Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Can I ask one other question? Ordnance Survey Ireland is a fantastic public institution that can divide the country into workable grids for State utilities, the ESB and Bord Gáis and can provide the NTA with excellent mapping. I would prefer if some kind of zoning was done across the country. We should take out the county boundaries and look at where people actually live.

Let us take the example of from Charlestown in County Mayo where the Chairman is from or other towns in the Border counties. In some cases, county boundaries run down the middle of the street. Bunclody in County Wexford is an example. If one is living in Bunclody and half of the street is in County Carlow, one is not expected to know where Mary Murphy lives up the hill but one is expected to know the townlands on which the Hook lighthouse is located, which are probably 100 miles away. A bit of common sense here would not go amiss.

I welcome the fact that the NTA will do something about it but I would ask that a fairly rigid and realistic timeframe be put in place and that the NTA would report back to the committee as to what is happening. I know that jobs in rural areas are being lost because of this knowledge test. I am convinced of it. I know of five people with offers of jobs at the moment but who cannot accept them because they have been asked in knowledge tests about which street a certain pub in Limerick is located on when that pub has been closed for the past six years.