Mr. Alex Chisholm:

The only thing that really matters to us is that the quality of service is improved in the interest of all business users and individual households. The target that was set some time ago, following a public consultation, of 94% is very much in line with the level of next-day delivery that has been achieved right across Europe. It is very disappointing that we have not been able to achieve that here in recent years. The purpose for us in bringing any compliance action is not to uphold a regulation for the sake of it but to uphold the underlying requirement of the regulation which is to make sure that a certain basic level of service is provided. We wish to try to do that through pressure and influence and then by the next step up, which is the notification on compliance. The ultimate action is the court action after repeated failures to meet the required targets and notwithstanding statements by An Post that it was able to and would do it but then not actually reaching that target.

A good outcome of the court action for us would be for An Post to take the necessary corrective measures to address the considerable shortfall of more than ten percentage points between the requirement for 94% and the current performance. This is what we hope to get out of our action.