50000 rural place names completely missing from eircode
Irish language group Conradh na Gaeilge is calling on the Minister of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources to rectify the thousands of gaps and inaccuracies in the Irish database of the new €27 million Irish postcode system
The Conradh will made the call today at the launch of the new Eircode postal system in Dublin this morning.
The group claims that around 50,000 placenames are 'inaccurate or completely missing' from the database in use by the Eircode system and says that despite the department accepting this they are refusing to fund a correction.
The department says that there is no obligation for Irish placnames to be changed to English and that the scheme is optional for the 2.2 million addresses involved.
Cóilín Ó Cearbhaill, president of Conradh na Gaeilge, said it was 'scandalous' that a campaign was needed to move the department to correct the situation:
'Conradh na Gaeilge had to organise the parcel campaign in the GPO a hundred years ago to compel the British Government to allow letters addressed in Irish to be delivered through the Royal Mail in 1910,' he said.
'It is scandalous to think that we now have to organise a campaign against Ireland’s own Department of Communications a hundred years later because the new postcode system for Ireland won’t acknowledge the Irish-speaking and Gaeltacht community. The Department is treating those of who wish to use Irish in our lives as second-class citizens in our own country.'
Conradh na Gaeilge says it welcomed the decision in 2007 to develop a new postcode system in the south and that it took a proactive role in the discussions 'from the get-go' in an effort to ensure that the Irish language would be accurate in the new system, and that the Irish-speaking and Gaeltacht community would not be adversely affected by its introduction.
'As early as 2014, however,' they say, 'it became apparent that there were thousands of instances of missing information and a substantial number of the inaccurate placenames in the Irish version of the database that the Eircode system would be using, and the working group of the relevant stakeholders sent a plan to rectify the issue over the course of two years to the Department of Communications in March 2015; the Department is currently refusing to fund the plan.'
Julian de Spáínn, the general secretary of the group added that 'If a database were being used that consisted of a list of accurate placenames in Irish, with approximately 50,000 gaps in the English version, there would be uproar, and you can be certain the situation would be immediately rectified.'
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