Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In 2015 the investigative report concluded that the then Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources was carrying out its language scheme and upon considering the Department's input the Coimisinéir Teanga issued a final report making seven recommendations to the Department on seven actions that needed to be expedited. The Department accepted all those recommendations and commenced the implementation of those actions. They were all actioned and reviewed by the Department and the management board and in 2018 an Coimisinéir Teanga sought an update on the progress on the recommendations, mainly on the resolving of the discrepancies in the use of placenames in the GeoDirectory database. A new issue was also brought to the Department's attention regarding complaints received by an Coimisinéir Teanga that private companies were using addresses and people's names in English rather than in their original language, Irish. My Department contacted An Post, which advised the Department that this was not possible for it to resolve. There are a number of issues as to why people might receive their mail in a Gaeltacht area with an English address on it and An Post advised my Department that it was not possible for it to remove the English postal addresses from its mail sorting system for Gaeltacht areas. An Post has it in English and Irish in order for the efficient and next-day delivery of mail. It said that if it removed the English from its database it would impact on the quality of the service and the metrics on mail delivery set by the regulator, ComReg. ComReg has set quality of service standards requiring An Post to deliver 94% of single pieces of priority mail posted in the State for delivery in the State on the next working day and to deliver 99.5% of mail within three working days.