Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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113. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if his Department has studied the impact of likely competitive pressures on An Post, arising from the Postal Services Amendment Bill 2015, from the point of view of jobs and conditions of work. [23130/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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The purpose of the Communications Regulation (Postal Services) Amendment Bill 2015 is to put in place a statutory data protection framework for postcodes to ensure that the public interest is satisfied in the undertaking of legitimate postcode activities. The exercise of these activities is fundamental to the establishment and implementation of postcodes and includes the development, implementation and maintenance of the system, the association of a postcode with a postal address, and the dissemination of the postcodes.

The Bill will enhance the protections already available under the Data Protection Acts and protect the privacy of owners and occupiers of property in respect of which a postcode has been allocated by placing obligations on the Postcode Contractor and the Value Added Resellers in relation to the processing of data as part of the postcodes project.

As the Bill is technical in nature and is focused on the data protection aspects of the project, it will have no impact on jobs or conditions of work in An Post.

An Post have been actively engaged in the design phase of the postcodes and the postcodes will be fully integrated with An Post mails sortation systems. An Post will be heavily involved in the dissemination of the Postcode to 2.2 million residential and business addresses when the postcode project is launched this Summer.