The Minister of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte, TD, today announced the formal signing of the contract for the Postcode Management Licence Holder (PMLH) with Capita Ireland.
The ten-year contract signed with Capita, supported by BearingPoint and Autoaddress, provides for the design, encoding and roll-out of a national postcode due to be launched in quarter one of 2015. It will be a world-first design that uses a postcode as a unique identifier for each and every address in Ireland.
Speaking at today’s announcement, Minister Rabbitte said:
“A publicly-owned postcode system is a key piece of modern national infrastructure, and ours will be the first in the world to be unique to each individual address. It will bring significant benefits to the public, business and government. I’m very pleased to announce the signing of the contract with Capita who will develop and operate the next generation postcode system for the State. I look forward to the public starting to use postcodes, which we expect to be in the first half of 2015.”
Mr Vic Gysin, Chief Operating Officer of Capita plc, said:
“Capita is delighted to be working with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources on the implementation of this unique postcode system for Ireland. We recognise that this is an important project that will bring many benefits to the public and business.”
The national postcode system will use a 7-character code in an alpha numeric format. Existing Dublin postal districts will be retained.
The new delivery postcode will provide benefits for householders, businesses and state bodies.
Over 35% of households in Ireland currently don’t have a unique name or number in their address resulting in problems for delivery of services and goods. Parcel and mail deliveries from An Post and other delivery/logistics companies will be able to use the new postcode system to quickly identify the location of a single house set in the countryside or an apartment in a newly-developed multi-storey.
Emergency services will also benefit according to Martin Dunne, Director of the National Ambulance Service, “The implementation of postcodes for every premises in Ireland represents an unprecedented opportunity for the National Ambulance Service to ensure fast and accurate location of incidents, resulting in the best possible response for our patients and service users,” he said.
State planning and development of health, education, transport, social and amenity services, etc., will also be able to use the new postcode system. The Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly T.D., said:
“I look forward to very significant benefits for the health sector from the postcode system. I can see immediately that it will be of great benefit to emergency dispatch as well as delivering more routine community services in locating peoples’ homes. I can also see that postcodes will bring a range of other benefits in collecting accurate address information, in epidemiology and in overall management of the health services, all leading to safer and more cost effective care.”
Public service customers will benefit too with postcodes being added to address databases to improve service delivery.
Briefings and engagement with large database holders from utilities, business and commercial state bodies are planned for the coming weeks. Meetings with other stakeholder or sectoral representative organisations are also being planned to allow for IT systems and software updates accepting the new code.
IBEC said “The postcode will be strategic addition to our national infrastructure. Having such a unique identifier can reduce costs for businesses through supply-chain and administrative savings. This will benefit not only retailers but also consumers through enabling better use of online services and home delivery. The introduction of postcodes has the potential to see new businesses being created as a result, offering new services or disruptive technologies based on the “big data” it will provide”.
ENDS
Notes to Editor
Each address and its code will be stored in a central Postcode Address Database (PAD). Access to the geo-coordinates associated with this code will allow quick mapping of the code’s location on a variety of technology platforms and devices including computers, tablets, mobile phones, in-car satnavs, and other mapping software systems. A publicly available website will give the public free access to look up postcodes for addresses quickly and easily.
An information website will be set up by the Postcode Management Licence Holder over the coming months to answer Frequently Asked Questions, provide further information around code design, promote the uses and benefits of the national postcode, and help businesses to plan for the new system.