The Republic of Ireland Postcodes

Dec. 22, 2011 - PRLog -- At present rural addresses are simply known by county, the nearest post town and the townland or bally.   More urban addresses are known by county, city or town name and then the street name and number or house name if not numbered.

An Post was established in 1984 and is the state owned postal provider in the Republic of Ireland and provides an universal postal service to all parts of the country.  An Post services includes letter and parcel post, deposit accounts, Swiftpost which is an all Ireland next day delivery service and EMS the international express mail service.  Before An Post the General Post Office had operated the postal service in Ireland since 1660.

The British Government introduced a system of postal districts for Dublin and its surburbs in 1917 using the prefix "D" and these were retained after independence, without the prefix. However the use of district numbers by the public did not occur until 1961 when street signs displayed postal district numbers. Prior to that time, street signs only displayed the street name in Irish and English.  The Dublin system now has 22 districts.

Whilst An Post are responsible for the postal system, the Department of Communication, Energy and Natural Resources retains the right to regulate addresses.  They had disagreed with An Post over whether there was a need to introduce a postcode system in Ireland.

In 2005 the Irish government announced the introduction of a postcode system although An Post felt this was unnecessary.  Following numerous delays over the last few years and with estimated costs of 15 million euros the procurement process is still ongoing. Although, the Government has issued guidelines on the format of the postcodes, which will be alpha-numeric, incorporating letters and numbers.  The first part of the postcode would indicate the geographical location and the second part consisting of numbers would identify the individual property, based on its GPS location.

There are several advantages to having a postcode system including more efficient sharing of information between agencies and company, aiding the Central Statistic Office to unlock more data and helping the emergency services.

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