An Post - Irish Post Office
27/09/2011 Changes to the An Post - Irish International Registered Postal Service
An Post, the Irish Post Office, have made changes to their International Registered Postal Service. For years customers have been able to buy compensation via the An Post Registered Post Service for parcels weighing less than 2Kg. However due to the fact that their International partners will no longer provide a reciprocal service and offer compensation for loss of parcels containing jewellery and similar articles compensation will no longer be payable. Formerly parcels despatched from Ireland to UK insurance provided by An Post was available for up to €320. An Post will continue to accept jewellery through the international registered service, but any loss of these items will not be covered by compensation. These changes have no effect upon their domestic services where compensation will continue to be offered.
Jewellers in Ireland will be interested to know that the PakSafe Service which was set up in 2009 is still available for anyone who wants to avail of it. It is more expensive, however it does continue to provide a higher level of compensation of €2500.
Different procedures apply to the PakSafe and the most notable and fundamental difference is that deliveries in the UK are undertaken by the SMS (Secure Mail Services) Company which is a specialist organisation part of the DX Group - http://www.thedx.co.uk/.
A customer that wants to use the service must purchase the labels and envelopes by calling An Post Customer Services. You can order supplies of PakSafe by calling the An Post Business Desk on 1850 262 362.
Each PakSafe (includes a label and pre-addressed outer envelope) costs €18.65 with a minimum order level of 10. Every PakSafe mailer will automatically be insured for up to €2,500. PakSafes will be delivered to UK addresses within two days of posting.
A maximum weight allowance of 500 grams applies to each PakSafe. Once acquired these are recognised and accepted nationally by all the An Post Offices.
Originally this service was designed for a small number of customers in Dublin and An Post were unable to expand it nationally. Rather than create a whole new service it was decided to make the parcels look like the normal registered items when its presented at a post office. The parcel moves through the domestic registered post stream until it gets to the Dublin Mail Centre, where the parcel is then consolidated and given to SMS in the UK for onward delivery.
