A chara, – Timmy Dooley complains that "There is no point spending nearly €40 million in designing and advertising a scheme such as Eircode and then not using it properly", because postal workers don't use Eircodes to figure out which house to deliver a letter to ("An Post confirms staff do not use Eircode system for local deliveries", June 1st).
Postmen don’t use Eircodes to deliver letters for the same reason that Timmy Dooley doesn’t write down his constituents Eircodes when he is canvassing door to door. Eircodes weren’t designed for people to use.
Eircodes were designed in such a way that they can only be effectively used with the aid of a computerised device, and more to the point, effective use requires a license with a hefty fee; 15 “free” look-ups a day might be enough for you and me, but you can’t run a business that way, so if you need to look up more than 15 Eircodes per day, you have to pay.
The famous €40 million wasn’t spent on “designing and advertising” this scheme, most of it was spent on upgrading various government databases to use Eircode so that Eircode would have the “critical mass” necessary to be commercially viable – although not commercially viable enough to generate €40 million in return. – Is mise,
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AENGUS LAWLOR,
East Norriton,
Pennsylvania.