Madam, - Correspondents to this page have rightly pointed out that I was not clear in my opinion piece of May 28 May and others may also be confused.
To elaborate to them, and while not meaning in any way to pre-empt Mr Dempsey's postcode project group, it may be helpful to picture what the new Irish postcode may look like.
I suggest it may be something as follows. Ireland and its surrounding sea areas will be split into rectangles about 40 metres by 25 metres in size and each rectangle will have a identifying coordinates (x,y) which will be the values of longitude and latitude at the south-west corner of the rectangle. As these values will be 20 characters long in total and not easy to remember an algorithm must then be used to create a smaller, more humanly usable number, possibly up to eight alphanumeric characters long - the Irish postcode.
Because GPS-enabled phones and other devices such as in-car direction finders are readily available which can be made to show longitude and latitude coordinates, this Irish postcode can then be used at no extra cost by anyone or any business to allocate a postcode to bridges, railway crossings, street lights, manhole covers, telecom masts, telephone poles, marine buoys, oil wells, human dwelling and business addresses and so on.
I believe that if one can imagine how this publicly available facility can then be put to work in different situations, especially for efficient location- finding, one can, I believe, imagine how a better quality of life can be made available for everyone. - Yours, etc,
ALEX PIGOT, MD, TICo Group Ltd, Maple Avenue, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.