National Postcodes to be introduced

aimhigh

More Postcode CUL-DE SACS I'm afraid folks;- you are just going around in circles - the real facts of the case have already been stated in an earlier post:

aimhigh wrote: »

I am not a poster here normally but there are so many misconceptions and so much misinformation on this thread, I felt I had to add some fact and realism:-

There is no tender to design a postcode in progress and there never was. The postcode will be the ABC 123 post town model. The tender is to decide who will implement it and become the 10 year Postcode Management License Holder. Further refinement of the ABC 123 model to a location based model (added by Eamon Ryan as a result of opposition pressure and the postcode report) is suggested as an optional capability for the future but not a requirement. Firstly, the post town model cannot be made into a location code in any form;- by adding characters at some time in the future a unique identifier can be added to an address so when looked up in a database (Geodirectory) coordinates can be read - this does not make the post town model into a location code; a similar unique identifier of little pratical use exists already in the Geodirectory. Furthermore, this is only an option and the data protection commissioner has stated that if this was in the public domain it would undermine individaul data protection rights - so even if it does exist in the future it will not be in the public domain just for license to Gov Agencies (Phil Hogan perhaps) and Direct Marketing Companies.

An Post is one of the 3 preferred suppliers selected in April 2011 in the first part of the tender process and it, plus one of the other 2 selected suppliers was on the National Postcode Project Board who recommended the ABC 123 model. So if a postcode happens in the future (now nearly 5 years passed initial deadline of Jan 2008;- this thread starting in 2009 heralds the announcement of the second deadline of 2011 which never happened either) it will not identify individual properties in the public domain.

There will be no further tender for a postcode - 3 potential suppliers (including An Post) have been selected and the plan is that when the ABC 123 postcode is implemented one of those 3 will do it and manage it for the first 10 years. Design of postcode and Selection of preferred suppliers is all done and dusted! Only last thing to decide is if it will go ahead at all and perhaps the finances and the political will are not there at this time.

So that there is no doubt and no more misinformed speculation here, this is directly from the Dept of Communications website - note there is no update since Sept 2011 as the process seems to have stalled:

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Postal/Postcodes.htm

So, just in case it is still not clear......
There is a tender still open to implement a 6 character post-town postcode based on An Post postal sorting towns and unless that tender is terminated, that's what will happen;- nay that's what has to happen under the rules for tenders!
So nothing has changed since my last post;- there will be no Luidin Mac Lu 5 character (plus a bit) code, no Accenture management consultants' code and no anything else that comes to the wonderful minds of boards.ie readers;- just BAL 123 as recommended by the National Postcode Project Board in 2006 and as specifically quoted in the tender specification issued in January 2011...

Sin a Bhfuil

Deedsie

Is there actually a genuine possibility that this will be abandoned? Is it to strong to say that that is a national scandal if it is allowed to happen? How much has been spent on this already?

irishgeo

Deedsie wrote: »

Is there actually a genuine possibility that this will be abandoned? Is it to strong to say that that is a national scandal if it is allowed to happen? How much has been spent on this already?

PPARS was abandoned as was evoting so it might happen since an post have stated before they dont need a post code system.

Deedsie

irishgeo wrote: »

PPARS was abandoned as was evoting so it might happen since an post have stated before they dont need a post code system.

Was it not to get in line with the rest of the EU one of the original driving factors behind this? I might be wrong in saying that, but i had it in my head.

antoinolachtnai

It could get abandoned easily enough. The tender process is now into its third year which is close to unprecedented and it is hard not to see that as a sign of trouble. Since the tender began, CSO have rolled out the small area system. It's not hard to imagine government deciding to drop a plan to spend millions on something that it can have basically for free.

aimhigh

irishgeo wrote: »

PPARS was abandoned as was evoting so it might happen since an post have stated before they dont need a post code system.

that's true and An Post have since earned a High court Judgement in their favour to support their use of Postal Addresses (Post-Town based adresses) instead.

However, 2 years have gone by and no cancellation has happened and none of the Ministerial replies in the Dáil posted here suggest that a cancellation is planned. Also, the consultants employed to run the tender are still being paid.
Of course, if there were to be a cancellation at some point in the future, presumably there would have to be compensation to the preferred suppliers who have been committed to it now for over 2 years.

aimhigh

Deedsie wrote: »

Was it not to get in line with the rest of the EU one of the original driving factors behind this? I might be wrong in saying that, but i had it in my head.

no the purpose was to indroduce a level palying field for delivering mail as a result of postal liberalisation which has long since happened.

antoinolachtnai

Preferred suppliers? I think these are preferred tenderers, no?

aimhigh

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It could get abandoned easily enough. The tender process is now into its third year which is close to unprecedented and it is hard not to see that as a sign of trouble. Since the tender began, CSO have rolled out the small area system. It's not hard to imagine government deciding to drop a plan to spend millions on something that it can have basically for free.

Small areas define equitable polygons for meaningful statistical comparisons but their naming/coding system is not suitable for public postcode use.

antoinolachtnai

aimhigh wrote: »

Small areas define equitable polygons for meaningful statistical comparisons but their naming/coding system is not suitable for public postcode use.

So why not renumber them?

Kristopherus

irishgeo wrote: »

PPARS was abandoned as was evoting so it might happen since an post have stated before they dont need a post code system.

Most of the content of PPARS have already implemented over the past 3 years.

aimhigh

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

So why not renumber them?

Now you start the circles again - let me bring you back to the facts
No more CUL-DE-SACS. There is a tender process open and ongoing to implement BAL 123.....

antoinolachtnai

Is there a technical reason not to renumber them?

Or just a (specious) bureaucratic one?

L1011

irishgeo wrote: »

PPARS was abandoned as was evoting so it might happen since an post have stated before they dont need a post code system.

PPARS was not abandoned. Its still in use and likely will be for half an eternity as they saw how much developing it cost to begin with.

http://www.medicalindependent.ie/8322/news

It was claimed to be "abandoned" around the time of the 2007 election, but that was just FF trying to buy a few more votes.

amtc

aimhigh wrote: »

that's true and An Post have since earned a High court Judgement in their favour to support their use of Postal Addresses (Post-Town based adresses) instead.

However, 2 years have gone by and no cancellation has happened and none of the Ministerial replies in the Dáil posted here suggest that a cancellation is planned. Also, the consultants employed to run the tender are still being paid.
Of course, if there were to be a cancellation at some point in the future, presumably there would have to be compensation to the preferred suppliers who have been committed to it now for over 2 years.

This has been appealed to the Supreme Court

aimhigh

amtc wrote: »

This has been appealed to the Supreme Court

Amazing;- we have to get the highest court in the land to make our postal service use addresses that actually show where a property is! Something that many would say is essential for public safety.

Solair

I think at this stage we could call the rollout of post codes a total fiasco so far.

It's very much illustrative of why Ireland's in the embarrassing position of having the IMF and EU in remotely managing our finances !

We need to urgently move away from these kind of hugely expensive governmental cock-ups which result in vast amounts of money being spent on legal challenges in the courts.

There shouldn't be any need for the courts to be involved with what is pretty much simple, public policy that ought to be set by the government via legislation. It shouldn't be a case of judges deciding stuff that may not be in the public interest, as all they can do is check that something's in technical compliance with the law.

Why couldn't the minister have brought forward legislation requiring the use of postal codes when they are introduced.

Comreg should have been empowered to come up with the system and roll it out. I don't see why Comreg's being overridden in this situation.
It runs plenty of other codified systems i.e. telephone numbering and frequency allocations etc all quite competently and efficiently.
Postal codes are part of the national communications infrastructure and should be handled by the same agency as telephone numbering and all that other similar stuff.

They've really made a massively expensive mountain out of what should have been a minor mole hill dealt with through legislation and a proper tendering process via Comreg!

I would suggest anyone interested in this forward their concerns to the Public Accounts Committee as it's clearly a big waste of money.

Just email the members directly :

http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/oireachtasbusiness/committees_list/public-accounts/members/

Email to firstname.lastname@oireachtas.ie

(If there's a middle initial it usually goes like : firstnameX.lastname where X is the initial.)

Members:

Paul J. Connaughton, Fine Gael
John Deasy, Fine Gael
Paschal Donohoe, Fine Gael
Robert Dowds, Labour Party
Seán Fleming, Fianna Fáil
Simon Harris,nFine Gael
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin
John McGuinness, Fianna Fáil
Eoghan Murphy, Fine Gael
Gerald Nash, Labour Party
Derek Nolan, Labour Party
Kieran O’Donnell, Fine Gael
Shane Ross, Independent

Remember the money wasted on this stuff = someone looses home help, nursing hours, or other essential services!

The Cush

Recent Dáil question on this, process expected to conclude in the first half of 2013.

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

128. Deputy Patrick O'Donovan
asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources when will postcodes be introduced here [6318/13]

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (Deputy Pat Rabbitte): It is Government policy to introduce postcodes. The procurement process to select a postcode management licence holder to implement a National Postcode System began in 2011 with the publication of a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire on www.etenders.gov.ie . That process is still ongoing, and it is expected to conclude in the first half of 2013. The final decision to proceed with implementation of a national postcode will be one for Government and will be based on appropriate financial, technical and operational considerations.

http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail2013020600107?opendocument#WRF02850

aimhigh

The Cush wrote: »

Recent Dáil question on this, process expected to conclude in the first half of 2013.

Something similar has been repeated now by 3 ministers for more than 6 years:-

http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail2006101900041?opendocument

"the process is ongoing"

aimhigh

aimhigh wrote: »

Something similar has been repeated now by 3 ministers for more than 6 years:-

http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail2006101900041?opendocument

"the process is ongoing"

The 2012 version of the same thing :-
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/01/18/00110.asp

"the process is still ongoing"

ManAboutCouch

Yes, that 'process is ongoing' text is boilerplate, what's interesting is that he announced an expected date for conclusion of the procurement process, pretty sure we haven't heard that from this minister before.

The Cush

ManAboutCouch wrote: »

what's interesting is that he announced an expected date for conclusion of the procurement process, pretty sure we haven't heard that from this minister before.

We did, in 2 similar Dáil replies at the end of Jan - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=82995191&postcount=1071

ManAboutCouch

The Cush wrote: »

We did, in 2 similar Dáil replies at the end of Jan

Ah, I thought we were talking about those statements in Jan, my mistake.

Point stands though, the announcement of a closure date for the procurement process is new*ish*

aimhigh

ManAboutCouch wrote: »

Yes, that 'process is ongoing' text is boilerplate, what's interesting is that he announced an expected date for conclusion of the procurement process, pretty sure we haven't heard that from this minister before.

I first posted here to help eliminate misinformation on the subject of postcodes.

There is no reason to believe that the Minister is actually saying what is going to happen. In Jan 2012 he stated that the process would be over and ready to put to Government "later this year" ie later in 2012
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/01/18/00110.asp

The simple fact is that all previous ministers have set dates that have never been fulfilled:
Dempsey: Jan 2008
Ryan: end 2010, end 2011,
Rabbitte: late in 2012 and now summer 2013

The only thing we know to be fact re timing is that there is a tender process ongoing. It is a procees to find an organisation to implement a 6 character alphamuneric code which is based on An Post Post towns, it defines postal route blockfaces which are essentially localities;- a locality being the term used in the postal legislation introduced in 2012 to give powers to the Minister for Communications to introduce postcodes. The organisation that gets selected will hold the postcode management license for at least 10 years.

We also know that there are 3 preferred supliers, one of which is An Post.

And lastly, this Minister was the first of the 3 to introduce words in his statement that suggests that even when a license holder is selected, (year unkown) the Government at that point will still have to decide if the introduction of a postcode will actually go ahead or not "The final decision to proceed with the implementation of a national postcode will, of course, be one for Government and will be based on appropriate financial, technical and operational considerations"

So yet again lets stick to the facts - and one fact is obvious to those who have followed this;- nobody really knows when the process will conclude - not even the Minister!

Curly Judge

aimhigh wrote: »

I first posted here to help eliminate misinformation on the subject of postcodes.

There is no reason to believe that the Minister is actually saying what is going to happen. In Jan 2012 he stated that the process would be over and ready to put to Government "later this year" ie later in 2012
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/01/18/00110.asp

The simple fact is that all previous ministers have set dates that have never been fulfilled:
Dempsey: Jan 2008
Ryan: end 2010, end 2011,
Rabbitte: late in 2012 and now summer 2013

The only thing we know to be fact re timing is that there is a tender process ongoing. It is a procees to find an organisation to implement a 6 character alphamuneric code which is based on An Post Post towns, it defines postal route blockfaces which are essentially localities;- a locality being the term used in the postal legislation introduced in 2012 to give powers to the Minister for Communications to introduce postcodes. The organisation that gets selected will hold the postcode management license for at least 10 years.

We also know that there are 3 preferred supliers, one of which is An Post.

And lastly, this Minister was the first of the 3 to introduce words in his statement that suggests that even when a license holder is selected, (year unkown) the Government at that point will still have to decide if the introduction of a postcode will actually go ahead or not "The final decision to proceed with the implementation of a national postcode will, of course, be one for Government and will be based on appropriate financial, technical and operational considerations"

So yet again lets stick to the facts - and one fact is obvious to those who have followed this;- nobody really knows when the process will conclude - not even the Minister!

Ah shure, what does it matter?
Aren't we grand as we are?
My grandfather lived to be ninety and he didn't have a postcode.

The Cush

Businesses want postcodes introduced - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2013/0304/1224330751905.html

recedite

The Cush wrote: »

Businesses want postcodes introduced - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2013/0304/1224330751905.html

The lack of postcodes in Ireland is costing businesses money and time ...

“If you were cynical, you’d almost think the Government was doing it on purpose as it gives An Post a huge advantage.

An Post may be state owned, but the private operators and couriers are citizens of the state. There is no reason for "the State" to favour one group over the other.

larchill

See where the Irish Times Business had an article on Monday re postcodes. Retail Excellance Ireland state that the lack of same is costing time & money when carrying out parcel delivery. This whole issue has degenerated into a farce. 10 years after the initial proposals were made we're still waiting ...:rolleyes:

Irish Steve

Parcel delivery is only one issue, any situation where a house has to be located in order to provide a service WILL benefit from an ACCURATE location code.

It's time we stopped calling it a postcode, that's only one of many uses. A regular visitor delivering oil, or fuel, or groceries should be able to find the right location after one visit, but there are many trades and situations where a visit will be one off, or infrequent, and finding the location is important.

Rural area deliveries of things like flowers. If the driver has not been there before, spending 30 minutes searching maybe 7 miles of road to find one house is massively uneconomic. but the shop can't say to one customer, your delivery is €5 and then to the next, your delivery is €15, just because the location is rural. Same is true for any other trade that has to visit the house, finding it quickly and cheaply is now fundamental to being able to operate a business, wasting time and fuel on searching for a house is no longer acceptable when the technology is available to make accurate location automatic. Yes, there are times when the only option is to contact the house to get directions, but if the thing being delivered is a surprise, phoning ahead to get directions is not the best way to keep that surprise a secret.

Hopefully, the emergency services have already got some sort of system in place to locate where they are going without hassle, though I do recall talking to an ambulance driver outside the Mater one day a while back, and they were using a standard Garmin GPS, because there was nothing else available at the time that provided the coverage they needed, and at that time, it wasn't good, I know, I had one as well, and parts of Dublin were completely missing from the database, as were most of the roads in the west, other than the N roads.

The underlying problem is that the people making the decisions are not affected by the absence of the information.

A minister going to an appointment in some obscure location in the country will get there, but it won't be because the minister has done anything, it will be because the driver, and possibly several other people, will have done their homework before time, and checked to make sure they know exactly where they are going. Oh the luxury of having a whole civil service to pick up the pieces when an incompetent administration loses the plot.

As for the rest of us mere mortals, keep on taking the happy pills, live with the extra cost of driving unneccessary miles to find the location you want, and the productivity loss of the time wasted, the extra operating cost of the vehicle, and the lost income because the time wasn't "on site" so not chargeable.

We all know that An Post don't want Postcodes, because they already have their own system that they spent millions putting in, and giving other companies that compete with them a similar technology is not going to help their bottom line.

As I've already said, we DON'T WANT or NEED POST codes, we desperately needed accurate LOCATION codes, a long time ago, and the more time it spends on the long finger, the higher our carbon footprint, and other expenses become, this issue, along with others, DOES affect our competitiveness and productivity, and right now, we need any help we can get to make Ireland competitive again.

This is a no brainer. It needs to be dealt with and moving to a rapid resolution, preferably yesterday or sooner, and in a way that will allow any user of a modern navigation system to find with an accuracy of (say) 50 metres, any defined geographic location in the country.

LordSutch

Irish Steve wrote: »

we DON'T WANT or NEED POST codes,

As somebody who has lived and worked in Britain I disagree with you 100%.

Postcodes are great!, they really are very useful for private postel deliveries, and business postal deliveries . . . .

But will we ever get them countrywide ???