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The government has not yet decided when it will introduce a long-awaited new postcode system here, opting instead to spend an additional €54,000 of taxpayers' money commissioning a second report to examine the merits of such a move.
This is despite the fact that it has already paid out some €450,000 to consultants employed to advise the National Postcode Project Board (NPPB) in its deliberations on the issue.
The board presented its wide-ranging recommendations to government three years ago this month, and a commitment to introduce a new postcode system forms part of the current Programme for Government.
But no decision has so far been taken on how best to proceed with such a move, with the NPPB estimating the new system would cost the exchequer around €15m to implement and promote.
Supporters of the move have claimed that it could help to grow significantly the postal market on the island, in particular direct mail services, as An Post prepares for the opening up of the Irish market to competition. Under the EU's third postal directive, this is required to take place by the end of 2010.
In a written Dáil reply to a question tabled by Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore, Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan said he expects to bring proposals on reform of the postcode system to his cabinet colleagues once analysis of the second report is complete. He revealed that the government has spent €54,450 in consultancy fees on this report, which it decided in May 2007 was necessary "to quantify the wider economic and societal benefits" prior to the introduction of a postcode system.
In his reply, Ryan acknowledged that the NPBB's July 2006 recommendations had also included an analysis of "the costs and benefits arising from its introduction along with a detailed implementation, promotion and maintenance plan".
"The board was assisted by technical and economic consultants, recruited by ComReg, at a cost of approximately €450,000," he said.
"The proposal of the NPPB was to proceed with an alpha-numeric postal sector postcode model and that each postcode would be compatible with GPS and other global navigation satellite systems."
He added that while there are areas of overlap between the two systems, it was his view that because of the different uses to which they can be put, satellite technologies "will not make postcodes redundant".
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The fact is, verfified by Royal Mail Postal Experts, that Post Codes are not needed in Ireland for sorting mail- use of existing address databases solves the sorting mail issue. Nowadays , the requirement for Post Codes is more related to delivery of goods and services to properties and locations. Planned liberalisation of the Irish postal market in 2010 under EU requirements will see postal delivery practice evolving in the same way as courier delivery practice currently exists. This will require more effective GPS/GIS technologies to satisfy requirments and supporting PostCodes will be an absolute requirement. Currently SatNav's cannot be used to full benefit in Ireland as 40% of our population live outside urban areas and therefore have non unuique addresses. Those who live in urban areas also have postal addresses which are not related to geography and so SatNav's do not work well with these either. So with Amazon sales into Ireland increased by 16% in the last year and the associated additional delivery requirements, with 0.5 million commercial vehicles delivering services via our roads and the imminent liberalisation of the postal market, it is imperative that we adopt an addition to our addressing system that allows vehicles deliver goods and services more efficiciently. In the UK, research has shown that efficient use of SatNav's in the logistics industry results in 14% savings in fuel. Translate that to Ireland and that becomes at least 20% fuel and time savings.
So we do not need postcodes for sorting - just for delivery - therefore the type of postcodes we need to adopt is different to those adopted by the UK and the USA in the 1950's and different to those forced on Northern Ireland more recently. NI postcodes in Fermanagh have not worked successfully as they required putting names on roads and this caused many political and administrative issues.
So we need modern postcodes, not address database related, allowing any location even non properties have a code and directly supporting the use of GIS and SatNav without significant additional costs. A geopostcoding system was in the list of options in the first consultants report to Government - this was ignored in favour of address database related systems which cost more money and time to implement and prevent non properties having postcodes. A geopostcoding system would cost a fraction of the €15 million mentioned to implement. This type of system has already been tested by Garmin SatNav's for Ireland in the form of PON Codes - seen here - www.irishpostcodes.ie and discussed here: http://www.directionsmag.com/article....
An advanced version of this sytem with ambiguity resolution built in is now ready for release to any potential user including the Irish Government if required and has the further attraction of supporting Conradh Na Gaeilge's requirements of the implemented system supporting both the Irish and English languages.