Mr. Neil McDonnell:

The question about the delivery of post is interesting. It is not a question for us but I would seriously question whether An Post will even use Eircode to deliver. It has two components: a routing key, which has a geographical basis not unlike the current Dublin postal districts, followed by a four-character random string. It would be very interesting to ask An Post whether it is going to use the random string to deliver mail or just sort it into the postal districts and continue to do what it is doing right now. I suspect it is the latter.

On the question of cost, businesses like this are presented with a Hobson's choice of spending money to buy a database and then paying someone to interpret that database or simply to continue to do what they are doing right now. I suspect that most of them, for practical cost reasons - not merely as a money issue - will continue to do what they are doing right now because that still will get them to the end address, albeit on a less efficient basis than is possible, without paying someone extra money for so doing. These people do not interact with customers or businesses via An Post but interact directly with the public and with businesses. The issue for them is they take a van, a gas truck or a pallet to a physical address and unlike a United Kingdom postcode or zip code in America that is visible in parts, Eircode is invisible at that physical address. There is no physical sign that one is at an Eircode. Consequently, to address the Deputy's middle point on whether there is a utility for this as part of a Government database last, that is entirely up to the Members of the House. We believe there is huge utility in an address database but not as a postcode and not for people who are in the business of getting from a depot to a house or a business. This is of no use to them.