THE LONG-AWAITED Eircodes were introduced today, with every single house in the country now the proud owner of its own seven-digit code.
The aim is to make it easier to locate homes and businesses, but the introduction hasn’t been without questions from the public.
We put the main queries to the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, which is responsible for Eircodes. Here’s what they told us.
Why is my address wrong?
Some people have been tweeting and commenting to say their addresses are coming up as being in totally different places or even in different counties on the Eircode site.
For example, addresses in Leixlip have Naas near the end of the address.
Here’s are more examples:
Turns out your address hasn’t changed at all. Here’s what the department said:
No address has changed – or will change – because of the introduction of Eircode. You should use the address that you have always used, and simply add the Eircode at the end.
The reason some addresses do not use the geographic county is that Eircodes are based on the existing An Post address.
In a small number of instances, the An Post sorting office is in a different county to the address. This has been the case for years and nothing has changed today.
Is my name tied to an address?
This was flagged by founder of Vizlegal, Gavin Sheridan, who asked:
The department told us:
There is no personal data on the Eircode database or Eircode Finder. It does include business names, which in some cases can be the name of an individual, particularly for small businesses or sole traders. All the business names have come from the source data.
Why does Dublin get a D but Galway and Cork not get a G and a C?
It turns out this is due to an existing system, as the department explained:
The existing established Dublin Postal Districts 1 to 24 have been retained in the Routing Key as D01 to D24. These have been in existent for many years, the public is very familiar with them and they are used for mail sorting by the Universal Service Provider An Post.
In all other cases the first letter of the Routing Key will not be linked to a country or city as the Routing Key is not based on county or city boundaries.
Does that answer all your questions on Eircode, or do you have more? Let us know what you think of the new postal codes system in the comments.
- Additional reporting Michelle Hennessy
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