Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy appears to know the shape of the postcode system although I do not know what it will be. I hope the people whom we will appoint will have enough sense to look at the systems that are in place. The Deputy has shown that this information is widely available. I hope they can learn from the 32 other countries to which he referred and devise a system that will overcome the pitfalls he has rightly pointed out. I have a level of faith in the people who will be appointed as managers of this project that they will go that step further to make it an effective and efficient postcode system.

I can only go on what An Post has said to me. It has the geo-directory to which Deputy Broughan referred. I asked An Post if we could translate this into a postcode system but it appears that the geo-directory product is not a postcode system but an address database that is linked to geographical co-ordinates. It provides a unique identifier but An Post informs me that it is not a postcode system. Apart from anything else, I believe postcodes should be a public good. They are a public good and they should be available to everybody. Everybody should have the information on the system. It should not be the property of a private company that wants to make money just for the sake of it. I am sure the Deputy, who would claim and would bow in that direction to be a far greater socialist than I——

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