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Making sustainable action in a challenging year

Sustainable Cities and Communities

Sustainable action in a challenging year

From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we stepped up and used our unique position in Irish society to keep us all connected through our Community Focus initiatives. These continued throughout 2021, including newspaper delivery, check-ins on older and vulnerable people in our communities and free delivery of cards and letters to and from residents of nursing and care homes across the country.

Expansion of our services to support the response to COVID-19

During these challenging times, we supported the HSE’s efforts to mitigate the spread of the Omicron variant by cutting short the Christmas holidays and moving to a seven-day a week delivery model to distribute antigen test kits across the country. In 2021, we distributed 375,623 test kits and have continued distribution in 2022.

Keeping Ireland trading

The prosperity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is vital to Irish society. To support these businesses trading during the difficult months of COVID-19 and drive their recovery, we partnered with ‘Champion Green’ and offered free delivery services to small businesses. We also provided special rates to businesses, such as bookshops, and continued to offer discounts on a range of products through our Advantage Card, totalling over €2.4m in 2021. This brought our supports and discounts for SMEs to a total of €2.8m over the pandemic.

A positive stamp

Our national stamps draw attention to critical issues and raise money for organisations in need. In July 2021, we launched a set of stamps to celebrate Ireland’s world-renowned song writing and performing traditions. We made a donation to the Irish Music Industry Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund, for every stamp booklet sold, to support Irish music creators through the pandemic.

Address Point

An Post Address Point is a free service which provides a secure personal address to those without a fixed home and enables them to receive regular post and access essential services. We have generated more than 5,800 addresses since 2019 and in 2021 we further expanded our service. We also collaborated with Northern Irish organisations on how a similar service could be rolled out in Northern Ireland.

Trócaire Campaign

In 2021, we were delighted to make Trócaire boxes available for collection at all post offices to support its Lenten Campaign. This ensured that Trócaire had an alternative collection channel for their 120,000 boxes during the pandemic, as schools were closed at the time.

UNICEF

To help other countries with their vaccination efforts, we supported UNICEF’s ‘Get a Vaccine, Give a Vaccine’ campaign by raising awareness amongst our employees and across our social media channels. 

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