Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 579: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the guidelines which currently exist regarding bilingual signage at entrances to housing estates and on directional signage; if there are plans to make an equal-size Irish language version mandatory; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8908/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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An Coimisiún Logainmneacha, the Placenames Commission, which is under the aegis of the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, has produced guidelines on the naming of roads, streets and housing estates in Irish. The guidelines set out the appropriate conventions for the Irish versions of the names of roads, streets and housing estates. My Department provided local authorities with copies of the guidelines and requested they be complied with by authorities in naming roads, streets and housing estates and in the provision of nameplates.

I understand that the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs intends to make regulations under section 9(1) of the Official Languages Act 2003, which enables him to regulate, inter alia, the use of the Irish language only, or the Irish and English languages together, on signage placed by public bodies. The giving of statutory directions to road authorities regarding the display of Irish and English text on traffic signs, including directional signs, on the public road network, is a function of the Minister for Transport.