Postcodes

@cgcsb wrote:

Has anyone noticed that 19,21 and 23 are missing from the Dublin postcodes? Also Some parts of Fingal, and South Dublin are county Dublin while other parts have a number. Other parts of the country have nothing which makes SAT NAV systems awkward paticularly in newly developed areas.

A Post Code System which works all over Ireland and which solves the Dublin Postal Area problem is now available – see http://www.irishpostcodes.ie where you can get a PON Code for any location. These PON Codes have been adopted on Garmin Nuvi 700 series SatNavs for testing – have a look here: http://www.irishpostcodes.ie/useponconsatnav.php

No doubt your aware the minister is considering what way to proceed with a national post code system, and has some sort of report in front of him – i’ve heard before that An Post already has a system that has assigned a unique identifier to every single building in the state, if so, surely an extension of their seemingly very specific system would be the way to go ?

Peter,

review by a second set of consultants (2008) into the recommendations of the first set of consultants (2005), received by the Eamon Ryan – Minsiter for Communications – recently seems now to be recommending adoption of a Post Code System which will allow a unique post code for most properties – i.e the type of system proposed by GPS Ireland in PON Codes.
See here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/…629653090.html

This is different to the original Government Post Code Proposal which seemed to suggest an area based system like “D04 123” or “GAL 123” which represented an area of about 20 houses in Dublin 4 and up to 5 or 6 square kilometers in country areas and would not have been of any value for vehicle based services including Emergency Services and SatNav users.

Right now, PON Codes which are available at http://www.irishpostcodes.ie are the only system publicly available, proven and working which can satisfy the recommendations of the latest consultants. The only satisfactory way to give unique Post Codes to each property is to use Coordinates – i.e. grid references presented in a user friendly and memorable format like PON Codes

An Post uses a database system called the GeoDirectory, the coding in which is unsuitable for use as a Post Code as it is sequential not geographic and has too many characters see comments of Noel Dempsey here: http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0605/D.0605.200506290172.html
Also the Geodirectory contains locations of centroids of properties which is not always the most useful if you are trying to gain access from a public road.

PON Codes were developed by a company which is invloved in the GPS mapping and surveying industry – see here: http://www.gpsireland.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=79&limit=1&limitstart=1

Hope this gives you sufficient background to answer your question.

The latest update on Post Codes for Ireland is here:
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2897

So there you go – as I projected – a National Post Code system was supposed to be introduced by Jan 2008. I have spent the last few hours searching through the budget estimates for 2009 as announced today and there is no apparant allocation for a National Post Code system in 2009 either. In fact, the Dept Of Comms budget in 2009 will be down by 13% – so definitely no obvious provision for the capital cost of a National System or for the compensatory costs suggested for An Post.
Outline capital estimates for 2010, also published today, show no obvious allocations either. In fact, as far as I can see, the last official (Government or Departmental) mention of a National Post Code system was in the Green Party statement on the programme for Government last December (2007). Looks like proposals for a National Post Code system have been well and truly shelved for now!

Just as well PON codes are in place – they do not require millions of capital expenditure to establish and they are ready to use….. http://www.irishpostcodes.ie and – at no cost to the state!

@cgcsb wrote:

Has anyone noticed that 19,21 and 23 are missing from the Dublin postcodes?

The reason for this is that all the even numbered postcodes are on the south and all the odd numbered postcodes are on the north. Sonce the south side of the city is more populous, it requires more postal areas. Since it would confuse things to have odd numbered postcodes on the south, numbers 19, 21, and 23 were skipped.