Postcode plan - Codes won’t solve postal service crisis

Given that the Irish postal delivery service is in such radical need of improvement that volumes have decreased in recent years, it is rather perplexing that Communications Minister Noel Dempsey should seek to impose postcodes on it.

One would be forgiven for suggesting that An Post has more pressing problems to consider than the introduction of a system that is not wanted and will not add one whit to the improvement of the postal service.

The long-suffering customers have not demanded such a code and An Post does not want one because, the company insists, that for the past 10 years it has been operating technology to sort mail that is far more sophisticated.

Possibly, the minister was unaware of that fact when he decided to set up a working group whose remit, obviously, was to identify “substantial benefits” to be gained by the introduction of a postcode.

Having produced a result to satisfy the minister, he intends to appoint a National Postcode Project Management Board and has asked the chairwoman of ComReg to appoint project managers to design a suitable postcode system and assess the costs involved.

It has all the appearance of the minister embarking on a solo run which, unfortunately, will probably end in costing the taxpayers untold millions for an unwanted system of adding a combination of numbers and letters to every address.

As Education Minister, Mr Dempsey was forced into an embarrassing U-turn in 2003 on his plans to re-introduce college fees after opposition from his Cabinet colleagues, but not before securing an extra €42 million package to improve student grants.

It will also be remembered that as Environment Minister, it was he who convinced the Government to test the efficacy of electronic voting back in 2002 and spent €4.4m on a pilot project as a prelude to using them in the 2004 local elections.

The e-voting project was aborted, but not before his successor in Environment, Martin Cullen, had controversially spent €50m on it.

Now it is the postal code, which Mr Dempsey has described as “a vital piece of infrastructure for a modern developed economy” and he intends that it be introduced here by January 2008.

Yet, the country has developed to become a model modern economy which others are exhorted to emulate without having suffered from the lack of such “a vital piece of infrastructure.”

Certainly, given the consistent healthy economic performance of Ireland, and the future projections, it is somewhat bewildering for the minister to argue that without it Ireland would be at a disadvantage to other EU countries.

It would be far more practical for the minister to address the malaise which has seen An Post apply for a stamp price increase of 25% which will bring the cost to 60c if conceded, while at the same time it offers a deplorable delivery service.

The company has barely turned the corner from being a financial disaster €45m in the red, to returning a profit of €6.4m last year.

It could only achieve such a dramatic turnaround by cutting the workforce by 500 and refusing to pay increases due under Sustaining Progress and it still wants to engage in talks for further “head hunt reductions”, as it euphemistically describes more job cuts.