Mr. Alex Chisholm:

That is done according to a standard set on a European level. It is called a CEN standard and applies to all European postal regulators. The method is to create a certain minimum number of postal consumers who effectively act as witnesses or points in a survey of when a particular letter is posted and when it arrives. One uses different measures for services within Dublin, between Dublin and the rest of the country, etc. All of this is done on an entirely independent basis by a fully qualified firm with a panel of people in sufficient numbers and of sufficient quality. A precise, prescribed method is used and the work is subject to an independent audit by a person who is a specialist auditor. It is one of the services I mentioned at the outset that is outsourced independently of the Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg. As a requirement for us to have an independent survey, the consequences of which we can deal with, we must not mark our own homework, so to speak.