Seamus Kirk
Question:115 Mr. Kirk asked the Minister for Public Enterprise the plans, if any, there are to deregulate the postal service in Ireland. [19789/97]
Written Answers. - Postal Service.
Agreement was achieved at the Telecommunications Council on 18 December 1996 to a draft Directive entitled Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on common rules for the development and improvement of community postal services.
The draft Directive represents the first phase in the liberalisation of the postal sector in the EU.
The essential elements of the Directive are as follows:
(1) the defining of the minimum universal service as the permanent provision of a postal service of specified quality at all points in the territory at affordable prices for all users including door-to-door deliveries five days per week as well as ensuring that the density of contact points is adequate for the needs of users;
(2) rules on quality of service (for both national and cross-Border mail), cost accounting and terminal dues (the arrangements by which postal operators compensate each other for delivery of cross-Border mail) which are related to costs;
(3) the designation of a national regulatory authority in each member state legally separate from and operationally independent of the postal authority;
(4) a reserved area of letter mail costing up to five times the basic tariff and weighing up to 350 grammes to support the universal service (any mail outside these parameters will be liberalised when the Directive comes into force);
(5) that the Council and the European Parliament will decide not later than January 2000 on further gradual and controlled liberalisation of the postal sector on the basis of proposals to be made by the Commission before 1998 following a review of the sector — this further liberalisation to take effect from 2003.
The Government supports the proposals contained in the Directive. Secondary legislation to transpose the provisions of the Directive will be prepared and signed in 1998.