16/03/2010

Border Post Slammed

An SDLP politician in the North has welcomed a consumer body report highlighting inefficiencies in cross-border post delivery and has called for rapid action to fix the problem.

Newry and Armagh MLA Dominic Bradley said: "A letter sent from Jonesborough in this constituency to Ravensdale less than a mile away in the Irish Republic has to travel 200 miles.

"First it gets collected and sent to Belfast for sorting, then it is transferred to Dublin along with all the post and it gets sorted again and sent to Dundalk for final sorting and delivery. The report notes that this process can take three days but local experience suggests it could be longer in both directions.

"Here is a simple issue of North South co-operation, local sorting on both sides of the border, which could improve quality of life and boost the economy," he said.

He also noted that border areas already suffer from multiple infrastructural disadvantages which are "difficult to deal with, but sending their post on a tour of the country is a problem which could be dealt with easily and cheaply".

(BMcC/GK)

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