An Post confirms staff ignore Eircode in deliveries
An Post has confirmed that its staff does not use Eircode when delivering letters and parcels door to door, .
The clarification comes following criticism from Fianna Fáil Communications Spokesperson Timmy Dooley, who said he received a complaint from a person who had a confidential letter delivered incorrectly to his neighbour “despite his correct Eircode being marked on the envelope.”
“This person was told by an official customer service representative of An Post that the company 'does not make use of Eircode when delivering post',” Mr Dooley said.
“How is it that the State has spent €38 million on developing, rolling out and advertising Eircode that the State’s own postal delivery service doesn’t bother to use it?” Mr Dooley said.
Despite proponents of the postcode claiming Eircode would help in situations where neighbouring houses have non-unique addresses, An Post confirmed that its staff do not use Eircode at a local level when delivering door-to-door.
“An Post’s sorting technology is configured to read Eircodes at the processing stage when mail is being sorted,” a spokesperson said.
“A full postal address is still required at the delivery stage. A postperson reads the address printed - it was never intended or planned that delivery staff would decipher eircodes in order to deliver a letter. They need the full address,” she said.
Mr Dooley said that Communications Minister Denis Naughten must now clarify the situation.
“The mind boggles at the complete lack of joined up thinking at Minister Naughten’s department,” Mr Dooley said.
“One of the main purposes of a Government Department, to my mind anyway, is to ensure that all agencies and activities under the aegis of the Department work together, share information and sing off the same hymn sheet.
“There is no point spending nearly €40 million in designing and advertising a scheme such as Eircode and then not using it properly. I really hope that this is a case of miscommunication rather than a failure to implement government policy,” Mr Dooley said.
