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

I am not sure but I will find out for the Chairman. With regard to the signage, the OPW has a new livery and we are going to do a signage replacement programme across the estate. Some of the signage dates back to the time of Dúchas, so it is outdated and needs to be updated. With my other hat on, I will note that all signs must be bilingual. In my opinion, the less you put on a sign, the better off you are. Sometimes if you have a sign for Kilkenny Castle surrounded by all of this stuff about opening times and what you can and cannot do, you actually reduce the impact of the sign on the passing motorist. We are rolling out a national programme of signage replacement. In that context, we require the assistance of the local authorities and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage because every sign we put up on a national monument requires a consent. You cannot put a shovel in the ground without a consent from the Department. On another side of the matter, we could do with an awful lot more help from the local authorities and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, which take a very zealous approach to the erection of signage.

You would swear we were trying to do a stick-up. We are just trying to promote these places but it was like trying to extract the third secret of Fatima from them.