ComReg's Postal Role

ComReg is the National Regulatory Authority for the Postal Sector in Ireland. 

ComReg's vision is of a dynamic and competitive postal services market offering a wide range of innovative, leading-edge, high-quality and competitively priced services to businesses, organisations and consumers, at least on a par with those available in key comparator economies elsewhere in the EU.

ComReg's statutory objective is to promote the development of the postal sector and in particular the availability of a Universal Postal Service within, to and from the State at an affordable price for the benefit of all users. There is no explicit objective to promote competition, although in ComReg's view the availability of competing postal services, as envisaged in European and National Legislation, is the best way of ensuring that the Universal Service provided by An Post is fully reflective of customers' needs.

Competition is key to ensuring a sustainable industry, which has the means to, and is willing to invest in developing innovative products and promoting product differentiation.  Competition is also vital to ensuring the provision of universal service.  Regulatory intervention is necessary only where one operator has a dominant position in a market, whether from a legal monopoly ("reserved area"), economics of scale or scope, or uncontested markets.

In delivering its objectives, ComReg's focus is to:

• Maintain the availability of an affordable high quality Universal Postal Service to all users within the State.
• Secure improvements in quality of service by setting targets for delivery of mail and monitor quality of service performance against targets set in accordance with European standards.
• Consider applications made by An Post for permission to increase the Tariffs for universal services reserved to An Post and to monitor compliance with the tariff principles for all universal services. 
• Ensure accounting procedures are transparent and that cross-subsidisation only prevails to the extent necessary to maintain the universal service obligation. 
• Provide guidelines to all providers of postal services to facilitate putting a formal complaints and redress code in place. 
• Promote the development of the postal sector at home by attendance and influencing European and International fora.
• The principal functions of ComReg in respect of postal services are set out in the European Communities (Postal Services) Regulations, 2002 which came into force on 19 December 2002.