Mr. John Tuohy:

I believe the emergency services have come on board in support of the Eircode system now that they have been provided with more information on how it will work. I do not believe the emergency services are officially against its implementation. However, some other companies in our industry have been critical of it. Those are multinational companies that are minority players in the Irish market. However, they are big corporations in their own right, which means their voices are disproportionately loud in this conversation. The issue multinational corporations have with the proposed system is that they adopt a one-size-fits-all model for their computer systems. They use the same systems in every country in the world, systems that were largely developed 30 or 40 years ago. Such systems would support UK- or US-style postcodes but they would not support this new and innovative system. Those corporations would have to spend money adapting their systems to the Irish market and, for them, the market is probably too small for them to do that. Rather than changing their systems to support the new postcode, such corporations would prefer to change the new postcodes to work with their older computer systems. That is the issue that multinationals operating in this market - which are big companies in their own right, even though they are minority players - have with this new system.

I draw a comparison between the introduction of this system and the design of the Dublin Port tunnel 12 or 14 years ago prior to its construction. In a similar way, minority interests said the port tunnel would be too small for trucks to be driven through it. I drove through it on my way into town this morning and I can assure the members there were no trucks stuck in it. That tunnel was built to EU standards that were new at that time, but a number of minority-interest operators in the market had lorries that were built to an older UK standard, which would not fit in the tunnel. Those operators wanted us to redesign the tunnel in order that their trucks would fit through it, as opposed to redesigning their trucks to the new EU standard. The members will note the parallel I am drawing. Similarly, a small number of multinational corporations do not like our new postcode system because it does not fit their systems. They do not want to spend money changing their systems to suit it and, therefore, they will shout loudly to try to persuade us to change our postcodes to suit them. It may appear that I am being cynical, but I think that is exactly what is going on. It is a similar debate.

I do not believe the emergency services have an issue with the Eircode system as it is proposed. When the Eircode system is implemented, a person living in a rural area who has to telephone for an ambulance can give his or her Eircode over the phone and the ambulance driver will be able to drive straight to their door and avoid having to drive up and down a country lane looking for a house that may be in off the road and cannot be seen from the main road. Similarly, we have hundreds of delivery vans in rural areas.

More than 100 of them will drive up and down the road on the phone to a customer, looking for directions and one can apply that to other courier firms and postal operations, whereas if they can phone a customer and ask them for their Eircode, the driver can put it into the satellite navigation system and drive straight to their door. It will save us time and fuel and it will be better for the environment and everything else. I very much recommend the proposed system. It has been well thought-out and is particularly suited to Irish conditions.