Logistics sector concerns threaten Irish post code implementation
Ireland’s parcel and freight industry association is preparing to make a complaint to the country’s State Ombudsman over the government’s handling of the proposed national post code. The “Eircode” is expected to be implemented as the Republic’s official post code next year, in a move that has taken years to get this far.
But while having a post code is seen as a fundamentally positive thing for the nation’s economy — helping emergency services as well as business and the logistics sector — the Freight Trade Association Ireland is objecting to the design of the post code itself.
The trade body brought up its concerns in front of a committee of the Oireachtas — the Irish parliament — last month, objecting to the fact that under the system being implemented by government contractor Capita, post codes for each property will be unique but not sequential.
This means that within a postal district of tens of thousands of properties, it will be difficult to tell if certain properties are close to each other without paying for access to the government database.
Neil McDonnell, the general manager of FTA Ireland, told Post&Parcel today that the issue was not only a matter for large parcel carriers who have route mapping software unsuitable for the Irish post code system.
“For anyone other than the Postal Service, which has to deal with 100% of addresses, they will have to integrate at every level with the state-controlled database,” he said.
“With Royal Mail in the UK the access to the database is free down to the street level, but here 100% of every inquiry will have to go through a paywall. This is not a commercial solution, people have to be realistic, this does not have to be a database system.”
The FTA Ireland, which supports the introduction of a post code in principle, represents companies including the likes of FedEx and UPS, is calling for the government to review the post code system.
McDonnell said that a tender had been released last year by the government for a company to review the post code system, but he said since then there had been a “lack of clarity” over the contract, with suggestions that the contract was awarded to a company that was linked with the consortium running the post code itself.
He said a planned complaint over the post code referred to the transparency in the contract to process for reviewing the system.
“We had been hoping to hear from the Department by the close of play today, but we have not heard anything yet, so we are preparing our submission to the Ombudsman,” he said.
It appears that the Oireachtas joint committee may have to wait on another view from ministers regarding the FTA Ireland’s complaint to the Ombudsman before releasing its view on the Eircode. Ireland’s Ombudsman examines “complaints from people who feel they have been unfairly treated by certain public bodies”.
Uniqueness
Capita, the company leading the implementation of the post code in Ireland, told the Oireachtas transport committee last month that the FTA Ireland “predominantly represents British-based carriers” who had expected the Irish post code to be “similar to the system in place in the United Kingdom”.
Liam Duggan, the business development director at Capita Business Support Services, told the committee that the uniqueness of Ireland compared to the UK and other countries meant that a UK-style post code “simply wouldn’t work”.
Officials at the government department said that the non-sequential post codes had been chosen because it would allow development of new post codes in between existing properties.
Patricia Cronin, principal of the Department for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources post code division, said a sequential post code system “will not last very long” because new houses being built in between existing houses would disrupt the sequence.
“We have adopted a non-sequential system to make sure that when a person gets a code, that code stays with that property. When a person gets a code on a property, he or she will always have that code. That means the system we have adopted is very future-proofed,” she said.
National postal operator An Post spoke in front of the committee last month, stating its support for the system. Operations director Liam O’Sullivan told the politicians that it works for his company’s systems “and we intend to fully utilise it”.
“An Post has a detailed implementation plan for integrating the new codes into our mail operation, manual and automated. Execution of that plan is well advanced at this stage. Our target is to be ready by May 2015 in order that all our people and manual systems are ready to start to receive mail into our systems with the eircode carried on it and we are currently on track to meet that deadline.”
Other parcel carriers outside of the FTA Ireland have been supportive of the current form of the post code, with major independent carrier Nightline addressing the Oireachtas transport committee this week to state its support for next year’s implementation.
During an appearance before the Joint Committee, Nightline Group CEO, John Tuohy, outlined his recommendation for the existing design.
“We think that it is sound and entirely workable,” he said. “What needs to happen now is a process to build awareness of the system amongst the public and engagement with business to deal with any issues or concerns that they have have around Eircode’s implementation.”
