Mr. Neil McDonnell:

Absolutely. As a database solution, one is paying for the maintenance and the upkeep of a database and as this is a database of 2.2 million unique address, it must be refreshed constantly. We understand it must be done quarterly.

To answer the Senator's question, the pricing was meant to be released in September but it has not come out. The pricing for neither the Eircode address file, ECAF, which is the thin file that does not contain the longitude or latitude, nor the full Eircode address database, ECAD, which is meant to be the commercial file, is available. Consequently, we do not know what the cost to industry will be. However, as Mr. Tom Carr noted, it is not a cost issue. Even were this service offered to us at no cost, it does not have any utility in it as a postcode. It is a postal address database, not a postcode.