Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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171. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will provide an update on the proposed postal codes; and what this will mean for rural Ireland. [15932/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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Capita Business Support Services Ireland were awarded a 10 year contract in December 2013 to develop and implement the National Postcode System. The design for the System was approved by Government in April, 2014 and the ‘Eircode’ brand was also launched at that stage. The project is currently in the implementation phase and due to go live this summer. The Eircode website, , was launched in April 2014. This website has information on Eircodes for both residents and businesses. The Eircode team has briefed businesses through a series of seminars and are continuing to work with them to prepare for Eircodes. In order to support dissemination of Eircodes, the databases of key public sector bodies are being encoded with eircodes.

A national information campaign will commence shortly to inform the public about Eircodes and promote their usage. The campaign will include a community outreach programme to provide information and assistance to the vulnerable and hard to reach groups within the community.

The dissemination phase will commence in the next few months with the delivery by post of a unique postcode to every address in Ireland.

The introduction of Eircodes will help to solve two significant problems associated with addressing in Ireland. The first is that the address for any given premises can have a number of different forms. The second and more significant problem is that over 35% of the addresses in Ireland are non-unique. This is where a property has the same address as at least one other property in the area. Applying a unique eircode to every address will be of particular benefit to the residents of rural Ireland as the majority of non-unique addresses are found in rural communities. It will make addresses easier to locate and make it easier and more efficient for rural dwellers to receive deliveries and obtain other services including access to the emergency services whenever required.