Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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84. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment further to Parliamentary Question No. 165 of 26 November 2020, if his attention has been drawn to the fact that it is estimated that approximately 30,000 new and corrected Eircodes are currently missing from a service (details supplied) and that some members of the public have been reporting that due to the fact that their code is missing they have not been able to avail of some commercial services; if he will invoke his specific oversight authority under the Communications Regulation (Postal Services Act) 2011 to consider specific non-postal services related uses of the national postcode in order to address this anomaly; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45074/20]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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86. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment further to Parliamentary Question No. 165 of 26 November 2020, his plans to instruct his Department to immediately proceed with the well-resourced national campaign to raise awareness regarding privacy dangers associated with the use of Eircode as recommended in the Privacy Impact Assessment for Eircode that was carried out by a company (details supplied) in 2015 under contract to his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45103/20]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 84 and 86 together.

Capita Business Support Services Ireland, trading as Eircode, was awarded a 10 year contract in December 2013 to develop, implement, maintain and promote the National Postcode System "Eircode".

The Eircode Finder, is a free to use website that members of the public and businesses use to find Eircodes for addresses and to get directions to address locations using the Eircode website like a SatNav. Since the launch in July 2015, Eircode usage, as part of an address, continues to grow and is used widely among the public, businesses and public sector. This, in part, can be seen by use statistics of the free Eircode Finder website with almost 80 million lookups since launch in 2015 and an average daily lookup rate in November 2020 of 103,933.

Eircodes are assigned to new property addresses using a valid postal address and verified geo-locations. An Post collects information on new and existing buildings, as well as changes to existing addresses and Ordnance Survey Ireland provides the geo-locations for these buildings.  An Post GeoDirectory, a subsidiary company of An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland, issue a new release of the GeoDirectory database file on a quarterly basis to Eircode in accordance with their licence agreement.

Each new postal address assigned an Eircode is published on the Eircode Finder website, a notification letter is issued to the property occupant containing the Eircode of that address and an updated Eircode Database is provided to licenced businesses for their use. Eircode have informed my Department that over 128,700 property addresses have been assigned an Eircode since the launch in 2015.

Capita have informed my Department that once the Eircode database is updated they provide updates to commercial operations each quarter in line with the terms of their licence agreements. The timely release of each quarterly update is consistent across all licenced businesses, including the application referred to by the Deputy. Businesses using eircodes are obliged to abide by the terms of their licences and  to comply with any general legal obligations such as data protection.