Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The cost of the contract over ten years is €25 million. The two big elements of that are the cost of accessing the GeoDirectory data and the cost of upgrading departmental databases, so that they can exploit the new post code system. Some €8.27 million will be paid to the GeoDirectory. That is money which comes back to the State as the GeoDirectory is a State organisation where the shareholders are the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and An Post. It is one arm of the State giving to another one.

The bigger element of the cost will be the €9.46 million which is the cost of updating the databases in the main Government Departments which have been agitating for this service, such as the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Social Protection, the CSO and any organisation which can use it to improve its service, make it more efficient and provide a better service to its clients.

Deputy Colreavy looked for information on the impact of the implementation of a national postcode on An Post. The impact will be a positive one. There will be more business going through An Post as a result. The estimate we have is that it is likely to improve the bottom line of An Post by approximately 2%. That is welcome in the context of the discussion Deputy Moynihan and I just had about the future of the post office.

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