Eircode - Why did they bother?

Donal55 · 20-10-2017 12:55PM

Between eircodes and the sign posting of road numbers its getting a lot more handier for driving around.

grogi · 20-10-2017 01:12PM

professore wrote: »

€25k pa for a business to use Eircodes. That's why they are not being used.

https://www.eircode.ie/docs/default-source/Common/licensing-and-pricing-information-as-of-september-2015---published-v-3.pdf?sfvrsn=2

A typical organisation will not require more than €3,000 annually. Might be much smaller if website integration is not required at all.

€25,000 is for an association or alike, exp. Irish Brokers Association, that would give access to Eircode Database to all of its members.

Hooks Golf Handicap · 20-10-2017 01:23PM

I volunteer as a Cardiac First Responder, we get sent to a local cardiac event once activated by Ambulance Control.

The Eircodes have been the greatest godsend to our job.
Stick it in Google Maps > Directions > Start & you're brought straight to the door.
Some elderly people don't understand it can be the difference between life & death.

Initially the emergency services weren't using them as they would have to use their own devices & some didn't have mobile data plans so there was a cost.
Happily they seem to have resolved it cause it saves lives.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 20-10-2017 01:47PM

Ambulance service here uses it and say it's excellent.

Personally, living rural, it has been a godsend as I have had no delivery issues with couriers since I started using it.

Juran · 20-10-2017 01:53PM

Tip: As I can never remember for on-line application, I have saved my house eircode in my phone contacts list - it appear as the top of the list under the name 'AAA'.

murpho999 · 20-10-2017 02:12PM

Juran wrote: »

Tip: As I can never remember for on-line application, I have saved my house eircode in my phone contacts list - it appear as the top of the list under the name 'AAA'.

Do you have a smartphone?

I have it within the address in my own contact.

Also, you could put in a Notes App as well.

A contact as an eircode would irritate my OCD tidy contacts list!

Shenshen · 20-10-2017 02:30PM

Considering that years after launching them, and hundreds of emails to Eircode, Geodirectory and god knows who else, the eircode assigned to our address STILL points to the wrong house, I'm actually not at all surprised they're not being used.

I'll give mine when asked, but always have to tell the person asking that it will not take them to the right house, then give them directions anyway.

When I did have to use the ambulance services a while ago, they never even asked for it, just wanted directions.

grogi · 20-10-2017 02:39PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Considering that years after launching them, and hundreds of emails to Eircode, Geodirectory and god knows who else, the eircode assigned to our address STILL points to the wrong house, I'm actually not at all surprised they're not being used.

I'll give mine when asked, but always have to tell the person asking that it will not take them to the right house, then give them directions anyway.

And what is the correct eircode associated with your address? Maybe it was just wrong Eircode delivered to your house?

Eircode finder allows you to check the Eircode per point on map...

vicwatson · 20-10-2017 02:43PM

Foggy Jew wrote: »

At the height of Storm Ophelia, my chimney went on fire. (Nobody told me about downdrafts etc). I was horrified at the thought of calling out the fire brigade, knowing that they would be so busy, but as the flames and sparks coming out of the top of the chimney were getting worse, I had to phone them. I live in a rural area - no house numbers. When I got through to the Fire Service, I gave them my eircode, and they said that it was no use to them, and would I give them directions to my house. If Eircodes are not being used by the emergency services, what the heck use are they at all?

Sure they had loadsa of our money spare in our economy so they said sure feck it we'll spend a bit of it on ****e that no one will use

Shenshen · 20-10-2017 02:50PM

grogi wrote: »

And what is the correct eircode associated with your address? Maybe it was just wrong Eircode delivered to your house?

Eircode finder allows you to check the Eircode per point on map...

The eircode that shows our house on the map shows a different address associated with it.

As I said, we've been trying to get them to fix it for years now (us and the people owning the other house, btw), and at one point it was suggested we should maybe just switch houses :rolleyes:

BrokenArrows · 20-10-2017 02:50PM

Its an irish attitude to any problem.

Give them a solution to a problem and the majority will just say "ah sure i dont want to change, i can give directions if needed" or "it will cost too much to implement" or "ah sure why implement it when most people wont know their code".

It was a very poorly managed project but at this point the government need to force adoption.
All emergency services should be asking and using the code. If the caller doesnt know the code then they can revert to the old way.

The government needs to force adoption by An Post which in turn needs to force adoption by the people by setting a cut off date when all mail needs to contain a post code. Any mail not containing a post code should be separated (eventually delivered, but delayed).

We cant continue to rely on the local post man knowing that jimmy joe lives in the 5th house on the right.

I cant order takeaway to my parents house because its such a major hassle. "Yea its the 7th house on the left down the old road without a name, but make sure you dont count the shed in the field because it looks like a house but isnt. Its the house with the big tree in the garden beside the pond"
Which usually results in a phone call or two later with the driver lost and a cold pizza.

Nevermind the fact that after all the hassle in getting it developed they are actually charging for its use.

Shenshen · 20-10-2017 02:55PM

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Its an irish attitude to any problem.

Give them a solution to a problem and the majority will just say "ah sure i dont want to change, i can give directions if needed" or "it will cost too much to implement" or "ah sure why implement it when most people wont know their code".

It was a very poorly managed project but at this point the government need to force adoption.
All emergency services should be asking and using the code. If the caller doesnt know the code then they can revert to the old way.

The government needs to force adoption by An Post which in turn needs to force adoption by the people by setting a cut off date when all mail needs to contain a post code. Any mail not containing a post code should be separated (eventually delivered, but delayed).

We cant continue to rely on the local post man knowing that jimmy joe lives in the 5th house on the right.

I cant order takeaway to my parents house because its such a major hassle. "Yea its the 7th house on the left down the old road without a name, but make sure you dont count the shed in the field because it looks like a house but isnt. Its the house with the big tree in the garden beside the pond"
Which usually results in a phone call or two later with the driver lost and a cold pizza.

I'd want to see a bit more reliability of the codes, first. I know we're not the only ones with this problem. In a way, we're lucky, because at least the mixed-up codes point to houses in the same county, not everybody got that.

grogi · 20-10-2017 02:57PM

Shenshen wrote: »

The eircode that shows our house on the map shows a different address associated with it.

As I said, we've been trying to get them to fix it for years now (us and the people owning the other house, btw), and at one point it was suggested we should maybe just switch houses :rolleyes:

Just use the eircode associated with that wrong address then. It is your Eircode - as it is associated with a property and will correctly show on the map, which is most important.

Address is an additional metadata associated with the code.

Shenshen · 20-10-2017 02:59PM

grogi wrote: »

Just use the eircode associated with that wrong address then. It is your Eircode - as it is associated with a property and will correctly show on the map, which is most important.

Address is an additional metadata associated with the code.

*lol Almost as good as Eircods reply to just trade houses - in some cases that could be called "fraud":

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/wrong-eircode-address-and-house-insurance.202514/

YeaYeaSure · 20-10-2017 03:01PM

Have found the Eircode very useful with couriers since I started using it.

grogi · 20-10-2017 03:02PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Yep, in some cases that could be called "fraud", though :

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/wrong-eircode-address-and-house-insurance.202514/

Fishy alright...

BrokenArrows · 20-10-2017 03:03PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I'd want to see a bit more reliability of the codes, first. I know we're not the only ones with this problem. In a way, we're lucky, because at least the mixed-up codes point to houses in the same county, not everybody got that.

Ive seen this argument before and while i dont agree that Eircode is perfect the argument that if you give the wrong code you end up in the wrong place is a little silly.

Regardless of the code system in use, if you give the wrong code then obviously you're going to end up in the wrong place.

In a way having a wrong code resulting in a totally wrong location may be a better result which in a lot of scenarios will be an obvious flag to ask for the code again rather than it just being one street away.

Using the Eircode the person doing the code lookup just has to confirm the address received. "Thanks for the code, thats 123 fake street, in fake town. yes?"

You either have a code which has general area accuracy like the UK system which usually narrows it down to a single street. Wide accuracy like the USA which gives you a few city blocks, or in irelands case they went for single house accuracy.

I like irelands system for the accuracy. You can tell someone where you are with a single code. No street names or other house numbers/names required.

PDVerse · 20-10-2017 03:48PM

Eircode is used over 1 million times per week. If you're really bored you can watch them being used in real-time here https://status.autoaddress.ie/

BailMeOut · 20-10-2017 03:56PM

the are so useful in rural areas and it is now normal when looking for any location you just ask for the eircode and that's it. Please complain to your local representatives that your local fire station need to be equipped with better navigation that is Eircode ready. Your complaint should not be about Eircode but to the emergency services being too slow (or lazy) to adapt it.

Even the guy that cuts my grass uses eircode to find his customers!

BrokenArrows · 20-10-2017 04:01PM

PDVerse wrote: »

Eircode is used over 1 million times per week. If you're really bored you can watch them being used in real-time here https://status.autoaddress.ie/

Thats oddly entertaining.

cbyrd · 20-10-2017 04:25PM

Eircodes are class, get one, put it into Google maps and it'll take you to the door, I fail to see how the emergency services can't use them if my dpd delivery or taxi man can find my house in the butt of beyond. My 15 yo friends parents will use it too for pick ups after get togethers.
More of a failure on their unwillingness to use it really.

If your chimney goes on fire again smother the fire with salt (if you have enough on hand lol. )

wonski · 20-10-2017 04:26PM

o1s1n wrote: »

The only benefit I've seen so far is no longer having to put '0000' in the zip code section of online forms.

I preferred 0000 over whatever my eir code is now.

endacl · 20-10-2017 04:28PM

PDVerse wrote: »

Eircode is used over 1 million times per week. If you're really bored you can watch them being used in real-time here https://status.autoaddress.ie/

Boingy boingy boingy boingy boingy boingy boingy!!!!!!

LizT · 21-10-2017 12:00AM

I use mine a lot and it's great. No more 5 minute calls with couriers directing them to my house.

Capt'n Midnight · 21-10-2017 12:02AM

murpho999 wrote: »

Why does it matter. People only need to memorise their own code. They codes were allocated via whatever post office served them.

Nope.

My post delivery office is Fonthill beside the M50 so my Postcode is Kildare

Capt'n Midnight · 21-10-2017 12:14AM

murpho999 wrote: »

How was the money spent badly or how could it have been done better.

They work, each house has a code.

What did go wrong was the promotion of it and getting An Post, couriers, utility services etc to embrace it and encourage its use.

If they did this then everybody would use it.

I see now that envelopes are now being franked with "Don't forget to use your Eircode" so if An Post are now doing this it may start to pick up.

What they did wrong was paying a private company a lump of cash and then give them a licence to print money.

You have to pay to access the eircode database if you do more than 15 lookups a day.

The addresses were already on databases held by
ESB
An Post
Eircom
Gas
Voters register
Revenue
HSE
etc.

CSO could have merged the govt databases and handed out eircodes for free, or long term revenue could have handed them out when people register new houses.

BTW An Post have been using handwriting recognition software since the 1980's so have no use for eircode. The couriers could have shared addresses before to make their own parallel list, but didn't.

flaneur · 21-10-2017 12:23AM

It took about 30 years for British postal codes to get to universal adoption so to be fair, Eircode's doing pretty well so far and is more useful than the UK system which only points you to roughly the general area in rural places.

maryishere · 21-10-2017 12:32AM

murpho999 wrote: »

People are against them because they are "random" instead of sequential but why anybody would need sequential postcodes is beyond me.

It would be easier to remember them.

Nobody uses them anyway, I asked a delivery van driver and they do not use them.

A big **** ** by An Post.

TheChizler · 21-10-2017 12:35AM

maryishere wrote: »

Nobody uses them anyway, I asked a delivery van driver and they do not use them.

A big **** ** by An Post.

Apart from nearly everyone in this thread. Also apart from being consulted on it, An Post had very little to do with it.

maryishere · 21-10-2017 12:47AM

TheChizler wrote: »

Also apart from being consulted on it, An Post had very little to do with it.

I thought it was the consultation with An Post which steered it in the wrong direction, but I could be wrong. "Capita Ireland is working with the Irish Government and An Post to design and build the Eircode database..."

Eircode - Why did they bother?

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