If you’ve bought a new build home in Ireland since the summer, there’s a good chance you’re still waiting for an Eircode. Since the end of June very few new buildings have been added to the Eircode database, because of a pay dispute at Tailte Éireann, which supplies the map coordinates for new addresses.
Based on our estimates at Autoaddress, the backlog is now over 10,000 addresses. With so few new builds coming in to replace addresses that are retired, the Eircode database actually shrank in the latest quarterly release.
Tailte Éireann is the body formed in 2023 from Ordnance Survey Ireland, the Property Registration Authority and the Valuation Office. Fórsa says the dispute is about a two-tier pay structure for surveying staff who moved over from OSi, and it served notice of industrial action in August after 82.6% of members voted for it. Both sides in the dispute agreed at the end of August to go into facilitation talks, however no date has been given as to when the dispute may be resolved.
That leaves us with three open questions:
- When will the dispute be resolved?
- How long will it take to clear the backlog?
- What can be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
