Madam, – I read with dismay that our Government is about to seek an unnecessary tender to have very necessary postal codes given to all of us (Home News, February 1st). Why spend money on a tender when the sorting offices of An Post, to say nothing of the postmen and women, could supply fully numeric postal codes with their eyes shut?
The Government appears to have learnt nothing from recent financial debacles in wasting money where it does not have to be spent all, in spinning the wheels of unnecessary processes, and in ignoring what people of talent can offer for nothing as part of their life’s work and experience, as their contribution to a modern Ireland.
The Government apparently has indicated that we are to have the imperfect alphanumeric postal code system as in Britain and a few other countries, ignoring the hugely better fully numeric system, almost universally accepted, which allows post boxes to be appended to the number.
The imperfect alphanumeric system is based on the first three letters of the town or village followed (in some jurisdictions) with a further 46,656 alphanumeric possibilities. Hello there! Has the Government forgotten the sheer number of towns and villages in this country beginning with BAL- and KIL-? It beggars belief that governments have to make simple things difficult in an attempt to justify their temporary positions of power.
A further advantage of a fully numeric system is that it allows a final or first series of the postal codes to be reserved for special purposes, something which the alphanumeric system cannot do. – Yours, etc,