An Post will remain a State company and will seek a strategic partner as part of its development, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, said yesterday.
The company is also likely to offer an Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP), the details of which are being negotiated with the An Post trade unions.
Ms O'Rourke has offered the clearest indication to date of how she views the future of the State postal service which faces competition from larger European companies under EU deregulation.
Ms O'Rourke is also believed to favour Aer Rianta's retention of its three airports. She said that while Aer Lingus needed capital, possibly through an initial public offering, to buy planes, Aer Rianta was the owner of three airports which, on an island, had a strategic purpose "in all sorts of ways". She was speaking at a conference on "New Horizons for State Enterprise - Moving to the Private Sector".
Mr John Burke, Aer Rianta's chief executive, said the airport operating company had huge capital investment requirements to expand overseas and develop its airports domestically.
It had a competitive advantage over airport companies which had not been established to operate competitively. But as companies consolidated and new companies emerged, this advantage would disappear. Aer Rianta wanted to continue operating its three airports and to float 25 to 49 per cent of the company with the State holding a 51 per cent majority stake.
"It deals with the issue of the State maintaining control of what are important national assets. It gives us the discipline of the stock exchange and it gives us access to funds.
"If we do not go for the IPO route, then the rest of the strategy begins to unravel," he said.
Ms O'Rourke added that while privatisation suited certain public utilities such as the former Telecom Eireann, An Post remained very strongly a "domestic" business. A strategic partner would give it added strengths, knowledge and outlets for future business.
An Post, with 8,500 employees, is regarded as a low-tech, labour intensive company which would have little prospect as a profit-making public company.
The largest trade union representing staff is the Communications Workers' Union, which also negotiated the ESOP at Telecom Eireann.
