Postcode system - Numbers game

OUR new postcode system is due to be introduced in largely unamended form this spring despite the reservations expressed by civil liberty groups and the Data Protection Commissioner.

The Eircode system will give an identifying code to every address in the country, making Ireland the first country in the world to have a postcode system with a unique code for every single property.

While in office, the former Commissioner Billy Hawkes advised the board formed to consider the implementation of the system that the postcode should identify areas rather than individual addresses.

“A postcode model which provided, in most cases, a one to one match between a postcode and a dwelling would raise significant privacy/data protection issues,” he wrote in a submission to the National Postcode Project Board.

We have been assured by the Government that the system - more smartcode than postcode - will be a triumph. Where have we heard that before - or is it all water under the bridge?