Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 79: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources his proposals to ensure the future of the day after postal delivery service in rural areas in the face of the imminent deregulation of letters of every weight and the consequent competition for An Post in the major urban areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35037/05]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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The liberalisation of the postal sector is provided for in the European Directives 97/67/EC and 2002/39/EC, which set out the requirements for member states on the provision of high quality postal services and liberalisation within their postal networks. Under the directives, each member state is obliged to provide a universal service whereby a minimum level of service must be provided including a delivery no less than five days a week. Both of these directives have been transposed into Irish law in S.I. 616 of 2002, European Communities (Postal Services) Regulations.

Liberalisation in Ireland has already commenced and since the transposition of the directives, the weight limit applying to postal items falling within the reserved area and therefore not open to competition has been reduced to 100g from 2003 with a price limit of three times the basic tariff for domestic and inbound international. The reserved area will be further reduced to mail weighing 50g or less and two and a half times the basic tariff from 2006 for domestic and inbound international. Outbound international mail was fully liberalised on 1 January 2004. The second directive also stipulates that the postal sector is to liberalise across the EU in full on 1 January 2009 subject to political agreement. There are no proposals to change the nature of the universal service.