Mr. Dara Keogh:

Our objective is to have all addresses in both Irish and English. That is our stated objective and that is our aim. Roughly speaking, we have about 70% of the addresses in both languages. It is pretty comprehensive. While logainm.iehas done a lot of translation in many counties, it does not have full national coverage. Where it has done a translation of a word and we see a similar name somewhere else, we take that translation and transfer it across. We have actively tried to get as much Irish in the database as possible. We flag this on the database so our customers know which are the officials translations and which are our best attempts. The delivery staff in An Post also capture road signs, town names etc. that are in Irish on the street. Sometimes there can be a delay before that is all done. It can be available in English and then in Irish and sometimes it is not available in either and is an inaccurate address, which we work on over time. That is why we have so many changes. There have been 500,000 changes because it is being done on an ongoing basis.

There is another piece of this that makes it even more complicated. People change their addresses and everybody accepts them. There is no national authority telling people something must be their address. Someone can change their address and everybody will just accept that address and move forward with it. Changing a house name, as we mentioned earlier, from Irish to English or from English to Irish, or removing it entirely, is up to the householder. That is just one example. Communities can come together and rename a road and everybody-----