A dispute involving up to 800 An Post workers which disrupted postal delivery services in Dublin yesterday was resolved last night and normal deliveries are to resume this morning.
After five hours of discussions between An Post and the Communications Workers' Union agreement was reached on overtime payments to staff.
Members of the union began their unofficial action at 7 a.m. yesterday in protest at increased workloads imposed on them without additional pay and the failure of An Post to recruit more workers.
Delivery depots across Dublin were affected. An Post says workers curtailed the sorting of post for their rounds and in some cases did not take all the post with them when they left the depot. When their normal shifts were over, they returned with any undelivered post.
The action means some premises may have got no post, while others may have received only some of their mail. The demands on delivery workers was greater than usual because a large number of staff were ill and poor weather abroad meant postal containers expected on December 18th did not arrive until December 23rd.
The union's industrial officer, Mr Steve Fitzpatrick, said they had warned An Post on December 23rd about the inadequate number of delivery personnel to deal with the workload.
The firm had provided extra resources to deal with processing the mail but had not provided additional workers to deliver it, Mr Fitzpatrick said.
In addition to the large amounts of post, 100 delivery staff were ill yesterday, he said.
The Dublin postal delivery branch of the union instructed its members yesterday not to work overtime.
This instruction was rescinded yesterday afternoon following consultation with union officials.