An Post has threatened legal action against plans by the telecoms regulator to impose a levy on the company for monitoring its business. A spokeswoman for Ms Etain Doyle said she would proceed with the plan to impose the levy following her rejection of concerns expressed by An Post. It is understood that the board of An Post will meet in coming days to discuss its response to the regulator's decision.

"The levy proposed by the regulator is, in our view, totally inappropriate and all routes including the legal route will be considered," a spokesman for An Post said.

In its response to a consultation document from the regulator, An Post had said the amount of the levy was onerous and that the director should have regard to the financial constraints under which the company operated.

In a paper published in July, the regulator proposed a charge of £250,000 (€317,435) for the January-June period this year and £300,000 for July-December. From January to June 2002, the proposed charge is £750,000. "The bulk of this levy relates to monitoring of quality of service by An Post," said a spokeswoman for the telecoms regulator.

An Post said it already paid an independent monitoring service and that the regulator's plans would lead to a duplication of the service, for which it would have to pay a levy.

But the spokeswoman said the telecoms regulator would assume responsibility for An Post's service. An Post, in turn, would pay a levy to the regulator which would then be passed on to the independent service. "We're paying it now as opposed to An Post paying it out. An Post was incurring a lot of these costs anyway." The proposed charges the regulator proposes are similar to what An Post would have incurred if it had continued to pay for a monitoring service, the spokeswoman said.

For the period to December 31st, 2001, the levy amounted to 0.2 per cent per annum of the relevant turnover. For the period starting after December 31st 2001, the levy was set at 0.5 per cent of the turnover. An Post questioned the basis of the scheme, saying it considered it inappropriate and unnecessary where there was only one entity liable to pay.

In her response to the consultation document, the director said she was satisfied her proposal was in compliance with the legislation which applied to her office. She said the regulations provided for the imposition of a levy on universal service providers and that An Post was the only designated service at present.

Eircom has been asked by the telecommunications regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, to inform three other operators of its High Court proceedings against her over the price other operators pay to access Eircom's local network. In court yesterday, Mr Anthony Collins, for Eircom, told Mr Justice Kelly his side would, within seven days, inform Esat, Kokomo and Nevada of the action. Those parties then have the option of applying to be notice parties to the proceedings.

Eircom initiated its legal proceedings in May and yesterday Mr Justice Kelly issued directions about the exchange of legal documents. The case will be listed in early December for further directions. The proceedings relate to a dispute over a process known as "unbundling the local loop" which would enable other operators to offer services directly to consumers over the last portion of the incumbent operator's local copper telephone network. The regulator has directed Eircom to impose a charge of €13.53 (£10.66) per line. Eircom argues this is insufficient to allow it recoup its investment in network infrastructure.