Post code suffers early glitches

On Monday, the first national postcode system, labelled Eircode, came into force, and some 2.2 million homes and businesses are to receive their own seven-digit identifying codes over the next number of weeks.

Launched by Communications minister, Alex White, Eircode is aimed at taking the confusion out of 'non-unique’ addresses.

However, the scheme which cost €27m to implement, has early teething troubles.

Faults already occurring show some houses redirected to different parishes and townlands, while other addresses do not appear on the system at all.

Others have queried what its usefulness is as, strictly speaking, it does not have to be included in addresses.

Meanwhile, major couriers like FedEx and DHL, have publicly stated they will not use the system as each code for each address is generated at random and codes for neighbouring houses do not follow any sequential order. 

Furthermore, Google Maps and satellite navigational systems will not implement the service, so emergency services have also ruled out its use saying it could “cost lives”, due to the random nature of the codes.

Postmistress and secretary of the Westmeath Branch of the Irish Postmasters Union (IPU), Lorraine Tormey, said as people are not legally bound to use Eircodes, it remains to be seen who will benefit from the new system.
“It has nothing to do with An Post. We still deliver 95% of post the next day anyway. So who will it benefit? Is it the couriers, the taxis, the online shoppers?"

- For more on this story see this week's edition of the Westmeath Examiner.