Mr. Liam O'Sullivan:

I was just about to come to that. When the parcel, package or letter comes in, if we are sorting it by machine, it tries to read the characters using optical character reading technology and breaks down and segments the letters used. The Senator gave the example of Kildare Street. It recognises the "K", "I" and "L". If the code was on it, it would attempt to recognise it. If it recognised it, it would not apply anything to the mail piece; it would simply recognise where to sort it to. If the code was not present, it would the same with the textual address - it would recognises where to sort it to.

For the people we employ who sort manually, the same process applies. If the code is present, which is easier for us, they will recognise it very simply and know where to put it, but they will not put anything on the mail. If there is no code, they have to read several lines of textual address which in some cases is not well written to figure out its destination. However, we will not be attaching the code to the mail. Our view - it is sensible and how it works worldwide - is that the sender applies the postcode. We are not the only postal operator, but I do not imagine any of our competitors will start adding the codes either.

Deputy Brendan Griffin asked about cases where the address was correct but the code was incorrect. The technology in our sorting centres is very sophisticated. When it is reading a mail piece with a textual address and a code, it checks whether they match. That is how we intend to use the code. Therefore, it is extra verification.