National Postcodes to be introduced

PK2008

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Thank you! I agree with this so much it hurts!
Just reading back over this thread will explain exactly why we have (and need) Eircodes and why less granular postcodes will work everywhere else in Europe.
In germany, the postcode usually refers to a town and surrounding areas or districts of a city. Say you are looking for:
Hans Beispiel
Grubenschnitzerstrasse 27
75394 Grubenschnitzen

The postcode will demark the Bundesland (first digit) and the rest the town. Once you are at the town, you will look for the (clearly marked) streetsign and the (clearly marked) housenumber and name on the letterbox. If there is several apaprtments, there will be names on all the letterboxes, numbers (clearly marked) and a (working) intercom.
In ireland you are looking for
Sean O'Something
Caher
Some Town
Co whatever
There is no streetname, no housenumber, no name on the houses and to top it all off, there are about 2-3 different Caher or Inch or any other generic name in the same address range.
My address can easily be confused with 2-3 other locations across my county and it has. Every week I have to send completely lost delivery people or services clear across the country.
Now, this is Ireland, so we like it that way. So if any suggestion is made to bring order to this chaos, the response is "Boo! None a' your business where I live! Sticking it to the man! I don't want people knowing my business! rabble rabble rabble!" followed by protests.
Oh yes, the Irish are such rebels and freemen! "Look at me, I'm standing up to authority!"
What does that get us?! And when the ham-heads outnumber clear-thinking, level-headed people? Then we will vote in some other ham-heads like Sinn Fein and Paul Murphy, because "rabble rabble! Authority! Sticking it to the man!". If that ever happens, the Greek people will look at Ireland and say "Oh dear Lord, at least we're not as bad as those poor bastards"
If people like chaos and disorder, well, they should move to Syria, Libya or some areas of Iraq.
The Irish attitude to an ordered society is incomprehensible to me. What are you trying to prove? You got rid of the Brits, so this whole scratching away at authority business, you're just doing it to yourself, you are costing YOURSELF money! Same with Irish water. Setting up a utility company in any country of the world is somewhere in page 35 of the local rag. Then people don't pay and scream hysterically that it was a failure. Yes, because of YOU!
You Irish certainly love to kick yourself in the shin. And then scream about it and wonder why nothing works right and who the hell keeps kicking you in the shin.
I do blame the Brits. Subverting authority, confusing the enemy, deliberately perverting rules and obeying orders in such a way as to make the whole thing pointless was a necessary survival strategy for 700 years, but that stuff is over! The Irish are only fighting themselves now. Even the Romans had one look at this country and decided "too cold, too dark, too savage".
I do have a love/hate relationship with Ireland, I like my place in the middle of nowhere, I wish I could just ignore what's going on, but the old saying is true "Not having an interest in politics doesn't mean politics might not suddenly develop an interest in you"
Now forgive my rant, yes it is personal, no I can't help being a German, yes I know I should fcuk off back home if I don't like it, but maybe, just maybe people here will realise that infighting and bickering is not always the best way.
In Germany we are used to having as many systems as we have kinds of Wurst, but that's the beauty of it. In Ireland it has to be "Only One Can Be Right!" and then fight who that is. In Germany it's whatever floats your boat.

edit:
Off topic rant alert. You may need a lot of salt for this, more than a pinch anyway. yes I know, I'm still getting used to this place.

Wow

Just........wow!

dr.fuzzenstein

moyners wrote: »

Only has 91 likes at the moment as far as I can see. Bit of a ways to go to match the IW backlash.

The problem with Loc8 was no awareness of their brand. Had they put a fraction of the energy into publicizing their brand, rather than fling sh*te at Eircode, we all would be using them by now.
It wasn't even Beta vs VHS, Loc8 wasn't even on the horizon as far as the public was concerned.
Iit was more like Video2000 vs VHS.

PK2008 wrote: »

Wow

Just........wow!

Any bit in particular or do you like all of it?

OU812

larchill wrote: »

See there is a Boycott eircode page up on Facebook now. Is eircode going the way of Irish Water?

moyners wrote: »

Only has 91 likes at the moment as far as I can see. Bit of a ways to go to match the IW backlash.

OU812 wrote: »

Is it that gob****e from Loc8 running it ?

Looks like it is the Loc8 Gob****e. Same style of writing & there's some posts by himself on there...

SpaceTime

larchill wrote: »

See there is a Boycott eircode page up on Facebook now. Is eircode going the way of Irish Water?

I don't think so. Most people seem rather a lot less passionate about it than posters here.

SpaceTime

SpaceTime wrote: »

I don't think so. Most people seem rather a lot less passionate about it than posters here.

I would say that the vast majority of people are indifferent about the new postcodes and will either use it or ignore it.

SpaceTime

They'll use it if it's useful or if companies start requiring it.

I can see it becoming more common if you've got to use it to deliver a pizza etc etc

PK2008

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Any bit in particular or do you like all of it?

Its just I find it amazing that postcodes can provoke such emotive responses - not just yours, also other people here seem really affected by it.

(Im not saying its a bad thing or anything, its just surprising to me)

Trouwe Ier

OU812 wrote: »

Looks like it is the Loc8 Gob****e. Same style of writing & there's some posts by himself on there...

Is this a campaign to the death so?

If only all that energy had been channeled more positively...!

(I seem to recall being told in primary school about a Japanese soldier who refused to accept that WW2 was over and patrolled his remote pacific island with his bayonet at the ready for decades after 1945: there are parallels here)

GJG

SpaceTime wrote: »

They'll use it if it's useful or if companies start requiring it.

I can see it becoming more common if you've got to use it to deliver a pizza etc etc

The army of Loc8 sock puppets supporters have been vocal in their claims that Eircode will be ignored or not adopted, along with claiming 400,000 people have downloaded a Loc8 code. I don’t dispute the last figure, but I know that I am several dozen of them, so I’m sceptical about exactly how much they are used after they are generated.

So then let’s see how it’s going.

Dublin city centre has the greatest concentration of businesses in the country and obviously people putting their Eircode on their website would be an early indication of acceptance. Obviously some business websites only get updated rarely, so this will take time to bed in.

Eircode is less than a month old, and Loc8 has been going for about seven years, so Loc8 have a clear advantage there, let’s see how well they have used it. The Loc8 code NP6 is roughly analogous to Dublin 1, though it contains a good chunk of Dublin 2, as well as elements of Dublin 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 15. The Loc8 code NP5 takes in the rest of Dublin 2, along with more chunks of Dublin 4,6, 6W, 8, and 14. But let’s be generous to Loc8 and only compare NP6 and NP5 with Eircodes D01 and D02.

• Search for the exact string “Dublin D01”
• Search for the exact string “Dublin D02”
• Search for the exact string “Dublin NP6”
• Search for the exact string “Dublin NP5”

The two Eircode results, between them, as of my searches, give 858 and 2,870 results. I know there will be some false positives in there, along with a load of missed references where people put in a comma or placed the Eircode in a slightly different position, but I'm applying the same criteria for Eircode and Loc8, so that doesn’t make much difference to the relative results.

For Loc8, the NP6 code, covering the whole of Dublin 1 and a chunk of city-centre Dublin 2, there are seven results. (Of those seven, four are the exact same Loc8 code.) The search for NP5, covering the rest of Dublin 2, plus a large swathe of Dublin 4,6, 6W, 8, and 14, the most densely-internetted place in the country, there is one result, which appears to be a coincidence, just junk text on an irrelevant page.

I’m sure there are false positives and repeats in the Eircode figure too, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, so the figure is a total of 3,728 for Eircode to eight for Loc8, a ratio of 466:1.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

thats just comparing postcodes (not eircodes) from nearly 100 years ago to lock eight codes...

GJG

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

thats just comparing postcodes (not eircodes) from nearly 100 years ago to lock eight codes...

Ah, no. For the hard of thinking, the zero was only introduced with Eircode.

Or you could just click through to the search and see that the Google preview shows that the overwhelming number of results contain a full Eircode.

dr.fuzzenstein

PK2008 wrote: »

Its just I find it amazing that postcodes can provoke such emotive responses - not just yours, also other people here seem really affected by it.

(Im not saying its a bad thing or anything, its just surprising to me)

It was a bit of an all-in-one rant...:o

moyners

Deleted User wrote: »

I would say that the vast majority of people are indifferent about the new postcodes and will either use it or ignore it.

From the "Boycott Eircode" facebook page description:

"This page has been set up to inform the Irish public about Eircode the private company that will gather personal information about your family."

Your family!! Won't someone please think of the children!!?

marmurr1916

larchill wrote: »

See there is a Boycott eircode page up on Facebook now. Is eircode going the way of Irish Water?

Yes. A series of letters and numbers which you don't have to use if you don't want to is bound to generate the same kind of passions as a new user charge for water. :P

Trouwe Ier

moyners wrote: »

From the "Boycott Eircode" facebook page description:

"This page has been set up to inform the Irish public about Eircode the private company that will gather personal information about your family."

Just how does this person propose to demonstrate that such information is being gathered?

Most lecturers and teachers generally introduce themselves for the first time by stating their qualifications.

It sort of reminds me of all that social media clap-trap about how householders could legally veto the installation of water meters on public footways outside their homes.

Sometimes, social media brings out the worst in some campaigners.

BarryD

moyners wrote: »

From the "Boycott Eircode" facebook page description:

"This page has been set up to inform the Irish public about Eircode the private company that will gather personal information about your family."

I've always thought that the main driver behind this Eircode scheme is to assist with making up a database of habitable houses or business properties within the country. Ireland has been very lacking since Griffiths Valuation of the 1850s in terms of knowing who lives where. This all came to a head with the need to introduce a property tax and to a lesser extent with water & sewage supplies. Presumably having an identifier for each postal address in the state will be useful for cross referencing to these other databases.

But whether Paul Murphy and his ilk have caught onto this properly and/or whether they can do anything about it, is another matter. You can refuse to use Eircodes but I can't see how you can refuse to have an Eircode applied to your house.

OU812

BarryD wrote: »

I've always thought that the main driver behind this Eircode scheme is to assist with making up a database of habitable houses or business properties within the country. Ireland has been very lacking since Griffiths Valuation of the 1850s in terms of knowing who lives where. This all came to a head with the need to introduce a property tax and to a lesser extent with water & sewage supplies. Presumably having an identifier for each postal address in the state will be useful for cross referencing to these other databases.

But whether Paul Murphy and his ilk have caught onto this properly and/or whether they can do anything about it, is another matter. You can refuse to use Eircodes but I can't see how you can refuse to have an Eircode applied to your house.

It's that and more. The eircode will be applied across every database the government own, Water, property tax, tv licence, social welfare, education etc.

All cross referenced in order to decrease fraud & increase income.

€25m is a bargain for what it's going to save & make them the next two years.

brandodub

OU812 wrote: »

It's that and more. The eircode will be applied across every database the government own, Water, property tax, tv licence, social welfare, education etc.

All cross referenced in order to decrease fraud & increase income.

€25m is a bargain for what it's going to save & make them the next two years.

Also it's a postcode 😣 Is it still 1959 here?

Bayberry

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/privacy-issues-persist-with-eircode-postcode-system-1.2305897

Irish Times wrote:

Privacy issues persist with Eircode postcode system
Data Protection Commissioner confirms there are outstanding concerns over scheme

A number of data protection issues are still outstanding in relation to the new postcode system Eircode, the Data Protection Commissioner confirmed.

The system, officially launched last month, cost €27 million to introduce but will not be compulsory.

Eircode has issued letters to every house in the country with a unique postcode for the address.

Each code consists of seven digits with the first three referencing an area and the other four digits corresponding to a particular address.

A privacy impact assessment prepared for Minister for Communications Alex White ahead of the launch of Eircode “strongly” advised him to adopt the “precautionary approach” that there was a case for handling Eircodes in accordance with data protection legislation.

Mr White brought forward an amending piece of legislation to specifically protect the Eircode as a piece of personal information, but communications to individual householders do not emphasise this aspect of the code.

Experts consulted for the privacy assessment, which was published on the department’s website, said it was possible that information about unique addresses would be disclosed to organisations that had not previously had routine access to a person’s address information.

“Some of this information may be considered sensitive personal data,” the study said.


“Some of this information may be considered sensitive personal data,” the study said.

Assessing the risk to individuals from Eircodes, the report said it had found it “hard to unearth evidence that data controllers (organisations) would be tempted to process Eircodes unfairly”.

It said the potential impact of a body having an “uncertain legal basis” for processing someone’s Eircode was a problem at the “irritant level” for individuals.

But in the event of any inconvenience relating to a person’s sensitive data, they “may be angry rather than irritated”.

“Regulatory action would be likely, and there is a risk of negative media coverage.”

Marketing profiles
The June 2015 privacy assessment also said it was “unlikely that citizens currently fully appreciate the extent to which their personal information is used by organisations that create marketing profiles”.

The privacy assessment noted the Department of Communications had been involved in exchanges with the commissioner on Eircodes since 2006.

Most of the rest of the article is background stuff about eircode and some of the issues that have cropped up since the launch.

SpaceTime

brandodub wrote: »

Also it's a postcode 😣 Is it still 1959 here?

On certain issues, Ireland always seems to have one foot in the present and one foot firmly in 1959.

clewbays

Bayberry wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/privacy-issues-persist-with-eircode-postcode-system-1.2305897


Most of the rest of the article is background stuff about eircode and some of the issues that have cropped up since the launch.

The reporter missed the driving concern at the other end of the complete lack of privacy that 35% of householders with non-unique addresses had before Eircode.

This is interesting from the article as it implies that amendments have been made to the An Post locally held information so previous posters trying to get an anglicised version of their name etc. removed now know how to get this done:

In a statement, the Data Protection Commissioner said “a very small number of individuals” had contacted it regarding their name appearing on the Eircode where they were or had been a sole trader.

“This office raised the issue with Eircode who undertook to remove the names.” It understood this process had now been completed.

I think people have seen the usefulness of Eircode when they use the map on Eircode Finder. It was very poor preparation not to have had Google Maps signed up at the launch.

The DPC is obviously keeping a close eye on this as it is rolled out.

SpaceTime

The biggest "privacy risk" is that people won't be able to give multiple versions of their address to hide in databases.

There's often a case of people applying for certain services multiple times with versions or translations of their address.

Yeah, it gives you privacy but it also increases risk of fraud to a level that most other countries don't have.

It sounds harmless until you have someone running up bad debts that ultimately end up being paid for by everyone else.

BarryD

OU812 wrote: »

It's that and more. The eircode will be applied across every database the government own, Water, property tax, tv licence, social welfare, education etc.

All cross referenced in order to decrease fraud & increase income.

€25m is a bargain for what it's going to save & make them the next two years.

Sure, it's akin to a PPS number for property in that sense.

Can we envisage a future where citizens will decline to supply their Eircodes for 'privacy' reasons? as in the PPS revolt.

OU812

brandodub wrote: »

Also it's a postcode 😣 Is it still 1959 here?

I agree with you, it is a postcode, not making it mandatory however was a HUGE error.

I use it on communication for both work & personal. It's efficient & should work perfectly. It should also be mandatory & there should be a second wave of codes released to cover everything else such as beaches, tourist attractions, car parks etc.

OU812

BarryD wrote: »

Sure, it's akin to a PPS number for property in that sense.

Exactly. A unique identifier. Not a bad thing.

GJG

OU812 wrote: »

Exactly. A unique identifier. Not a bad thing.

Of course it is.

Any one who disagrees should explain what the negative consequences are, and how they intend to remedy them, for the 60 per cent of addresses (and 100 per cent of addresses any other developed country) that were already uniquely identifiable without Eircode.

Sam Russell

OU812 wrote: »

I agree with you, it is a postcode, not making it mandatory however was a HUGE error.

The HUGE error was not tackling the non-unique address problem. It is all very well giving every house in the country a unique identifier but then allowing them all to keep it secret. How does anyone know they have arrived at the uniquely identified house or apartment?

What was the point?

MBSnr

Sam Russell wrote: »

The HUGE error was not tackling the non-unique address problem. It is all very well giving every house in the country a unique identifier but then allowing them all to keep it secret. How does anyone know they have arrived at the uniquely identified house or apartment?

What was the point?

Sam what is your point? This has been explained to you before...
Apartments are numbered. You will know by looking at the rest of the address. It's very unlikely you'd just have the Eircode. It's very unlikely the apartment has no number. So the issue is...?

Uniquely identified house - well you got to it 'somehow' right? I don't follow your logic. If you just arrived just by guessing from the address (without Eircode - assuming it is a rural property) then it's probably the wrong house. If it is a numbered house in a town then see apartment above.. If you had the Eircode you'd use it right...? Leads you to the front door right? Then it's the right house. If in the very, very, very small chance the house has two front doors and you can't tell them apart - you could knock on the door....

Aimead

ukoda wrote: »

Do you not see ericode is here now and it won't be going anywhere

Do you not see this whole argument is pointless

Do you not see that eircode will be of huge benefit to a vast array of businesses and the general public

Do you not see that if you don't like eircode, you don't have to use it.

You do realise that the above in no way addresses the myriad of problems that has been highlighted in this thread regarding Eircode don’t you? You do realise that I do enjoy the right to point how our industry has been pretty shafted by how utterly lacking in functionality Eircode turned out? You do realise that, even though Eircode will give some benefits, such is no response to the whole slew of problems and lack of functionality it suffers from?

And the punchline – if the above really is the only line of argumentation you can fall back on, isn’t a vindication of all the issues that have been raised in this thread?

ukoda wrote: »

It cost 2 million to design loc8, same as eircode.

Source? That, if true, is fecking bananas. Loc8 is just an algorithm that converts to and from GPS (or GPS equivalent). I’m totally missing where the cost factor in designing it was, unless the money was also used for rollout, the website, etc., in which case there isn’t an apples to apples comparison.

ukoda wrote: »

But now it's open source, hmmm so who pays for the on going maintenance costs? Cos there will be costs.

Didn’t we already touch on the UK example of where the postcode is free but they offer a value-add service?

---

FishOnABike wrote: »

The incremental cost of an additional 8 characher field to the existing geodirectory would be small ( in or around 20MB extra data by some calculations).

I definitely don’t think adding the extra field would be trivial, but given that it seems that the vast majority of actual work involved in building Eircode was porting the geodirectory it does seem odd that they choose not to extend the geodirectory.

It depends what format the geodirectory is stored in, but let’s make some simplifying assumptions and suppose it is a somewhat regular SQL/Access/whatever database. Adding an extra field to the database shouldn’t break any APIs (unless it is a very non-standard setup). So create a new field and run an algorithm to generate the pseudorandom code (filter out similarity for close locations, filter out similar codes with the same building/street/whatever name in the address, etc.). This isn’t trivial, but if the database is a reasonably sensible setup then this shouldn’t be that big of a task. The only reason I can’t see this being doable is if the setup is very non-standard, but even in that case porting to a sensible setup and adding the field seems to be much easier proposition than generating Eircode as a completely separate entity.

The more I think about it the less sense it makes. Afaik the geodirectory has about 2.4 million entries – that really shouldn’t present much of a problem for most (if not any) of the databae solutions out there.

What am I missing here?

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Bayberry wrote: »

I find that an absolutely staggering statement.

Seconded. This is only anecdotal, but I have yet to meet any person working in the logistics industry who didn’t have a similar stack of issues with Eircode to what I have. I would have expected to have come across at least one person who defended it, but I suppose it shouldn’t be that surprising given that these people actually have experience with navigation and deliveries and hence recognise Eircode’s issues.

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Deleted User wrote: »

Even in Ireland I find that I have seen the inside of a Garda station far more often that I would have ever seen the inside of a police station in the UK due to the requirements for "Garda clearance" for routine duties.

This cracks me up. If we get a new trailer in from abroad we have to get the Garda to stamp the form saying we work in transport. Even though all the vehicles we have are taxed as being transport vehicles, we have the licenses we need to operate transport vehicles, we have the revenue forms to say we do transport, we have the Department of Agriculture forms to say we do transportation, we have RSA forms and Department of the Environment forms saying we do transport, etc. etc. etc. But no, to register a new trailer we have to pop into the local cop shop where some young fella or young lass who knows **** all about us will stamp a form they won’t even read.

Insane.

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PK2008 wrote: »

Its just I find it amazing that postcodes can provoke such emotive responses - not just yours, also other people here seem really affected by it.

(Im not saying its a bad thing or anything, its just surprising to me)

Personally, Eircode will probably make my life less easy. Had it gone geocode we’d certainly have benefitted. As it stands it looks like either we’re having to fork out for the database (or pirate it), and then I’ll have to set up some sort of way to do lookups that can feed into excel or other software we’re using. I’d say about half of our delivery locations won’t have an Eircode anyway, but doing the conversion to a format we can use for customers that do use it will be a bit of a pain.

We could have easily worked with any geocode (in fact we already do), but the way Eircode has been designed means we’ll have to do an extra step converting it we didn’t have to do previously. At present we can do a lot of our work without needing recourse to a computer, which is handy for of the more remote loading locations we operate from – that won’t be possible with Eircode.

The biggest reason why I’m worked up is that the essence of the arguments I’ve made here where already made (and seemingly accepted) during the consultation process. Then, for no reason whatsoever, all of that was thrown out and we got Eircode. Feel shafted to be honest, and to see it all happen on a wave of grand claims and bullshoite just makes it worse.

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clewbays wrote: »

It was very poor preparation not to have had Google Maps signed up at the launch.

As I mentioned earlier, had Eircode been geocode based Google Maps would have had it operational by now.

dr.fuzzenstein

Sam Russell wrote: »

The HUGE error was not tackling the non-unique address problem. It is all very well giving every house in the country a unique identifier but then allowing them all to keep it secret. How does anyone know they have arrived at the uniquely identified house or apartment?

What was the point?

Yes, reading the above I still don't know.
You want find somewhere, you get Eircode, put in website, get location. Easy peasy, squeeze the lemon easy.
The bit in bold, well, that's the same as giving everyone a phonenumber, but they also get to keep it secret if they wish. No-one forces you to give out your phonenumber or email, you just won't get any calls or emails.
Would you then go shouting at the phonecompany or ISP that you're not getting any phonecalls or emails? Actually, this is Ireland, of course people would...
So as with Irish water where people refuse to pay their bills and scream what a failure it's been because they're not making any money and it's all the politician's fault, some people will refuse to use Eircodes and scream and shout that it's not working and it's all the politician's fault, etc...
Right now it's fashionable to jump up and down about FG and how rubbish they are and how everything is sh*te because of them.
I don't get the Irish people's relationship with them. You vote in FF, they fcuk everything up (to the deafening roar of cheering from the Irish), then you vote in FG, they have to clear up the HUGE pile of sh*t FF left, whilst getting abuse shouted at them by the population, FF comes back, defecates all over the country and the game continues.
Had FF brought this in in the early 2000's, we would still wax lyrical about what a great initiative it was and how marvelous and what a stroke of genius, sure they got their flaws, but they got at least this right...

Let's look at Eircode's list of problems. Well, it's not sequential and with that not intuitive and, erm, let's see, hhhmmhh, no, that's about it. And that was brought in because what happens to a perfectly sequential code when houses get knocked down or get built? Well, it won't stay sequential for long...
So Eircodes main problems are Loc8 sour grapes, general anti-government feelings and people needing any excuse to "rabble rabble rabble!", lefty loonies spotting security fears and exploiting them for their own soapboxing and the usual Irish opposition tactic of "throw sh*te till it sticks".