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Who needs Authorisation?

The postal services market in Ireland is liberalised since 1 January 2011 and therefore fully open to competition.
The 2011 Act requires that any person who is providing or intending to provide a postal service shall, before doing so, make a notification to ComReg. It is a criminal offence to fail to make a notification or to make a notification or a declaration which is false or misleading in any material respect and the offender is liable on summary conviction to a “class A” fine.

Complaints and Redress procedures

A condition of authorisation is the provision by the postal service provider of complaints and redress procedures to ComReg.
ComReg has published “Complaints and Redress Procedures: Guidelines for Postal Service Providers” ComReg Document 14/06 which provide guidelines to all postal service providers, to assist in drawing up and implementing a code of practice that sets out the procedures, standards and policies with respect to the postal service provider’s handling of complaints from postal service users, in accordance with the 2011 Act.

Postal Levy

The 2011 Act provides that an authorisation to provide a postal service within the scope of the universal postal service is subject to the payment of a levy. S.I. 181 of 2013 provides that the amount of the levy imposed on each applicable undertaking, other than An Post, is subject to a minimum charge of €5,000 per annum per postal service provider providing postal services within the scope of the universal postal service.
Where an undertaking is liable to pay the levy for only part of a levy period, the amount of the levy imposed in respect of the levy period shall be the appropriate proportion of this amount.
Register of Authorised Postal Providers [Current Info – to discuss how to layout/populate]