IRELAND, the only country in the EU without postcodes, launches a national system this week.
Every single premises in Ireland, some 2.2 million addresses, is assigned its own unique code, with each code consisting of seven digits.
The first part (called a Routing Key) consists of three characters and defines a principal post town delivery area. This is linked to the national road network.
The second part (called a Unique Identifier) is specific to that location, and distinguishes one address from another.
A typical postcode will thus appear as, for example, A65 FHE2.
The system, costing €27million to implement, is not mandatory, and no charge will be levied on those households or businesses adopting it.
Over 35 per cent of Irish addresses share their address with at least one other property, making it difficult for the accurate delivery of goods and services, and with the huge increase in internet shopping, this has become a concern.
Ireland also has a preponderance of towns and villages with the same names — such as Ballyduff, Milltown etc — so if the county is inadvertently left off an address, the new system gives An Post an easy method of resolving the problem.
The postal service, however, has reiterated that it will continue to deliver mail efficiently to addresses without postcodes. So if your family back home lives in, for example, “Owenie’s Cottage, just by the crossroads in Ballymakellet near Dundalk, Co. Louth”, your letter will still get there.
The Eircode system differs from that used in Britain, and in many other EU countries, in that the Unique Identifier is a random series of characters, and not sequentially linked with neighbouring businesses.
Critics say that this makes it far less efficient when used in conjunction with satnav systems.
Waterford City and County Council has become the second council after Co. Meath to vote against implementing Eircode, branding the system “useless”.
However Liam Duggan, a director at Capita who are running the system for the Irish Government, says the Unique Identifier follows a structure that takes into account the anomalies of Ireland’s rural townlands where as many as 30 or 40 houses could share the same address.
As from this week, Capita will be contacting every household and premises in Ireland to inform them of their unique Eircode.
