Sligo, Galway, Mallow and Waterford.

“At a time of enormous change in world postal markets with liberalisation and consolidation on an unprecedented scale, it is vital that An Post is able to hold its own, ensure quality for customers and job security for its workforce,” the Minister said.

An Post chief executive John Hynes said that the extension to the DMC, the opening of the local centres and planned new centres in Athlone and Cork would be completed entirely from within An Post resources and without borrowings even though it was still working on 1991 prices.

“This company has to be able to secure adequate price increases for its products. Without a return on investment, there won’t be any investment. And will lead to stagnation and falling standards which Irish business cannot and should not tolerate,” Mr Hynes said.