53.— (1) A person commits an offence if he or she, without the agreement of the addressee and, in the case of a person who is a postal service provider or an employee or agent of a postal service provider, contrary to his or her duty, intentionally—

(a) delays, detains, interferes with or opens, a postal packet addressed to another person or does anything to prevent its delivery or authorises, suffers or permits another person (who is not the addressee) to do so,

(b) discloses the existence or contents of a postal packet referred to in paragraph (a), or

(c) uses for any purpose any information obtained from a postal packet referred to in paragraph (a).

(2) A person commits an offence if he or she, without reasonable excuse and, in the case of a person who is a postal service provider or an employee or agent of a postal service provider, contrary to his or her duty, intentionally opens a mail bag.

(3) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a class C fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both, or

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €75,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or both.

(4) This section does not apply to any person who is acting—

(a) pursuant to any of the powers as to the transmission of postal packets set out in section 47,

(b) pursuant to a direction given by the Minister under section 110 of the Act of 1983, as applied by section 54, or

(c) under other lawful authority.