The cost of posting a letter will remain at 48 cent, but the price for mailing a parcel is set to more than double, it emerged today.
Following a request by An Post for an increase in prices, ComReg decided not to grant any increase for sending standard domestic letters.
The regulator, however, agreed to raise the cost of posting large envelopes from 60 cent to 90 cent while the price of posting a packet will increase from 96 cent to €2.
Isolde Goggin, ComReg chairperson, said: "The availability of a value for money, high quality and predictable postal service is vital in a modern economy like Ireland's.
"The provision of such a service and the ongoing liberalisation of the postal market clearly pose critical challenges for An Post.
The price increases allowed for packets facilitates other operators in providing competing services well in advance of the EU's target of January 2009."
An Post was embroiled in an industrial dispute for months after it claimed it was unable to pay wage increases agreed under social partnership.
The company had also demanded that workers accept new changes in work practices in the collection and delivery of mail.
The firm saved €20 million euro last year by not paying wage increases to around 10,000 staff.
An Post said Comreg's decision not to increase the cost of posting a letter was inexplicable and unfair given the fact that the company has had only one price increase in the past 14 years.
It said Comreg was fully aware of the financial losses it incurred by complying wit its Universal Service Obligation to deliver mail to every address, every working day for a uniform tariff.
"While An Post welcomes the decision to grant increases in rates for larger and bulkier items, this is overshadowed by the serious financial implications of ComReg's failure to grant an increase in the basic domestic postal rate," said a spokeswoman.
The company made pre-tax profits of €7 million last year compared to an operating loss of €42 million in 2003.
In a statement the Regulator insisted that the increases, along with a price hike in the non-reserved domestic area, would enable An
Post to reach more than 85 per cent of its original estimated increase in yield in 2006. The price changes will not come into effect for three months.
PA