Attitudes of An Post Workers

bridget84

I am so outraged that I have to come on here to repeat the drivel that I've just heard from my husband.
He collected his Jobseekers Benefit his morning (which he is only entitled to for 3 more weeks), and while he was collecting it, the two biddies who were working there decided to have a little bitch (right in front of him) about the amount of people claiming benefits and how they're destroying the country.:rolleyes:

NuMarvel

Maybe he should bring a copy of this article with him next time, so that they can be reminded that were it not for the social welfare payment contract, they too might be claiming benefits:

Up to half of post offices in danger of closure
STEPHEN MAGUIRE

UP TO half of the Republic’s 1,100 post offices will be forced to close if An Post loses the contract for making social welfare payments, the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) has claimed.

IPU general secretary Brian McGann said the post office network would be “decimated” and hundreds of job lost if the Department of Social Protection goes ahead with plans to put the payments contract out to tender.

The future of the contract is being considered by the department and a decision is expected shortly.

Speaking at yesterday’s IPU annual conference in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, Mr McGann said any plans by the Government to withdraw the social welfare payment contract would also have a disastrous effect on the social fabric of the country.

“Any decision to move away from using the Post Office as the primary channel for making social welfare payments will be politically disastrous on the scale of Charlie McCreevy’s ill-fated plan to decentralise government departments.

“Many social welfare recipients want to use their local post offices because it’s friendly, convenient and accessible.

“Local post offices also play a vital role in preventing fraud because of the face-to-face nature of its role. Postmasters are highly committed to detecting and stamping out fraud. We see the people, meet the people and we know them because they are part of our community.

“This deters fraudsters who often rely on faceless, impersonal systems of payment to perpetrate their fraud,” Mr McGann said.

Union president Brian Cannon, whose post office has been in his family for 100 years in Lettermacaward, Co Donegal, said he would lose 80 per cent of his business if social welfare payments are taken from An Post.

“That’s the reality of the situation. The local post office network is making strides to keep up with the demands of modern life.

“But if the social welfare payment contract is taken away, it will be a massive blow to us – a blow which many post offices could not survive. Personally it would mean a reduction of 80 per cent of my business,” he said.

Mr McGann called on Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton to give a greater role to post offices in delivering welfare services. “We want to add value to what we do and there is no reason why post offices cannot also provide additional services for the department such as signing on, means-testing, identity checking etc,” he said.

Delegates also heard calls to allow post offices become hubs for services, including the payment of motor tax. There was also a call for increased security measures in the wake of a number of tiger kidnappings in recent months.

RichardAnd

bridget84 wrote: »

I am so outraged that I have to come on here to repeat the drivel that I've just heard from my husband.
He collected his Jobseekers Benefit his morning (which he is only entitled to for 3 more weeks), and while he was collecting it, the two biddies who were working there decided to have a little bitch (right in front of him) about the amount of people claiming benefits and how they're destroying the country.:rolleyes:

Whilst that is a dreadful attitude for An Post employees to display before a member of the public, your thread is implying that it is common to all An Post workers. Your husband encountered two narrow minded individual who happen to work for the Irish Postal Service and while they do represent An Post and should show some decorum, their opinions are not reprsentitive of the organisation as a whole.

bridget84

I'm a private sector worker myself and I could easily walk in and say to them, "it's people like me that pays your wages". I'm almost tempted I must admit:mad:
My husband's self esteem is bad enough what with not being able to find a job for the past year or so and then you have the likes of these imbeciles making him feel worse.

later12

Sorry to hear that for your partner's sake OP.

Hopefully, as another poster pointed out, Irish social welfare transfer payments will catch up with - oh, the 1990s? - and start transferring funds by way of electronic funds transfers to recipients in the not too distant future, thereby allowing An Post to improve its own efficiency and shed some staff.

Cookie_Monster

An Post, bastion of modern, helpful, polite, well presented customer service.
or not.

bridget84

RichardAnd wrote: »

Whilst that is a dreadful attitude for An Post employees to display before a member of the public, your thread is implying that it is common to all An Post workers. Your husband encountered two narrow minded individual who happen to work for the Irish Postal Service and while they do represent An Post and should show some decorum, their opinions are not reprsentitive of the organisation as a whole.

I apologise if my thread is implying that(I'm not sure of how to edit the thread title itself),and I'm not generalising An Post employees. If you are an An Post employee, then I apologise, but this attitude is not acceptable when we're all aware of who really is destroying the country.

dan_d

Hmm.

My experience of the An Post employees in the local PO is that they side with me whenever I'm having problems with the SW office. They even tell me how to deal with them, and not let them away with their ongoings..!

As with everything, it's more the people in question than the industry. I agree it's a fairly awful thing to have to listen to when you're the one collecting your weekly handout (and I'm in the same position as your husband, OP, so that's not a slight at him).

Hannibal

In Dublin most Post Office workers aren't employees of An Post, they're independent franchise type shops that hire their own workers

RichardAnd

bridget84 wrote: »

I apologise if my thread is implying that(I'm not sure of how to edit the thread title itself),and I'm not generalising An Post employees. If you are an An Post employee, then I apologise, but this attitude is not acceptable when we're all aware of who really is destroying the country.

You can't edit thread titles, as far as I'm aware, a mod has to do it. And no, I don't work for An Post nor any other public sector body so there is no offence taken.

jakdelad

bridget84 wrote: »

I'm a private sector worker myself and I could easily walk in and say to them, "it's people like me that pays your wages". I'm almost tempted I must admit:mad:
My husband's self esteem is bad enough what with not being able to find a job for the past year or so and then you have the likes of these imbeciles making him feel worse.

what sort of bullsh1t statement is that
ALL public sector workers pay taxes and levys how can you be so narrow minded
do you think you got a monopoly on paying tax??? gimme a break,.
how dare you call these people imbeciles
if you feel so concerned take it up with their bosses
dont generalise public sector workers like that,

ParkRunner

later10 wrote: »

Sorry to hear that for your partner's sake OP.

Hopefully, as another poster pointed out, Irish social welfare transfer payments will catch up with - oh, the 1990s? - and start transferring funds by way of electronic funds transfers to recipients in the not too distant future, thereby allowing An Post to improve its own efficiency and shed some staff.

Transferring funds by EFT attracts way too much fraud. At least if the people are present in the Post Office to collect the money we know they are actually in the country.

In any case I don't see the point of this thread as it is more of a rant.

silverharp

I was collecting my mother's pension a few weeks back , I was wearing a suit and when I handed over the card, he joked that he thought I was one of the newly unemployed. Gallows humour I guess

ardmacha

I apologise if my thread is implying that(I'm not sure of how to edit the thread title itself),and I'm not generalising An Post employees. If you are an An Post employee, then I apologise, but this attitude is not acceptable when we're all aware of who really is destroying the country.

as pointed out earlier unless you were in the GPO or another main office these are not An Post employees, but people employed by those to whom An Post outsources its services. As often advocated here, give the private sector as chance, but if they screw up then don't then blame the An Post staff.

murphaph

EF wrote: »

Transferring funds by EFT attracts way too much fraud. At least if the people are present in the Post Office to collect the money we know they are actually in the country.

Correction, we know the person collecting the benefit is in the country. We don't know if they are the intended recipients. Photo ID (as we all know) can be very hard to judge, especially something like a 10 year old driving licence.

Anyway, the department was to be rolling out a new system whereby people would need to present themselves to the welfare office at short notice (within 24 hours, at random intervals) if told to do so. This was intended to attack the "mate collecting the dole while I'm in x country" fraud as any benefit of collecting money would be wiped out by the cost of a few last minute airfares. They same anti-fraud system can be used under an EFT based payment system.

An Post can surely tender for the payments and if successful they can continue as they are.

later12

EF wrote: »

Transferring funds by EFT attracts way too much fraud.

Way too much fraud for all the other jurisdictions that do it? UK transfer payments are made by giro or by EFT, for example. Same in other EU countries, same in the USA.

There are other means of combating fraud, other posters mentioned a rolling out of unschedeuled interviews. And I am not convinced that the post office does indeed combat a significant amount of fraud, or that the state is getting its money's worth from its €54 million contract with an Post.

donkey balls

Im almost certain the Dept of social welfare use to pay people signing on through there bank accounts,Which imo was/is to easy to abuse with people getting a cheapy flight home once a month to sign on.
Was it not last year that O cuiv wanted to bring in a system were by a person in receipt of welfare payments would receive a phone call from an automated system(voice reconition thingy)and they asked you some questions and if the system thought your voice was someone else you had to go down to the local welfare office:eek:.
Has anyone ever tried to use the the revenue one:mad:f**king useless.

thebman

Well you could just have an ATM like machine in main post offices that everyone has to go to and use.

I would like to see how many post offices actually try to clamp down on fraud. I imagine most people would be surprised by the statistics.

Most post offices either don't have the time or are rural and the owners don't really care even though half the village knows who is cheating the system.

A system where by someone has to put in a card with a pin number would be good enough really.

Sure they could get someone to use it for them but the extra 50 million (figure taking from previous post) could be used for spot checking and clamping down on fraud which would save a lot in the long run if they were dedicated to this task.

later12

thebman wrote: »

Well you could just have an ATM like machine in main post offices that everyone has to go to and use.

A self service facility is an excellent idea, you wouldn't necessarily have to use the post office network, but a local welfare office, which could also be used to facilitate random on the spot ID checks by office staff.

dan_d

Electronic transfer is a great idea - but the thing is, not in Ireland, where every other person is out to screw the system. And the welfare is not set up to police it's own existing system, let alone an electronic one. Their computers are barely linked between offices. How on earth would they cope with something so - modern??

Genuine questions - I'm in the system and it leaves me speechless on a regular basis.

Chnandler Bong

Was unemployed last year for a few months (not anymore thankfully) and I must say I dreaded going into the post office to collect my money, everyone of the old farts behind the counter always turned they're nose up at me and had a little sigh to themselves, as if the money was coming from they're own pockets

A little respect in An Post would'nt go amiss!

thebman

dan_d wrote: »

Electronic transfer is a great idea - but the thing is, not in Ireland, where every other person is out to screw the system. And the welfare is not set up to police it's own existing system, let alone an electronic one. Their computers are barely linked between offices. How on earth would they cope with something so - modern??

Genuine questions - I'm in the system and it leaves me speechless on a regular basis.

Wouldn't take long to push out an electronic system much like the ATM system in banks. The technology exists and the staff can be retrained to spot fraud and do a proper job on it.

The data is centralised somewhere I'm sure and if not, a couple of months for a student placement or graduate would merge all the data.

If it was done properly, it would mean more resources for detecting fraud so I don't see the problem.

RichardAnd

dan_d wrote: »

Electronic transfer is a great idea - but the thing is, not in Ireland, where every other person is out to screw the system. And the welfare is not set up to police it's own existing system, let alone an electronic one. Their computers are barely linked between offices. How on earth would they cope with something so - modern??

Genuine questions - I'm in the system and it leaves me speechless on a regular basis.

The technology is there to do it and it's something I would like to see happening. Unemployment is depressing enough without having to queue for hand outs like depression era soup kitchens. People shouldn't be treated like that just because they lost their jobs.

pog it

How much does a post office get per payment?

dan_d

thebman wrote: »

Wouldn't take long to push out an electronic system much like the ATM system in banks. The technology exists and the staff can be retrained to spot fraud and do a proper job on it.

The data is centralised somewhere I'm sure and if not, a couple of months for a student placement or graduate would merge all the data.

If it was done properly, it would mean more resources for detecting fraud so I don't see the problem.

Our government don't like simple solutions though.
They much prefer to have everything as over-complicated as possible.....

pog it

bridget84 wrote: »

I am so outraged that I have to come on here to repeat the drivel that I've just heard from my husband.
He collected his Jobseekers Benefit his morning (which he is only entitled to for 3 more weeks), and while he was collecting it, the two biddies who were working there decided to have a little bitch (right in front of him) about the amount of people claiming benefits and how they're destroying the country.:rolleyes:

You should be making a formal complaint and move the payment to a different post office.

Gumbo

bridget84 wrote: »

I'm a private sector worker myself and I could easily walk in and say to them, "it's people like me that pays your wages". I'm almost tempted I must admit:mad:

after this comment, what makes you any better than the two people working in the post office?

SPDUB

Chnandler Bong wrote: »

Was unemployed last year for a few months (not anymore thankfully) and I must say I dreaded going into the post office to collect my money, everyone of the old farts behind the counter always turned they're nose up at me and had a little sigh to themselves, as if the money was coming from they're own pockets

A little respect in An Post would'nt go amiss!

But as other people pointed out they aren't An Post employees .

They are private sector workers doing outsource work except if you are in the likes of the GPO