DUBLIN, Sept 21 — Ireland plans to assign postcodes to each home in about a year’s time, becoming the last European country to do so, in the hope of giving western Europe’s worst performing economy a small boost.
The once-booming ‘Celtic Tiger’ has been seeking ways to improve competitiveness and stop multinationals moving more production to lower cost centres such as eastern Europe.
“We’re the only country in Europe which doesn’t have a postal code ... and we like that in a nostalgic way,” Communications Minister Eamon Ryan said.
“But the reality is it’s not efficient and it doesn’t work well,” Ryan told public radio RTE on Monday. “We need to move to a new digital economy, postcodes are part of that.”
Proponents say postcodes would not only make mail delivery more efficient but would also help other businesses that rely on the exact tracing of goods in the export-reliant Irish economy.
“There are a lot of corporations internationally who would be very anxious to piggyback on the back of the new system once it’s in,” said John Whelan, chief executive of the Irish Exporters Association. — Reuters
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