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RTÉ RECEIVED 450 emails and 500 telephone calls of “feedback” regarding its coverage of the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland, but no official formal complaints.
Negative commentary to the broadcaster included claims that its coverage of the papal visit during the World Meeting of Families was both “anti-Catholic” and “pro-Catholic”.
Information released to TheJournal.ie under the Freedom of Information Act also highlights positive feedback received by RTÉ, including praise for Bryan Dobson being “professional and in charge”.
Figures also released to TheJournal.ie also show that the visit cost RTÉ an additional €136,000 in costs across TV and radio for presenters, guests and crew in studio, construction costs for off-campus sites, travel and the hiring of broadcast equipment.
Host broadcaster
Pope Francis had a packed itinerary during his two-day Irish visit, and many of his appearances were covered live on RTÉ TV and radio over 17 hours of coverage.
This included his arrival into Dublin on the morning of Saturday 25 August, the Festival of Families at Croke Park that evening, and his mass live from the Phoenix Park on Sunday 26 August.
At the same time as the mass in the park, a large-scale demonstration was held in Dublin city centre where participants marched in silence to remember abuse survivors.
While no formal complaints were made to the broadcaster, nearly 1,000 people got in touch detailing their feedback to the papal visit, with emails and calls complaining about the coverage wide-ranging.
Negative submissions from some said that RTÉ’s coverage was anti-Catholic. Responses included:
There was a reference to the “dreadful quality” of the audio during the Pope’s speeches – on a very windy, August day in Dublin – as well as the “lack of knowledge and preparation by presenters”.
Another emailer said the “coverage was inappropriate and too flippant – more like a Eurovision commentary”.
Others accused RTÉ of not showing the protests that took place during the visit.
One said that the broadcaster “purposely avoided catching protesters on camera, who have a right to be seen, and disregarded abuse victims”.
Another wrote to express their “disappointment at RTÉ’s totally biased pro-Catholic coverage of the Pope’s visit”.
Costs
Others who gave feedback to RTÉ were more positive.
Adjectives such as “superb”, “outstanding” and “excellent” were used by a number of people.
Three emailers singled out the presenters in particular for praise, including Dobson who anchored the mass coverage alongside Áine Lawlor.
“Bryan Dobson and his contributors deserve credit,” one wrote. “Bryan Dobson… professional and in charge,” said another.
Each person who made contact with the RTÉ Information Office regarding the coverage of the Pope’s visit would have received a response informing them that their comments were welcome and would be circulated to senior management.
In terms of the cost of sending reporters and crew to Dublin and Knock cover the events of the visit, RTÉ hasn’t yet finalised the amount but the best estimate is €16,000, it said.
The additional costs for presenters and guest fees for those working in studio sites amounted to €11,472.
The additional crewing costs for the same events amounted to €76,616.
RTÉ said: “Costs for personal who were involved in the event but who were already assigned to work on those days are not captured here as it is not an additional cost.”
The costs for construction of an off-campus studio was €6,756, while the cost for the hire of broadcast equipment was €15,675.
In relation to radio coverage, across staffing costs, guest fees and travel, the cost to RTÉ was just over €10,000.
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Regardless of its usefulness or not, one thing is certain, somebody is making big money out of it !!
An Post actually. They get €22.6 million of the overall €27 million tender… not bad for coming 2nd in the tender. Oh one other minor point..An Post won’t be using Eircode!!!
What?????? They won’t be using Eircodes???
Capita, a uk company, will get the lions share of the money. Keepin’ it Irish as always!!
At least it’s not Denis o brien. Although I’m sure he probably has some connection.
Apparently the post codes are random computer generated like the lottery. Could prove confusing for emergency services to find a location without any reference to a GPS location.
@chris
Not only that they are useless for off dwelling emergencies such as RTAs unless you crash into a building with an Eircode.
To55er5
Same government department that helped DOB on his way to being a billionaire?
Another example of what we do best, another expensive clusterfvck
Waste of time and money!!
See the A postcodes are in Alex Whites posh southside constituency. Eircode a stroke from start to finish.
Remember it was the CWU, the union behind Right2Water, who made sure that Eircode is useless for the general public and any competitors to An Post. But as a result of CWU interference Eircode, being database based, is an ideal off the shelf database for Irish Water…Remember that!!!
as opposed to the address they already have for us? I’m missing your point.
@ Chief
1. Not supported by Satnavs, so no use getting from A to B
2. Only for letterboxes, so can’t guide emergency services to non dwelling accidents such as RTAs
3. Random code so not routable for delivery companies. Can’t pack a van or truck based on random codes alone that always need to be computer referenced.
4. Postmen & Postwomen not equipped to used them. An Post won’t use Eircode in any meaningful way but the influenced the code design so it is useless for their competitors too
5. For Tourism no use for beauty spots, lay-bys, old ruins, old battle sites, way marked trails etc.
is there anything it’s good for then?
@ chief
1. Good for Protecting An Post’s monopoly
2. Good for illegally funding An Post
3. Good for garnering 10,000 CWU votes for Labour in the GE
4. Good off the shelf billing database for Irish Water
5. Good for junk mail
6. Good for Sky, UPC, Eircom, Energia, Eirtricity etc. expect many more teatime callers.
What’s not to like :)
Is it any advantage to let’s say, A business in the arse hole of nowhere?
Bugger all chief, your better off just adding your business details to Google maps and if you have a website just link it in so that it’ll open up the app on mobile or Google maps on laptop.
I am not a number I am free man
Yes. No more ‘go over the hill, down to the bridge and it’s on your left at the top of the big field’ nonsense with clients. This is useful for small businesses in rural areas.
Satnavs don’t support it
All of this breathless negativity leaves me speechless!
Let’s debunk some of the myths.
1. Not supported by Satnavs, so no use getting from A to B
LOC8 are proprietary and only supported by Garmin satnavs.
The eircode is the new national standard and over time, will be supported by all satnavs.
If you are buying a new sat nav device in 2017 and one supported eircodes and the other didn’t, which one would you choose?
2. Only for letterboxes, so can’t guide emergency services to non dwelling accidents such as RTAs
As stated elsewhere on this very page, the national ambulance service will support them.
3. Random code so not routable for delivery companies. Can’t pack a van or truck based on random codes alone that always need to be computer referenced.
It’s the 21st century with mobile broadband and modern computer systems. I wouldn’t get too worried about this. The entire database probably fits on your iPhone.
4. Postmen & Postwomen not equipped to used them. An Post won’t use Eircode in any meaningful way but the influenced the code design so it is useless for their competitors too
Pure and utter BS.
All state companies in Ireland including An Post are working on supporting eircodes.
5. For Tourism no use for beauty spots, lay-bys, old ruins, old battle sites, way marked trails etc.
Right, because there is so much mail being sent to these places?
Within 5 years what’s the betting that as well as giving your PPS number on forms , this ericode will also be asked. It will be linked in to Social welfare , bin collection charges, the board casting charge , LPT and any new levy they come up with.
And maybe it will prevent the wrong people being cut off from child benefit payments as per yesterday’s story, due to similar names living at non-unique addresses.
And as Colin C said, it’s another piece of data that helps to uniquely identify someone, so can’t be that bad.
Passport Office already have a space on their forms for it
The Passport Office always had space for postcodes as you use the same form for the whole island, whether you live in the North or South.
It’s unique alright. Why’d it have to be so random? It’s like something preschool kids came up with. If it had been a bit more sequential it’d have been useful for couriers etc.
The postal code in most other European countries works by a grid system, where houses are given an indicator based on their geographical location.
It makes much more sense than a random collection of digits and numbers with little meaning or logic behind them.
I think it’s random because the Data Protection Commissioner had a problems with the original (more sensible) proposal.
Nope that’s a lie the DCENR peddled (amongst others) the real reason is a random code can be given every apartment in a block. Eircode is for billing, specifically for Irish Water and TV Licence billing.
The other lie was the “Sequential Postcode Problem” read about that below
It ties in nicely with the Smart Meters being installed outside people’s homes.
@getlost
How do we know you aren’t lying? Posting your own website as proof doesn’t mean much to me.
The fact you are running around post this stuff up everywhere you can seems strange to me. What ever you have a problem with has happened, you lost! What are you getting out of this other than unhappiness? Move on
sorry mr Ipers, no iron in the fire here…as much to gain from a good postcode system as every other citizen or business in Ireland. Want to see good system for our emergency services, citizens, local government and tourists. Eircode is NOT that system.
Eircode has been a sham from start to finish. General public were not paying much attention while it was being developed but now that they see what pile of manure it is they will be looking for answers. So we have alternative answers to DCENR and Ministers Lies and propaganda.
Why accept mediocrity?
Can’t use it with sat navs or Google maps. A complete waste of citizens money.
@ get lost
I would like the best system too. That is always the goal but it is done now. Whatever your objective was with your site it failed.
I will say your link doesn’t make you seem reasonable in any manner. To say it is designed for TV licence is laughable as it is about to be done away with. You also failed to grasp that the recommendations from the steering committee were flawed and not legally allowable. You simply refused to believe it. It could not be done the way you want after they checked with legal teams but you apparently know better. Move on it is done
Website was to educate public on the problems with Eircode and counteract DCENR lies and misinformation. TV licence to be changed to household media tax, needs a database for that.
What exactly was flawed in recommendations by postcode working group?
What exactly was not legally allowable?
Ireland deserves better than EIRCODE
Everyone knows this is a disaster don’t they?
All of the commercial entities have said they won’t use this as they have a better,cheaper system that they all buy into. So it won’t be of any use for online purchase deliveries or taxis or whatever. The government will probably make this mandatory for setting up new utility or account will finacial institution or for correspondence with a deparmental office. That is about as utilised as it will get.
That’s unfortunate about it not working for the Irish-speaking community. Maybe we could give them grants to learn English as a second language?
Most are bilingual. What’s your point?
Stupid system. How could they come up with a system that has no geographic indicator? Absolutely no use to the ordinary consumer.
first 3 digits are geolocator
No number on my house, no house name, no road name.
All I’ve ever needed was…….my name, general area and county…………not once has any mail or parcel from An Post or any private delivery company ever failed to reach me.
“Eircode……..the new address system for levies.”
Are the inmates running the asylum in Ireland? What brain dead official decided to have postcodes that wont work with google maps?
Everything about official Ireland has been brain dead for as long as I can remember. But we get what we vote for.
It’s been live for exactly 10 hours and you’re complaining that Google haven’t updated their map already? Or are you complaining that they didn’t employ their psychic powers to guess the post codes in advance? Or do you think that if we copied the UKs post codes that somehow Google would know how they relate to Irish addresses.
If there is a 15 x Eircode lookup limit i can’t see Google paying money to Eircode so that people can lookup more Eircodes on Google Maps for free.
BTW to get around the 15 x Eircode limit just clear your cookies.
They got my townland wrong. I don’t get how that happened when it used to be right.
I looked up my grandmother’s one, the townload is spelt differently to all the spellings on any signs or landmarks, and unsurprisingly doesn’t pick up anything but the local (closed) school and church. Not too helpful!
Yep , just as I suspected , typed in my full address and was informed that I dont live in that town but in a town 4 miles away. (how much did this cost ,, consultants ????)
The address they return is the one an post use, which includes your local sorting office, which may be in a different town or county. That’s one of the benefits of the system – the address you use may be different to what an post uses and could result in delays.
This way, you can continue using the geographically correct address and stick on the Eircode at the end and then it will route it to the correct sorting office. Should improve delivery times.
If you’ve got something being delivered by a courier – if they choose to use the code, they just need to enter it into their system and it will give them the co ordinates and plot the route for them (nightline have said that they’ll be using them for this)
Great, spam letters! Unsubscribe please!
I seem to have changed counties overnight. Didn’t know moving borders was part of the remit.
For the people who think their town are now wrong you maybe wrong in what you think. The postal address are based on your postal sorting office so geographically you maybe in one place but for the postal system you are considered to be elsewhere.
What, I cannot use the house at fahy’s bush no more? God dam you Brussels !
It’s for social welfare to use so? I probably won’t be adding the new postcodes to the end of my mail so.
I searched the eircode.ie and got 2 different codes for my address!
I’d say the chap who is trying to puzzle An Post is delighted
From embarrassingly simple to needlessly complicated…ah, good work? I really dont want to know how much this costs…la,la,la,la
Wouldn’t be Ireland if they made it simple would it!
It wouldn’t be the Journal if people used punctuation correctly, would it?
We should all send of letters with the postcode in lieu of an address and see how long it takes.
Someone in a sorting office will take the letter, punch the Eircode into a computer and write the address on the envelope. Postmen will have no way of reading an Eircode on the go.
Except maybe use their smartphone, navigate to finder.eircode.ie, and type in the eircode ?????
Was in West Clare last month couldn’t even send a text not to mind get a data signal…no use then.
Just checked my code. They apparently have given myself and my neighbours all new addresses. Added bonus: we have terraced housing and they have given us all the same address (ex. 5 Parnell Street) with different apartment numbers. (ex. Apartment 2 Parnell Street, Apartment 3 Parnell Street). Who came up with this idea?
So don’t give your post code to an ambulance dispatcher cos it’s no use ?
To be fair most people could make deliveries easier by making sure their house name or number is clearly visable-
Actually that’s not completely correct. The ambulance, fire brigade and other emergency services will be updating their software later this year and if you give your Eircode, they’ll get right to your door. I think as with all new technology and change – we should give it a chance to bed in and work. We seem all to be very quick to jump to dismissing it
That’s a fair point in relation to cities and towns, but if you have a breakdown or RTA with no houses around Eircode is utterly useless, so your back to the current system of giving directions to the emergency services.
Half baked, overpriced and practically useless as usual, like everything else from this farce of a government. Roll on the general election!
People should refuse to use this unnecessary, and wasteful system.
Refusing to use the code will make no difference, especially since the codes are useless anyway. An Post won’t be using these codes, so why should we??
Another half baked scheme that cost millions when we could have got one for free. Brown envelopes all round.
i could have designed one better. well at least the post codes would be actuall postcodes that would be useful to all services and not just a random number on a house.
AJ McKee might have more luck if he learned to spell his home town of “Naas” correctly
They’re translating County Dublin to Co. Bhaile Átha Cliath too. Basic error.
Bhaile Átha Cliath refers to Dublin City. It should just be Átha Cliath.
about time
If An Post and other courier services don’t benefit from this what was the point ?
One government dept wasting taxpayers money to make other government dept jobs easier.
I will remain skeptical until I can see how this saves money.
Well it worked perfectly for me, and I’m living in a house without a number.
That said, I live in the city and a quick google maps search by my house name finds the place anyway.
Ok so, I’ve done a poll of various addresses I know around Cork and from what I’ve seen so far the entire south city is T12 + 4 alphanumeric characters.
That does seem a little odd to me. Useful for uniquely identifying houses but no better than a well informed satnav for finding one.
I had assumed that there’d be some level of drill down, at least to split an area like the south city in Cork into a few blocks.
I’m comfortable enough with the idea of a proprietary encoding and licensed database, but I did think that at least a basic one man and a van business would be able to plan 10 deliveries based on a glance at the codes.
And herein is the problem, everybody assumed the DCENR had our interests at heart.
Nothing could be further than the truth, An Post, CWU, DCENR & Labour (specifically Rabbitte & White) conspired to introduce a code who’s main aims were….
1. Protect An Post from competition, especially in the growing parcel market by making Eircode expensive & useless
2. Create an off the shelf billing database for Irish Water and TV Licence. Govt realised with property tax that they didn’t know exactly how many taxable properties in Ireland.
3. Illegally fund An Post to the tune of €22.6 million euro, Eircode purchasing GeoDirectory was the cover, extra funding keeps rural post offices open and keeps rural TDs on side, this is why FG let Labour away with this fook up.
So in the eyes of An Post, CWU, DCENR & Labour EIRCODE IS ALREADY A ROARING SUCCESS….and if Irish people don’t use it well we “just weren’t ready for postcodes”.
In Ireland mediocrity prevails when good people do nothing.
spam. dont click on your postcode it will empty your bank account.
Spot on! But why not just a map and the number of the house; It was only a matter of time before we became a series of numbers.I am getting a robot outfit lol.
It worked for my address, problem is the road name is wrong when it shows on the map. More money will be wasted to fix the glitches and backup.
The derelict cottage on my site that I use as a shed got an Eircode, yet my sisters house that was built 3 years ago didnt :-p
wouldn’t mind getting Michelle’s post code ;)
tough crowd
No, just creepy.
Hey maybe you’re right! wrong tactic, it hasn’t worked the last 20 times I tried either. ah well
She didn’t even have a postcode the last 20 times!
Moan moan moan!! Bloody hell. Will ye just cop on and accept that we need postcodes. Give it a couple of months and we’ll wonder how we managed without them
i dont think the issue is with needing postcodes.. i think its more to do with the unfinished and underdeveloped system they are launching. seems a lot of postcodes are incorrect.
Yes we need post-codes, but we need a proper system, not this.
Resistance to change syndrome? Unclench ffs
Resistance to someone getting a cash cow whilst leaving another unusable mess to be fixed later. This one doesn’t even pretend to be anything else and why would it.
All documented here..
http://getlosteircodes.com/
Unrelenting negativity from Journal.ie posters as always.
Have any of you worked on a project at work where you didn’t encounter significant initial teething problems?
of course i have.. every day as a developer… and if i was asked to develop this system i would have refused and put forward a system that would actually work for everyone.
the trick is to plan it properly in the first place and you wont end up with suck a mess.
Don, yes. Many. It’s known as doing your job properly.
does anyone know if this system was designed by an Irish company, or was it outsourced to yet another non-irish agency? would explain the complete lack of knowledge of irish addresses.
Supplied by British multinational Capita PLC. They are active in all the shiiitholes, Afghanistan, Iraq, Birmingham and now Ireland. Irish companies were told, while tender was still running, “they could tender but would not be successful”
See http://getlosteircodes.com/ for more.
had a feeling it couldnt have been an irish company… same happened with ireland.com, some company from UK choosen when loads of irish tallent put in for the tender. That website cost hundreds of thousands and could have been coded by an amature. it was another disaster by not hiring great irish tallent who would have been proud to design and develop a website to represent ireland and would have cost less that a quater what they paid a uk company.
thats what i thought… same happened with ireland.com. bloody discrace how they keep giving the well paid work to non-irish companies.
Read about the tender below…see where the money went. One of the Eircode consortium member companies already won another tender to deliver Irish Water Conservation Grant.
@Get Lost Eircodes – you forget to mention that Capita employ over 2000 people in Ireland… a sizeable employer here in fairness!
Yes Capita employ people to look after the bad loans purchased by the likes of Cerberus so right now they are hounding small business people with gusto
Capita subbed the Eircode project to smaller Irish companies like AutoAddress. Make no mistake all Capita added to Eircode was margin and bureaucracy!!!
I’d love you know why my house in Limerick starts with V27 instead of, say, LK5. It’s a bit random.
For such a tiny country that has got along fine without postcodes I do wonder why the new postcodes have to be so complicated. Wouldn’t a simple digit code have done fine?
I think its a good system, then again moaners will find any reason at all to moan.. Its what we do best in this country! Countless times courier services have had to contact me to get exact details. Now with this, all they need to do is put in my Eircode into the Eircode website and get the directions! I don’t see the problem?
not so simple for others.. my address shows as westmeath instead of roscommon which straight away would send my parcels to the wrong depot and be devilered a day late.
@MarkMurph1 if you read up on Eircode you won’t like it.
Corrupt tender, code released is not what was tendered for, not compliant with postcode act, useless for non dwelling emergencies. Simply put Eircode was designed to be useless to protect An Post’s parcel business and to develop a billing database that could be purchased off the shelf for Irish Water.
If a courier company can put in my Eircode and get directions to my door then I simply don’t care about your little website :-)
yea well only 1 courier have publically said they will use it, Nightline the people who deliver to Parcel Motels.
Eircode is simply too expensive and too cumbersome for couriers as you can’t eyeball the code and manually sort parcels using it. Requires a huge IT and licensing investment.
Google maps doesn’t recognise the new post codes. No use until they do.
I doubt Google will support unless they get it for free. I doubt Eircode will do that because it will circumvent the 15 x Eircode daily lookups.
BTW to get past the 15 x Eircode lookup limit just clear your cookies.
My house in county Dublin is now falling under D24. Happy days
Welcome to the best Dublin postal area of them all! =D
This system is probably ok for state services ,e.g. Revenue in that every property and address now has a unique identifier. However, It’s clearly something that was spat out by a computer. Galway City, for example (H91) has a hodge-podge of ‘identifiers’ consisting of formats AB12, AB1C, ABC1, A123.
They mean nothing to citizens.
What good is all of this if I or delivery or emergency services cannot input a code into a Sat Nav in the expectation that it will guide to where one needs to go?What was wrong with a system as used in other European countries – a four- or five- digit numeric system that ‘s simple and is fit for purpose.as a postcode, it’s a total farce; my postman delivers without fail, and within a day or two, all mail sent to me from within the State.Ordering on- line, I have got great mileage from G-0005 as a fictitious code and will continue to use it.
I regret to say that I see here a repeat of the discarded electronic voting system and Irish Water.
Eircodes are, for the general public, a total waste of public money and a show, again, a shocking deficit of leadership from the Government.
I, for one, will refuse to use such a daft, expensive, and meaningless system.
Eamonn the mergency services will be able to use the code to locate your home very precisely. For goodness sake give the system a chance everyone. Talk about begrudgery.
John, R what about all the bloody emergencies that don’t occur in dwellings. Eircode useless for this. Don’t worry though 112/999 take Loc8 codes for these.
Hi John, of course they will be able to reach me because, and only because I live in a numbered house in a 40- yr old estate in a city. Eircode is useless in enabling me to find a rural address. Read the blogs. It’s an absolute farce.
Is anyone actually going to bother using these?
Tis a gift from Labour for Irish Water a billing database out of thin air paid for by taxpayer.
I’m in the back end of Carraroe for a couple of days and it can’t even find an eircode! Perhaps more testing before going live !!!!!
Well so far not impressed, they have managed to change our postal address to one different to everyone else in our locality… it seems our postal address has moved 4 miles away.
i seem to be living in another county lol
What a load bullplop! There’s no need for these codes they aren’t even easily remembered at least make them some way near in resemblance of the areas they cover!
It will be better than the 0000 I put in when ordering online !
No it won’t. An Post won’t be using it and most delivery companies wont’ be using it either. Too complicated and too expensive.
the driver of the delivery is still going to have to take time to look it up on a system which is not allowing commercial use. so if that drive has more than 15 deliveries (and they will) they can no longer use the system. if the postcodes were in some sort of order (like they are in EVERY OTHER COUNTRY) then he/she would be able to find locations a lot quicker simply be looking at the postcode.
My sister’s house and her neighbour do not exist apparently. They don’t appear on the eircode map or search. And they’re not even new houses.
Remember, An Post was against this system. How the hell did we manage for so long without it??!
It is a mess because precisely because An Post didn’t want a working system that allowed other parcel delivery companies to compete with it.
In fairness it was well overdue that we got a postal code system, I do believe that we were the only country in the EU that didn’t have them, with the UK having introduced them as far back as 1959. However as is typical of this country, instead of adopting say a similar system to the UK, we have gone off on our own little tangent, and made a mess of something that should have been quite straightforward.
Aging Lothario, it is a system which precisely identifies each and every physical address. So in one sense it is ahead of other similar post code systems which only identify group of addresses.
Yea like apartment blocks with 20 x Eircodes but only 1 x GPS address…why would you do that…oh yes Irish Water billing that’s why.
another big brother ploy to keep tabs on people. I won’t be using it. nothing wrong with the address I have.
If the Ambulance service gets good use out of this, then all the whinging above is moot. In my mind it’s worth the bellyaching if one life gets saved because the ambulance pulled up at the right house instead of peering at the house numbers & bins trying to find the right number.
wouldnt it need to be working on a satnav system first? i dont thing the ambulace service has the kind of money it would cost to develop one.. sticking with local knowledge is probably safer.
No use for RTAs Other systems such as http://www.loc8code.com perfect for non dwelling emergencies. Eircode 100% USELESS FOR ANY ACCIDENT NOT AT A DWELLING
re Colm Flaherty. Ambulance service can’t use this system as it is not compatible with Sat Navs or Google maps!
John you’re wrong. The website says “The National Ambulance Service will be using Eircodes once their new dispatch system goes live, which is planned for September this year. The Fire service and An Garda Síochána plan to use Eircodes and may do so as their dispatch systems are upgraded over the coming years. An Eircode will be used as an addition to the address and not as a replacement, so all emergency services will always ask for the address.” Over time all emergency services will use the system as will other services.
@John R how will NAS use Eircode for non dwelling emergencies which are a sizeable number of call outs every day. Why was billing of apartments and maintaining vanity addresses in Dublin prioritised over saving citizens lives especially in rural areas?
Why did we never hear from NAS themselves only second hand through DCENR and RTE
Why did we as a state not give emergency services everything they needed to ensure rapid access to casualties?
it’s a joke. my village Ballyvaughan in North Clare is listed as being in Galway. Shannon and surrounding villages are listed as being in Limerick.
My house doesn’t exist no their maps – it was built over 2 years ago. They were obviously using 2009 google maps as a reference.
80:20 rule applies.
It’ll more time and cost expensive to go after harder cases – e.g. newly built one-off houses, so they grab as much easy data as they can and launch. They’ll bring the rest on board over time, no sense swelling their numbers to chase after the leftovers in a big mad hurry. Once they have the major cities and towns signed up, they’ll have a majority of dwelling and will give less than a fook about the rest, bringing them on board slowly over a period of time.
All you naysayer are overlooking the most important benefit of this wonderful system:
Criminals will love it and use it and that keeps the law enforcement industry happy which is great news as it creates job security in the civil/public sector.
Sure it’s because most idiots on twitter don’t understand that posting their eircode and that they are on holidays might signal an invitation to criminals but hey…
And obviously the department of social protection, revenue and other snooping government organization are going to love it and use it, a real stop into a population register when you combine it with the TV License, Property Tax, Revenue and other database. Soon your PPS will be linked to your Eircode and it will be tattooed onto your arm.
I’ve never heard such nonsense. Do you not think that the state authorities don’t know where you live already? We all have a thing called an address and amazingly we can find each other, including on Google Maps. My current old fashioned address may as well be tattooed on my arm!
And all THEY need to know is that I won’t be using it.
Maybe I’m liking this new post code. All I need to do is stick the post code on a letter and post it.. This saves me time writing name and address on the envelope.
eh Morgan you need the address too. Thing is they probably will put Enniscorthy in Kilkenny.
About time we got a postcode system in place in this country. I do a lot of Radom deliveries around Ireland as for some of the addresses your given and expected too find. In particular country address,whether they be business or private addresses. Done plenty of work up north and across the water and the post code works pretty well on the sat nav. You’d be surprised how much more you can get done in your days work and how much time and fuel you save by not having too drive around lookking for a place with a bad address. Can’t understand have they are making mistakes with the issuing of codes. That can’t be that hard of a job.
But your satnav won’t support Eircode!
Looks like Kilcock, Maynooth, Leixlip, and most of North Kildare are all in Naas!
And the consequence of this is my Kenwood satnav identified a crash in Maynooth as Naas and tried to re-route me. How can you trust TMC with notifications like this? (Traffic Message Channel)
ha. Just checked my address. they have got it wrong. it seems eircode mixed up my address with my next door neighbour! should have got denis o brien on the case, his water meter mafia found my house no probs!!!
I am not on their system…
Dublin 2, D02 HC67 makes no sense. Surely it’s just Dublin, D02 HC67.
Typical Irish. Liking to whinge and moan about everything new. It had to come in at some point or another to bring this country into the 21st century. Deal with it. Whinging and moaning is all this country ever does. Never prepared to get up off our backsides and actually do something constructive.
Nothing wrong with the oooo code I use all the time.
Has a copy been sent to Santa Claus? There is not much time to sort it out before
Christmas!
I don’t like mine, can I bring it back?
A simple adjustment to the format in the early stages could have avoided the criticism from the FTAI, etc., and secured its adoption.
Something like:
A01 GN2 B5
A01 = Routing Key
GN2 = Locale (rural and commercial) / Estate (or subset of an estate if it’s quite a large one, like numbers 1-40, 41 – 80)
B5 = Unique Identifier
Maybe I’m wrong but I think just adding another character to it would have solved all the issues because as it stands, having a 4-character unique identifier is a waste of characters! You could probably get away with having one less, due to the amount of houses per routing key, even in Dublin, probably not exceeding every possible combination of permitted numbers and letters.
If you think about it, the suggestion above, while is merely of first draft quality and would require a lot of further consideration, would also be future-proof based on the fact that you can have similar combinations in the locate and unique identifier sections by just having more routing keys / postal districts as the need arises. Or you can just throw in another character for good measure to accomplish the same thing. At least freight companies could use it for delivery route planning and all the other things that the critics of the current system say is missing.
It doesn’t take a genius to come up with something like this. It also doesn’t take a lot of time. So I’m seriously baffled as to why Capita and everyone else involved in the format decision making process didn’t come up with it, or adapt something similar to Loc8. Pity that the government couldn’t have just awarded the tender to Loc8 from the start based on merit instead of annual turnover, but that’s a different debate for a different occasion.
DCENR actively denied Loc8 the opportunity to tender. They also asked all large courier companies not to support Loc8 and promised something better and state backed. An Post also denied Loc8 a licence for geodirectory when asked in 2009. Difficult to thrive when government dept, semi state and unions are protecting their turf. Loc8 deserves to succeed and deserves the Irish publics support on merit alone!
I just can’t get over all the negativity on this site about eircodes.
Anyone who has ever got groceries delivered with Tesco online etc. knows that their postal address as An Post deliver it can be different to their actual address. Nothing new here, no conspiracy.
The use of an eircode system actually makes this problem go away.
An Post uses Tallaght as your delivery office and you prefer to use Whitehall?
No problem. Just give your address as Whitehall and use the eircode.
Or even just use John Murphy plus the eircode. End of story.
Has no one on this site ever tried to get goods delivered from the EU or America, outside of the big players like Amazon? No one has ever had to make up a postcode because the ordering system requires one?
DUB 001 anyone?
No one in a rural location here ever suffered from lost or delayed parcel delivery?
Eircodes are a GOOD THING, folks.
And yes, it cost money, like any new system of this scale.
Get over it.
It’s odd that you would think that An Post are going to automatically use Eircodes – they are not.
If Eircodes were ‘a good thing’ you could use them to tell your location in a hurry to an Ambulance or Fire Brigade – you can’t and you won’t because it only identifies houses – (tax payers)
And no, it should not have cost as much – there are 2 known alternatives.
Loc8 which is already in common usage and https://map.what3words.com/
which gives everywhere on the planet an address not just tax paying households
Eircode is useless for Tesco as routing keys are not defined, overlap and even have pockets of one key in other key. Eg D24 sandwiched between 2 x D22… simply unworkable.
Don’t know what you’re all complaining about. Even if your address does not show up, you can use the map and go to the general area and find your own house. If it has a little red dot on it , you are found!!! Why can’t emergency services use it? If I give them my house code, they can look at the map and find it no bother.
In fact, I can use the map to pinpoint the address and postcode of a random house and send post to that house. Wait, that is not a good thing!!! I could be driving somewhere and pick a random house along the way and send a letter saying ‘ Hey, I don’t like that god awfull colour you have painted your house in. What were you thinking? And your grass looks like it hasn’t seen a mower in 20 years!!!” oooh, not so good :/
btw a neighbours house has no red dot on in and immediatly my tinfoil hat came on. Those neighbours are members of the Gardai ??? Is it just an error or is it something more sinister… *hitchcock music
Pointless comment. You can pick any random house in Dublin now and grab the address from the street name and send them a letter which they will ignore.
Well Mike,in case you haven’t noticed, Dublin isn’t the only place on the map! And if you didn’t have your head so far up your own backside you would stop to think on that and then you might finally realise that lots of people live in places that don’t have street names, or road names, or house numbers for that matter. Without those details, who could you send a letter to? I can do that with this map! So go off now and ponder on that, and while your at it, go say something nice for somebody for a change. It will do wonders for you!
It’s good for people who live in rural areas
in my opinion, this is superb/ great idea!
Great start Eircode.ie is broken already.
I searched the Eircode website and all I get is “You do not have access to this service”
don’t think we HAVE to use the codes?
have your say