Eircode - its implemetation (merged)

piuswal · 29-11-2017 01:49AM

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Then there's a fierce chance you're not registered.

Of you go to resolve that conundrum and re-register.

Just sent them an email.

HelgaWard · 29-11-2017 10:09AM

piuswal wrote: »

Just checked the register, been on it 40 years but not now.

Neither EIRCODE nor usual address could find me!

This is in Dublin County Council area.

Did you move house?

piuswal · 29-11-2017 10:22AM

HelgaWard wrote: »

Did you move house?

No, same house. Got voting cards every election etc. Never an issue up to now. I would think that I am still on the list and it is just same glitch in the search process. Hopefully I will have a reply shortly

piuswal · 29-11-2017 11:16AM

piuswal wrote: »

No, same house. Got voting cards every election etc. Never an issue up to now. I would think that I am still on the list and it is just same glitch in the search process. Hopefully I will have a reply shortly

Problem solved.
DCC have me down as "first name + initial"

e.g. Pius C Wall

and unless you put in your name exactly as they have it, the system will not find you. Security, they say.

Prompt response from DCC appreciated.

BonnieSituation · 29-11-2017 02:27PM

piuswal wrote: »

Problem solved.
DCC have me down as "first name + initial"

e.g. Pius C Wall

and unless you put in your name exactly as they have it, the system will not find you. Security, they say.

Prompt response from DCC appreciated.

They've upped their game the last year with responses on a host of matters it has to be said.

Myself and my dad share names so I've got us registered as Bonnie A Situation and Bonnie M Situation. When i search for Bonnie Situation both of us pop up as it happens.

Is there a chance the "C" initial is tagged onto your surname in error.

piuswal · 29-11-2017 03:16PM

BonnieSituation wrote: »

They've upped their game the last year with responses on a host of matters it has to be said.

Myself and my dad share names so I've got us registered as Bonnie A Situation and Bonnie M Situation. When i search for Bonnie Situation both of us pop up as it happens.

Is there a chance the "C" initial is tagged onto your surname in error.

Your case suggests the initial is not important,

So, Just checked again with the initial in and still could not find it; then it dawned on me, they have a variation in my first name, a reversal of 2 vowels which I missed completely,

Finally solved.

BonnieSituation · 29-11-2017 07:54PM

piuswal wrote: »

Your case suggests the initial is not important,

So, Just checked again with the initial in and still could not find it; then it dawned on me, they have a variation in my first name, a reversal of 2 vowels which I missed completely,

Finally solved.

Maybe I wasn't clear.

I meant in the sense that maybe the input into the dbase was:

FIRST NAME: Pius
SURNAME: C Wal

rather than

FIRST NAME: Pius C
SURNAME: Wal

...

Either way. Problem solved.

echat · 04-12-2017 12:57AM

piuswal wrote: »

Just checked the register, been on it 40 years but not now.

Neither EIRCODE nor usual address could find me!

This is in Dublin County Council area.

Why didn't the Eircode find you?

G_R · 04-12-2017 02:51AM

echat wrote: »

Why didn't the Eircode find you?

He wasn’t putting in the correct name

plodder · 08-01-2018 09:46AM

Even though routing keys are a terrible basis for statistics, as predicted, people will continue to use them, because they are still public identifiers which cover the whole country, and you don't have to pay any license fees to Eircode to use them. Here is the latest example:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/value-of-debt-judgments-down-by-a-third-but-recovery-remains-patchy-36466240.html

Routing key areas vary so much in size and population that the sums of money in the table can't be compared meaningfully.

The research here was done by a UK consultancy, probably using exactly the same technique that they would use in the UK - by matching debt judgments against postcodes, but because the only public element of Irish postcodes is the routing key, what they end up with is not all that useful. At least the data in this survey is public domain to begin with, and no direct harm can come from this.

antoinolachtnai · 08-01-2018 04:15PM

If they divided the figure by the number of people living in each code at least it might tell something slightly useful.

08-01-2018 06:45PM

I seem to recall that there is an algorithm that you can run on the pseudo random second part of the code to generate a subdivision identifier, but that algorithm is not free or public.

sondagefaux · 08-01-2018 08:49PM

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

If they divided the figure by the number of people living in each code at least it might tell something slightly useful.

Yeah, just like when this sort of thing is reported by the press on a county basis - not much point in publishing debt figures for Co. Cork and Co. Leitrim unless you tell people their respective populations.

plodder · 08-01-2018 10:12PM

Population figures for counties are more readily available than for routing key areas. So, it's more likely the figures would be published on that basis.

sondagefaux · 09-01-2018 09:17AM

The last census was the first one for which Eircodes were used on census forms. Therefore, the CSO could present population and other statistics by routing key area if required. It might even become a feature of how the census is presented in the future.

BonnieSituation · 09-01-2018 09:52AM

sondagefaux wrote: »

The last census was the first one for which Eircodes were used on census forms. Therefore, the CSO could present population and other statistics by routing key area if required. It might even become a feature of how the census is presented in the future.

It will be one of the ways that statistics will be available and so it should be even though it's not as solid as an SA or ED.

We'll still have the Small Areas and Electoral Districts going forward as the basis of our stats.

plodder · 09-01-2018 09:52AM

sondagefaux wrote: »

The last census was the first one for which Eircodes were used on census forms. Therefore, the CSO could present population and other statistics by routing key area if required. It might even become a feature of how the census is presented in the future.

They should at least provide the population associated with each RK.

Though, I doubt they would make it central to their statistics for the reason I already mentioned. In most cases the RKs are too big for serious statistical use though bizarrely, in a handful of cases, they might be too small. There would be serious privacy concerns with anything sensitive.

sondagefaux · 09-01-2018 06:29PM

Too small? None of them is smaller than CSO Small Areas. Too big? Bigger than Cork city and county, which I've often seen used together as a statistical area in these kinds of newspaper stories, especially ones about property prices?

Sam Russell · 09-01-2018 09:23PM

sondagefaux wrote: »

Too small? None of them is smaller than CSO Small Areas. Too big? Bigger than Cork city and county, which I've often seen used together as a statistical area in these kinds of newspaper stories, especially ones about property prices?

They are not of uniform size in either population or area. There are too few of them to be used in any meaningful way for presenting statistical data. There should have been about 1,000 keys so the average key would represent about 2,000 addresses. The current setup has an average of about 10 times this number, with some huge and some relatively tiny.

Also the areas covered by SKs are not homogenius - some are urban, such as D04, and some are rural, and some are mixed and very large as the ones covering Limerick City and county, and the one covering Galway City and surrounding area.

It will need to be redesigned at some stage, probably by dividing the SK leaving the last 4 characters as is. The telephone number system was redesigned like this - with (053) 45678 becoming (053) 9845678.

oscarBravo · 09-01-2018 09:54PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

It will need to be redesigned at some stage...

Why?

sondagefaux · 09-01-2018 10:06PM

oscarBravo wrote: »

Sam Russell wrote: »

It will need to be redesigned at some stage...

Why?

Because some people are fixated on it because they can't accept that it works.

sondagefaux · 09-01-2018 10:12PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

sondagefaux wrote: »

Too small? None of them is smaller than CSO Small Areas. Too big? Bigger than Cork city and county, which I've often seen used together as a statistical area in these kinds of newspaper stories, especially ones about property prices?

They are not of uniform size in either population or area. There are too few of them to be used in any meaningful way for presenting statistical data. There should have been about 1,000 keys so the average key would represent about 2,000 addresses. The current setup has an average of about 10 times this number, with some huge and some relatively tiny.

Also the areas covered by SKs are not homogenius - some are urban, such as D04, and some are rural, and some are mixed and very large as the ones covering Limerick City and county, and the one covering Galway City and surrounding area.

It will need to be redesigned at some stage, probably by dividing the SK leaving the last 4 characters as is. The telephone number system was redesigned like this - with (053) 45678 becoming (053) 9845678.

Counties aren't uniform in size or population. This hasn't stopped them being used as the focus for the collection and presentation of statistics for decades.

How is the fact that routing key areas have widely variable topographies different from any other postcode system either actually used or possible?

Obviously some postcode areas are going to be urban, some are going to be mainly rural, some will be a mixture of both. This holds true for any postcode system outside of a handful of city states like Singapore.

plodder · 09-01-2018 10:23PM

sondagefaux wrote: »

Too small? None of them is smaller than CSO Small Areas. Too big? Bigger than Cork city and county, which I've often seen used together as a statistical area in these kinds of newspaper stories, especially ones about property prices?

Even small areas could be too small for some statistics. But because they are of a consistent size, there isn't likely to be any mistakes made. As far as I know there are only a small number of very small outlier routing keys (I live in one of them). That could easily be overlooked.

And then you have the mega RKs in the West of the country. House price statistics in H91 (parts of South Mayo, most of West Galway except Clifden, Galway city, east Galway, North Clare) aren't all that useful because it is so big.

I might add that some of you folks were convinced when Eircode was introduced that routing keys would not be used for statistics. Hell, I could even dig up some posts where someone said RKs aren't areas at all :eek: I said they would be used, despite not being suited for the purpose. Looks like I was right.

sondagefaux · 09-01-2018 10:30PM

plodder wrote: »

sondagefaux wrote: »

Too small? None of them is smaller than CSO Small Areas. Too big? Bigger than Cork city and county, which I've often seen used together as a statistical area in these kinds of newspaper stories, especially ones about property prices?

Even small areas could be too small for some statistics. But because they are of a consistent size, there isn't likely to be any mistakes made. As far as I know there are only a small number of very small outlier routing keys (I live in one of them). That could easily be overlooked.

And then you have the mega RKs in the West of the country. House price statistics in H91 (parts of South Mayo, most of West Galway except Clifden, Galway city, east Galway, North Clare) aren't all that useful because it is so big.

If you think that H91 isn't all that useful, you must really hate when house prices for Galway (city and county) are reported.

plodder · 09-01-2018 10:34PM

sondagefaux wrote: »

If you think that H91 isn't all that useful, you must really hate when house prices for Galway (city and county) are reported.

The table above was "reported". That doesn't mean it's in the slightest bit useful.

The question was whether the CSO would make routing keys a central part of their statistics output. My opinion is that is unlikely, but we'll just have to wait and see whether it does.

PDVerse · 09-01-2018 11:12PM

plodder wrote: »

Even small areas could be too small for some statistics. But because they are of a consistent size, there isn't likely to be any mistakes made. As far as I know there are only a small number of very small outlier routing keys (I live in one of them). That could easily be overlooked.

And then you have the mega RKs in the West of the country. House price statistics in H91 (parts of South Mayo, most of West Galway except Clifden, Galway city, east Galway, North Clare) aren't all that useful because it is so big.

I might add that some of you folks were convinced when Eircode was introduced that routing keys would not be used for statistics. Hell, I could even dig up some posts where someone said RKs aren't areas at all :eek: I said they would be used, despite not being suited for the purpose. Looks like I was right.

There are 19,000 Small Areas that combine into 3,400 Electoral Districts that combine (almost) into 137 Local Electoral Areas, there are 31 Local Authority areas or 26 Counties. Postcodes didn't need to have a built-in hierarchy to facilitate aggregation. One of my concerns was the inappropriate use of a hierarchy in a postcode to aggregate statistics, flood scores, etc. It would have happened without properly thinking through the consequences as it could be done by almost anyone easily. If you have the requisite skills you can, for free, aggregate Eircodes into any or all of the boundaries for the purpose of statistical presentation. For free. Cost is not an issue. Keeping it out of the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" brigade was part of the design.

Whether anyone decides to publish data at an Eircode Routing Key level is irrelevant, the design ensures it can't do any harm. The design works. If you are still arguing that there is a need for a hierarchy in the Eircode design you're simply wrong.

plodder · 09-01-2018 11:30PM

PDVerse wrote: »

There are 19,000 Small Areas that combine into 3,400 Electoral Districts that combine (almost) into 137 Local Electoral Areas, there are 31 Local Authority areas or 26 Counties. Postcodes didn't need to have a built-in hierarchy to facilitate aggregation. One of my concerns was the inappropriate use of a hierarchy in a postcode to aggregate statistics, flood scores, etc. It would have happened without properly thinking through the consequences as it could be done by almost anyone easily. If you have the requisite skills you can, for free, aggregate Eircodes into any or all of the boundaries for the purpose of statistical presentation. For free. Cost is not an issue. Keeping it out of the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" brigade was part of the design.

And we've had the ability to aggregate LEAs, ED etc for years, but they haven't been used to any great extent, that has appeared in public. Yet, as soon as Eircode is introduced, its own strange system of areas (inherited from An Post) are used for all kinds of things unrelated to the post. Why is that? The answer is because the routing key is a public identifier. It is something that people are familiar with (to some extent) whereas LEAs, SAs, EDs aren't, in the sense that nobody (and I mean nobody) knows their LEA or SA id. Therefore statistics presented to the public will never use them.

Whether anyone decides to publish data at an Eircode Routing Key level is irrelevant, the design ensures it can't do any harm.

I'd dispute that. The very small RK areas could easily have problems with privacy relating to sensitive personal data.

The design works. If you are still arguing that there is a need for a hierarchy in the Eircode design you're simply wrong.

That ship has sailed. That's not what is being discussed here. We're just discussing the implications of the way Eircode is being used at present, today for statistics.

PDVerse · 09-01-2018 11:42PM

plodder wrote: »

And we've had the ability to aggregate LEAs, ED etc for years, but they haven't been used to any great extent, that has appeared in public. Yet, as soon as Eircode is introduced, its own strange system of areas (inherited from An Post) are used for all kinds of things unrelated to the post. Why is that? The answer is because the routing key is a public identifier. It is something that people are familiar with (to some extent) whereas LEAs, SAs, EDs aren't, in the sense that nobody (and I mean nobody) knows their LEA or SA id. Therefore statistics presented to the public will never use them.

That ship has sailed. That's not what is being discussed here. We're just discussing the implications of the way Eircode is being used at present, today for statistics.

Eircode Routing Key boundaries were not designed for the purpose of uniform population numbers in order to provide statistics. Because its a postcode. Eircode Routing Key boundaries don't do a job they weren't designed to do isn't a matter for debate. No harm is done when data is presented at Routing Key level. Pretend they're counties, have a cup of tea, and ignore.

Bray Head · 09-01-2018 11:55PM

It was unhelpful of the CSO to start this trend off by publishing house prices by eircode output. The amount of sales of certain types in certain months in particular eircode areas is very small and as a consequence the results aren't very useful.

They would have been better creating some economically logical areas of analysis - like a consistent measure of the Greater Dublin or Cork urban areas (which can be found nowhere in use by the CSO). Or indeed a rural/urban split.

sondagefaux · 10-01-2018 07:51PM

plodder wrote: »

sondagefaux wrote: »

If you think that H91 isn't all that useful, you must really hate when house prices for Galway (city and county) are reported.

The table above was "reported". That doesn't mean it's in the slightest bit useful.

The question was whether the CSO would make routing keys a central part of their statistics output. My opinion is that is unlikely, but we'll just have to wait and see whether it does.

Who said it was useful? It's a bit of meaningless fluff to fill space in a newspaper, like those articles you see that say something like '80% of Irish men don't like their partner eating crisps in bed' which turns out to be based on some survey done by a PR company.

If you want a more finely grained breakdown of indebtedness or property prices or whatever than is available when figures for these are published on a county basis, you can either do the research yourself, or campaign for the CSO to publish them on a different basis. Given that the Census records the Eircodes of all Census addresses, and that the Property Price Register shows the details of all residential properties sold in the state, a simple change to make it compulsory for all properties sold or transferred to have their Eircodes included in the register, would make it much easier for the CSO to map property prices.

Slightly OT, but I remember all the rubbish talked about Eircodes leading to addresses being in the 'wrong' county as the Eircode finder showed the official postal addresses rather than just geographical locations (although you can now choose to display either).

Well here's a fine example of an address with no Eircode shown that's in the 'wrong' County. It's taken from the Property Price Register database entries for Cork for 2017.

RATHDUANE RATHMORE
RATHMORE
KERRY

Cork

Sale Information
Date of Sale: 19/12/2017
Price: €38,000.00
Not Full Market Price: No
VAT Exclusive: No
Description of Property: Second-Hand Dwelling house /Apartment
Property Size Desc.:

It's for a house/apartment in Rathmore, Kerry that is also in Cork...

Eircode - its implemetation (merged)

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