I read an article in yesterday's Irish Times which spoke about the post code system that they say will definitely be launched by the end of 2011. While I think that a system of post codes for Ireland would be a great idea, I am sceptical about the likelihood of it being launched this year. Part of my skepticism comes from the fact that there is no clear agreement on how the new post code system will work, but also I have heard such confident predictions about a post code system before. For example, this news item from RTÉ which was written in 2005 an confidently predicted that Irish postcodes would be in operation by 1st of January 2008.
The current proposal is that the post code system will start with a number of letters identifying the nearest town or city. This proposal has generated a backlash from the Irish language supporters who are insisting that the initial letters in the post code should come from the Irish name for the town rather than the English name for the town - in many cases these would be the same but Dublin/Baile Átha Cliath is a high profile example where they differ. In addition, if the system was to be adopted I can easily envisage a situation whereby small towns could be campaigning to have their own initial letters rather than being lumped in with a rival town.As a result I think that any system based upon place names is doomed to failure and disagreements. Instead we should ensure that the post codes are based upon latitude/longitude coordinates. This is especially relevant in the modern world where SatNav systems are almost ubiquitous and all work of of lat/long coordinates. For example the LOC8 system being pushed by Garmin has the general right idea in that they have a simple algorithm that converts between lat/long coordinates and a more easy to remember alphanumeric post code.
The one big problem with the Loc8 system is the fact that they are treating the algorithm to convert between post codes and the coordinates as a trade secret. I think that the company behind the Loc8 system is very foolish to take this attitude because they would make more money from their technology if the government were to adopt it as the official post code system, but there is no way that the government could endorse a postcode system whose workings were kept secret. . As I mentioned the algorithm is quite simple and so it would be trivially easy to reverse engineer the algorithm given a few sample coordinate/postcode pairs and the details that they provide on their web site. However, my understanding is that the company behind the Loc8 system would sue anyone that published the details of their algorithm - they don't charge people a fee to convert, but their policy is that the only way to do the conversion is via their web site.