Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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250. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the status of the introduction of Eircode to rural Ireland; the action being taken to encourage it to be used by households; the number of households that have been provided with an Eircode in counties Cavan and Monaghan, in tabular form; if there are strategies in place to implement the usage of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6150/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Capita Business Support Services Ireland, trading as Eircode, was awarded a 10 year contract in December 2013 to develop, implement and maintain the National Postcode System "Eircode".

At launch 2.2m Eircode notification letters were issues to addresses across the State. Since then in excess of 24,000 new addresses have been assigned Eircodes, of which c.26% have been non-unique rural addresses. All new addresses with their Eircodes are made publically available on the free to use Eircode Finder website, which remains very popular with the public, with just under 10m searches since the finder went live at launch. In addition, Capita provides regular updates to Google who have now integrated Eircodes within Google Maps.

Capita ran a number of national advertising campaigns on television, radio and online to raise public awareness of using Eircodes for deliveries and during emergency situations. For example Eircodes helps the National Ambulance Service (NAS) provide speedier access to care and they are  also being used by a number of other public and private sector bodies to help locate addresses.

My Department referred the issue raised in the question to Capita who have stated that 32,846 Eircodes have been issued for County Cavan and 24,644 issued for County Monaghan since Eircode was launched in July 2015. Capita will continue to promote the use of Eircodes through the delivery of coherent marketing campaign, taking into account the different needs of rural Ireland.

Residents who have queries relating to Eircodes can contact Eircode by phone on 0818 300 005, email hello@eircode.ie or by post to Capita Business Support Services Ireland Ltd, Block C, Maynooth Business Campus, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, W23 F854.