Postcodes carry a hefty price tag
Related Articles
The news that PA Consulting, the company that recommended the introduction of a postal code system, has been awarded the €560,000 contract to oversee its establishment raises a number of questions.
Do we really need country-wide postcodes, or is this another expensive and seemingly irrelevant Green initiative? Don't we already have postcodes in the only city large enough to require them? Is our Dublin-born Green Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan so out of touch with the rest of the country that he believes postal staff are no longer familiar with the areas in which they work? Are the days gone when a letter addressed to Paddy Murphy, Townland, County, would arrive at its destination?
Mr Ryan, who issued a statement in September 2009 on foot of the publication of the report, said a postal code system would "unlock the potential across government departments for use of this spatial data for policy planning". It will enable "the Government to match demographic trends to its policy-making, and assist in deciding such matters as the location of schools and hospitals". It will also be used "to identify clusters of houses".
It's all a bit vague at a time when we need decisive measures with tangible results.
Mr Ryan says the system will be worth an estimated €22m to the Irish economy in the medium term. It is not clear how he arrives at this figure, but the real benefits of such a system, he continued, could not be gauged in monetary terms.
What can be gauged in monetary terms, however, is the cost of implementing such a system -- between €10m and €15m.
