The past year has been something of an annus horribilis for IE Domain Registry Ltd, the company that distributes the .ie domain name to companies and individuals in the Republic.

Fresh from concluding a 13- month legal battle in the autumn with its former chief executive, Mr Mike Fagan, IE Domain Registry found out last month that it will be brought under the regulatory umbrella of ComReg.

The Government will publish legislation shortly to transfer control of the registry to ComReg, a move that may introduce price regulation and force it to pay annual fees to the regulator.

In a worst-case scenario for the management of the registry, it could even result in a tender to award a contract for the management of .ie domain to a new firm.

"It's too early to say how regulation will affect the registry. We really need to see the detail of the legislation," says Mr David Curtin, chief executive of IE Domain Registry, in his first interview since taking the job. "So far, our discussions have focused only on the issue of regulation."

A former KPMG and Smurfit executive, Mr Curtin has experienced his fair share of tough postings but none has attracted as much negative media coverage as IE Domain Registry.

A bitter 13-month battle was fought out in the media and the courts in 2002/2003 between the registry's former chief executive, Mr Fagan, and its current chairman, UCD professor Mr Seán Scanlan.

After numerous accusations and counter-accusations made by both parties regarding the operation of the registry, Mr Fagan resigned in October 2003.

This enabled Mr Curtin, who had been installed as financial controller by the chairman in late 2002 when Mr Fagan was suspended, to formally take over control of the troubled registry.

The scale of the trouble was revealed in the 2002 financial accounts, which showed a loss of €1.2 million, raising fears about the viability of the entire registry.

"The big issues had been identified when I came on board in a KPMG report. The level of expenditure was unsustainable and liquidity was a serious issue," says Mr Curtin, who admits he is now on a mission to restore confidence in the domain registry.

"The company had not been well run... Credit control was deficient, back-office and administration issues needed to be addressed and, clearly, costs had spiralled out of control," he says.

On taking control at the registry, Mr Curtin has dramatically cut administrative and employment costs, which fell to €1.35 million in 2003 from €2.53 million in 2002, according to its accounts to be filed today.

One cost-cutting measure was a change in the registry's invoicing system to monthly invoices for annual domain fees, rather than quarterly payments. It has also simplified the registration process for new domains, reducing the amount of paperwork required, says Mr Curtin.

For the first time the registry has adopted a deletion policy to remove .ie domains that are not being used. This has so far resulted in 4,900 domains being removed from its database, a factor that forced the registry to write off €400,000 in bad debts last year.

It has now introduced a tight credit control policy that sets definite deadlines for suspensions and deletions, says Mr Curtin.

The registry is also seeking to be more transparent with its resellers (firms that buy domains wholesale from the registry and sell them on to the public) and has introduced systems to enable them to interface with the registry system in real time, he says.

There has also been a turnaround in the financial affairs of the registry, which posted a pre-tax profit €480,874 in 2003, a significantly better performance than a loss of €1.2 million in 2002.

The non-profit body still faces a deficit of €941,459 but is not now in danger of going into liquidation. And with registrations up 23 per cent in 2003, there are signs it has turned the corner.

But not all the registry's critics are convinced that it is now fully open and transparent. Critics also point to the very high cost of registering a .ie domain - €40-€150 - compared to the €10 cost of registering a .com.

Mr Curtin says these extra costs are accumulated because IE Domain Registry is managed, in other words the registry checks all applicants to ensure they are not hosting obscene material or operating fraudulent sites. This is also the reason that the registration process can be more onerous than in other countries.

However, the registry cannot claim to be fully open and transparent when it refuses to reveal the wholesale price that it sells .ie domains to resellers. Far more .ie domains would have been taken up by individuals in recent years if the fees charged by the registry were cheaper.

These are the issues that the Government and ComReg will grapple with in coming months as they seek to impose regulation on the domain registry. Clearly, Mr Curtin will have a fight on his hands to maintain control of the State's .ie internet registry.