Approaches current century letters, I hear (8)

I believe the answer is:

accesses

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'approaches' is the definition.
(access is a kind of approach)

'current century letters i hear' is the wordplay.
'current' becomes 'ac' (alternating current).
'century' becomes 'C' (common abbreviation).
'letters' becomes 'es' (more than one E).
'i hear' becomes 'ses' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ac'+'c'+'es'+'ses'='ACCESSES'

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I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.

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