Mr. Dara Keogh:

To go back to the structure, GeoDirectory is a recipient of the addresses from An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland and they collect them on the ground. Neither An Post nor Ordnance Survey Ireland are the legal entities that assign addresses. That has to be remembered as well. That is the responsibility of the local authority. A series of events has to happen for an address to be created so we can capture it. The reality on the ground is that people change their addresses and we have to capture those changes as well. While people sometimes see an address as being a very solid and fixed thing, it is quite fluid and changes a lot. While we are saying the vast majority of addresses in Gaeltacht areas are in Irish, there are some that are not because they are recorded in English still. That needs to change and they need to be translated officially so we can capture them. We will capture them and we will include them.

The reality is there are business names in English and we have to record them as they are because that is what people know them as. Businesses want to be found, they want their customers to find them and that is what they call themselves, so it is in English at the moment. When a new housing estate or house is being created, for example, it can take a while for an address to be established and we are not sure what the address is at all. It is vague in both Irish and English, so we are waiting for that to be finished. As I alluded to, we break the address into different components, and there is not the full level of Irish available yet for some of those components because they are in the process of being translated. When they are translated, we capture them. The vast majority in Gaeltacht areas are as Gaeilge. We are always striving for perfection and completeness and chasing that goal. It is a fundamental goal of GeoDirectory throughout the country and not just in Gaeltacht areas.

In answer to the Deputy’s question, An Post cannot deliver to us a full Irish language version because it is not officially translated yet in all cases. It is progressing and the level of English is decreasing all the time, and as it happens, we capture the address and include it. As referenced by the Chair, logainm.ieis the body that does the townlands and what we call localities. It does a great job under difficult circumstances because it is quite a complicated process it has to follow.