Ireland's biggest independent postal company is promising to create hundreds of jobs as it launches a new direct collection and postal service for business customers.

CityPost, which is marketing itself as a rival to An Post, says it will collect from businesses for free and claims to undercut An Post's costs by up to 20%.

The company says that collection and delivery of a standard letter will cost 79c as compared to An Post’s newly-revised charge of €1, though volume discounts will likely apply in both cases.

CityPost, which also has significant operations in Northern Ireland and Portugal, has only collected business mail from centralised printing depots until now, but the new post pick-up service will collect directly from business customers that register with them. This will be confined initially to larger towns and cities.

CityPost has invested up to €1 million in a new sorting facility at Greenogue Business Park in Dublin, where it is currently hiring new employees.

Speaking to Breakfast Business this morning, ‎regulation and strategy director Bob Phillips noted that there are other significant employment opportunities on offer:

"Just as we're saying to businesses 'come to our website and register', we're also saying if you'd like to be one of our post pick-up people or one of our delivery people – because we'll also be delivering mail in those towns – register as well, because we want to set up a network... across Ireland. We have a mix of full and part-time roles and we are talking about hundreds of jobs."