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Is it true that An Post doesn't use Eircodes?

Snickers Man

There was a letter in the Irish Times yesterday (Feb 14th 2022) that caused me to exhale the best part of an entire cup of coffee through my nose. It was from a frustrated citizen who had experienced difficulties taking receipt of expected parcels from Japan and his subsequent dealings with An Post. I quote an abridged version below. (Bold emphasis is mine)

"Sir - We are facing further increases in postal costs. Do we get value for money?

A friend recently posted four parcels to me from Tokyo. .....

... I went to my local sorting office to inquire .... When I questioned the failed delivery of the first item, and two others, I was told that as the house number was incorrect, all three items were en route back to Japan and could not be retrieved. I pointed out that the Eircode was correct and that my mobile number was printed on the front of the parcels. I was told that An Post doesn’t use Eircodes or mobile numbers. This was subsequently confirmed by An Post customer services department. I was given an email address to reclaim the VAT paid.

The cost of developing Eircodes is estimated to be €38 million (News, April 17th, 2020). Most private courier companies use Eircodes and use mobile numbers if delivery is problematic. An Post’s customer charter aims “to provide all customers with quality services at all times”. This appears to exclude the use of Eircodes or mobile numbers. "

I don't know whether to believe it or not because it sounds too fantastic. Our national monopoly supplier of postal services DOES NOT USE the postal code delivery system that was brought in (extremely belatedly compared to other advanced economies I might add) presumably to make delivery of mailed items easier, quicker and more reliable!!!!

On consideration, I have some grounds for believing the story. Several members of my family, with the same surname, live in adjoining streets with similar road names and we frequently receive mail intended for each other, despite the fact that the Eircode is usually contained on the envelope as part of the address. I had thought that this was largely down to heedlessness on the part of the individual deliverer but if this letter is to be believed, they are not even required by their employer ie An Post to pay any attention to the eircode.

What the actual f**k?

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ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635511#Comment_118635511

we don't all live in rural areas. posties dont work in post offices in any urban area i'm aware of.

marklazarcovic

urban areas have numbers assigned to them already,be it street,unit,building,house..they are easy,no need for those to inform anyone,just have the right address and its fine .

looksee

Whatever about An Post the Eircodes are a blessing when you live in a random rural house with no number, just a townland. Instead of doing the 'go left at the church then right down the little boreen and its the third house, not including the derelict one, on the left. It has wooden gates' every time you need to give directions to someone. I have my eircode memorised, and also have it on a sign on the gatepost so even a new postie doesn't have to look it up.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058233089/is-it-true-that-an-post-doesnt-use-eircodes

You're missing one thing. Eircode is not a post code and never meant to be. It's a code for a building entrance, not a post code. It's implemented with an idea to anyone find address easier. However, An Post didn't need and didn't ask for it as they do have an use another system which is their internal coding system for mail sorting. As many things in Ireland, Eircode has been introduced very late, when many delivery companies already created or using other third party locators.

Now Eircode is being used mostly by take away deliveries and some occasional people just to double check if the address they have is correct. An Post don't take about the Eircode.

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635404#Comment_118635404

its useful as it avoids directing couriers , more so in rural areas so i suppose in urban areas can just go by house number

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635700#Comment_118635700

Really? Then how come two dwellings in the same house (a basement flat and an upstairs duplex) have different eircodes? Which they do to my certain knowledge? It's the same building.

And in the UK, as has been mentioned previously, post codes do not direct you to an individual building, just to (typically, at least in urban settings) one particular side of a street?

davetherave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118634457#Comment_118634457

The sorting office wouldn't have to do anything. The last four digits of an eircode don't contain an i/I or an l/L because as you said it might look like a 1. Similarly it doesn't contain an o (oh) because that might look like a 0 (zero), it doesn't have a G because that might look like a 6. It doesn't have an M because over the phone that might sound like an N, and you get funny looks if you break out the NATO alphabet.

The characters they do have as the unique identifier are 0-9 and A,C,D,E,F,H,K,N,P,R,T,V,W,X,Y

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635761#Comment_118635761

Read again what I wrote - each building entrance has it's own Eircode. You just confirmed that to me. It's a code for a building entrance, not the whole building, nor the area.

I know that UK post codes doesn't refer to a single building, I didn't say that either.

Eircode is more accurate and can go without an address as it's a code for a building entrance while a post code is a code for an area.

looksee

You have to give your house number and postcode as a shortened addess in England.

Freddie Mcinerney

Eircode is great. With it connected to Google Maps.

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635833#Comment_118635833

Sorry, er what? It's NOT a post code because it identifies a building and a post code should only identify a small area and this is an important distinction because????

I'm bald. Go split somebody else's hairs.

saabsaab

A survey poll by Amarach in 2019 showed that 59% of people said they knew their Eircode 'off by heart'!

Surprised it was that high.

The J Stands for Jay

On parcels with the eircode included, an post have decided to send the parcel to the town with the same name as the county, just because the sender didn't write "Co" before the county name. They have also delayed delivery quite a few times because the name of an adjacent town was no in the address. This town is 5km away and does not form any part of the "geographic" address. An post claim it should be part of the postal address. Despite the actual town being a unique town name in Ireland and the eircode being included, they still stick labels saying delayed due to incomplete address, and they write on this adjacent town.

I do not believe any assertion that an post are even using eircodes for initial sorting. The most recent occurrence was December, in case anyone thinks this is something from when eircodes were first introduced.

thejuggler

My understanding is that An Post were not selected as the winner of the bidding process to select a Postcode provider. As a result they took offence and refused to use the Eir code system. Sounds like a typical semi state body mentality.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118636532#Comment_118636532

I didn't say that Eircode identifies a building. I said that an Eircode identifies building entrance. If there are more than 1 entrances than each of them may have (or may not, depending on how the building is registered - as a one unit and a few apartments etc, some units are being split and never properly registered with the government). A Post code is for an area - collection of buildings. Eircode's accuracy is higher than a post code's. Eircode doesn't fit the post code's standards, that's why it's not called a post code. Another (obvious reason) - it's not created for An Post uses.

whiterebel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635382#Comment_118635382

Which courier companies are using Eircode? I don't mean their drivers accessing Google maps - which ones have it integrated into their systems? This was the main objection by UPS, TNT, DHL etc when they were consulted about using Eircode - it wouldn't work with their systems.

Ger Roe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118636904#Comment_118636904

I have had the same issue. I live in a well known and defined (named) local village area, but An Post recently insisted that all addresses in the area now add the name of a larger townland area, about 6km away. Even if you have your unique and exclusive specific building Eircode on a parcel being delivered to you, it can be delayed and have an 'incorrect address' label added to it, if the address does not include the village with which we have had no previous connection.

If anyone was delivering the parcel without using the Eircode, they would be going well out of their way if they headed to the village name that we are being told to include in our address. I don't understand the logic at all ... confusion all round and it seems that in the end An Post continue to rely on local delivery route knowledge to get the bulk of their post through.

The Eircode certainly doesn't seem to be a consideration.... not surprising since they were not consulted on it's specification or implementation anyway.

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118637148#Comment_118637148

The first three digits of my eircode are of the Dublin postal district that was used (is still used indeed) as part of my address before eircode's introduction. So is every other eircode in Dublin. If you live in Dublin 8, the first three letters of your eircode will be D08. Where is the incompatibility with An Post's previous system?

How can it not be a post code? If the only answer to that last question is "because we the state monopoly postal service provider don't want to use it so we won't and therefore it can't be a post code" then that is just a bloody-minded unco-operative attitude within An Post, both at management and street level, that will shortly see the system collapse and be parceled off into competing private operators. That is not something I particularly want to see but at the end of the day, the general public just wants its mail delivered.

If we ask correspondents to put our eircode on any mail intended for us, we expect the postal service to make use of it and increase the chance of timely and accurate delivery. We are not interested in pique between An Post and whoever won the contract to build eircode. If it doesn't work with your systems, then BLOODY WELL MAKE IT WORK!!!

No pathetic "it's not a post code because it's too accurate" excuses.

JFDI.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118635470#Comment_118635470

L road numbers are reused county by county, so that'd give you a code that still needs the county.

Also, I know of roads with inhabited properties on them that don't have an L number - and are proper roads, not glorified driveways. Donegal has not assigned L numbers to every road as the county has so many!

[Deleted User]

My mother got a Christmas card from America a few years back, it arrived in good time, not months late or anything.

It was addressed as follows

My Mothers Name,

Co. Mayo,

Ireland.

An Post will be fine.

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641262#Comment_118641262

Well if her name is Mrs Umptious then that's one thing; If her name was Bridget Ruane or Mary Barrett from Mayo, that would be quite another. 😀

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641331#Comment_118641331

Well spotted :) it's a far more common name than Umptious.

arctictree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118637148#Comment_118637148

Just to correct you on that building entrance bit. Our eircode is assigned to our house/building. The entrance is about 800M away down a small laneway. I cannot get eircode to change it and have tried numerous times. Couriers keep getting sent up a forest road which has no access to our house but on a map passes within 200M of our building. At least the postie knows where we live.

Charles Babbage

The problem with the OP was that the address was incorrect. Parcel delivery in towns is essentially a courier type service, so there is a question as to whether they should have tried the Eircode as well.

This would not happen in the country as the postman would deliver the parcel and would have a good idea, nor would it happen for letters.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641358#Comment_118641358

Fr Andy Reilly?

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641382#Comment_118641382

The building entrance being the front door, not the gate entrance from the road. It's the mapping companies you need to contact rather than Eircode I suspect.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641490#Comment_118641490

I think you're both right. The eircode is assigned to a postal address; that is to say the entrance to a building. However, when you query eircode for geo co-ordinates, you are provided with the geo co-ordinates for the building and not the front door of the building. Thus, anyone sticking in the code to Google Maps will get directed to the building, and Google Maps will try to route based on the mapping data.

In this case, the mapping data probably lists your driveway as a private road, and therefore does the correct thing by telling the software not to route vehicles down it. They can probably reclassify it as a "driveway" or "local access only" road, which will allow the software to use it for routing.

arctictree

Yeah, have tried doing that on Google, no reply. They even have a button where you report incorrect directions, no reply either!

The Google directions end with a 200M dotted line from another road to our house. This is through a thick forest that is impassable!

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118640939#Comment_118640939

It was an example of how rural people abroad are able to give simple and accurate directions without needing codes.

Thinking out loud, you could replace the letter L with the letter(s) on the number plate ?

stopthevoting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118636904#Comment_118636904

It seems that your address is one of the many places which have different postal and geographic addresses. This often happens where the Post Town is in a different county. You will find both your geographic address and your postal address on the Eircode website. If An Post claim that a town should be part of the postal address, then that is so. Individuals don't get to decide their own POSTAL address. Many people don't use their correct postal address, and their post still gets delivered, but as in your case it often gets delayed by getting routed to an incorrect Post Town first. Your official postal address has probably been in use for many decades, even if it was not used by you or your family and neighbours.

Generally, if you want to be sure of getting your post without delays, you have to use the correct postal address, rather than your own preferred address. Usually this affects small towns and villages and rural areas. But the postal address of Shannon in Co. Clare is actually "Shannon, Limerick" as Limerick is the Post Town. However, this does not affect deliveries, even though no one ever uses the official postal address. This is probably because of the size of the town, and also it would probably be a futile exercise to try to get everyone to use the official postal address.