Mr. Gary Delaney:

Yes. Loc8Code designed a code that was intended to fulfil all those requirements and did so. The difference between Loc8Code and Eircode is that Loc8Code is intuitive.

There are localities in it. It certainly depends on GPS - that is my business and my background - but it does not require GPS to actually interpret it. It can be iterated in the same way as the Northern Ireland postcode that I have given. Eircode cannot.

The other issue about Eircode is that it is totally dependent on a database which must be kept up to date. I have supported sat-navs in this market for nearly 15 years, so I know GPS and I know sat-navs very well. I know also that people do not keep them up to date. I dare say, if there are sat-nav owners in the committee, I could count, probably on one finger, the number of people who have ever taken the time to update them. If one builds a postcode that is totally dependent on a database and in that database there are coding systems that can change and need to be updated on a regular basis, then if the sat-nav is not up to date or the GPS is not up to date, one cannot use it. If over-the-air communications, Internet, or mobile phone networks are required to access that database, we know that a piece of national infrastructure has the potential to fall over in the event of a major emergency or disaster. The major emergency could be just a major pile-up or a crash on a motorway where emergency services need to get to the right location and the right access points.

In terms of a deliverable, Loc8Code has much more to offer. To be honest, I did not come here today to try to sell Loc8Code to the committee. That was not my intention.