The chief executive of O2 Ireland's parent MmO2 has described claims that Irish mobile phone prices are a "rip off" as disingenuous. Mr Peter Erskine has also warned the Commission for Communication Regulation (ComReg) against "over-regulating" the mobile phone industry.

Mr Erskine, in Dublin this week to meet O2 Ireland's management, defended O2 Ireland's pricing strategy and said it offered users value for money.

"I don't feel our Irish business could grow if our users felt they were being ripped off," he said in response to comments made by ComReg to an Oireachtas committee that users here pay among the highest prices in the world.

O2 Ireland management will appear before the Oireachtas Communications committee next week to defend allegations that it is generating excessive profits from its Irish customers.

Mr Erskine said O2 Ireland's users spent more on mobile services than customers of its other divisions because they use their mobiles up to 70 per cent more than the British and Germans.

He said using average revenue-per-user figures to claim that prices were too high was "disingenuous", adding that O2 Ireland's 35 per cent earnings margin - the highest in the MmO2 group - was neither excessive or greedy.

"Since 1997 we've put €1 billion into Ireland... and I've got a business that if you look at since it started has only gone profitable in the last 18 months," he said.

He said the mobile market in the Republic was tough and very competitive and warned against further regulation by ComReg.

"I truly see zero benefit in over-regulation. The risk is that you stifle any innovation and the introduction of new services."

Mr Erskine also said that O2 Ireland would probably not launch a consumer third generation mobile service until late 2004 and perhaps even later than that.

Third generation mobile technology enables firms to beam video and multimedia services to mobile phone handsets at very high speeds. Initially considered a licence to print money, technical glitches and the sheer cost of building the networks has persuaded most firms to delay its introduction by more than a year.

O2 Ireland will meet its regulatory requirements to roll out its network to 30 per cent of the population by end-December 2003. The firm's existing 2.5G network will offer consumers services such as music downloading and video clip before the third generation mobile technology was launched.