Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the moment, 98% of the post is delivered the next day. Even if this were a perfect system, it would achieve an improvement of only two percentage points, although no organisation operates at 100%.

In the context of the Chairman's earlier comment that we all recognised in 2011 that there had to be reform of the way we look at public expenditure, even though one of the referendums did not achieve the result we would have liked, it must be kept on the agenda. If I am returned to the Oireachtas, I will certainly want a much stricter appraisal. Projects should not get this far without one page of costs and one page of benefits being produced.

For what it is worth, I have heard that the real aim of this is to identify people claiming the dole under two names, but that has nothing to do with postcodes. If the Minister for Social Protection wants to do that, she will go to a different committee of the Oireachtas. It is reduced to that level, Chairman. I cannot get any postal benefits. We have heard from Tom Carr, the ambulance service people and so on, all of whom are iffy about it. If it was free and somebody else paid the €28 million, they might use it.