BY AILEEN MURPHY
The bid to save Fermanagh's historic townland names is to be taken to the Assembly.
On Monday night, Councillors voted to write to the Environment, Minister Arlene Foster urging her to allow Fermanagh District Council to be able to number properties individually within a townland.
The issue is causing concern as increasing numbers of people in rural areas of Fermanagh are reporting difficulties with securing things like credit cards, mortgages, and even getting their postal deliveries.
The matter was raised at the Council meeting by the DUP's Paul Robinson. He called for the issue to be referred back to the Environmental Health Committee for further discussion before taking the decision to write to the Assembly.
He said: "We are looking for more powers, yet if we can't sort out this problem, what's the point in looking for more powers."
Bertie Kerr, UUP, told the Chamber he had evidence of an incident where a pensioner in Ballinamallard required an ambulance but Ambulance Control couldn't find the house using just the townland name and, as a result, the ambulance had been delayed for an hour.
Councillor Kerr added: "I am not sure townlands will be acceptable to those in power. I would love to see it working, but people are having problems and we need to get this sorted out."
Gerry McHugh, Independent, said he too was aware of people having serious problems: "In a townland in Mullaghdun there are four houses where the people all have the same name. It needs to be sorted out because some people are not even able to get their mail", he remarked.
Councillor Patricia Rogers is the Chairman of the Environmental Health Committee, used her casting vote to carry the motion to write to the Environment Minister, and she explained her reasons: "I don't think anyone wants to see townlands going from Fermanagh and we have decided to lobby our MLA's to ask them to address this matter, looking at having a townland and a house number."
She refereed to the situation in Tyrone where places have townlands and roadnames on the signs, and while she commended Omagh District Council for this, she suggested it was, 'a lame attempt to hold on to townlands'. She added: "We need to urge MLA's to look at the situation."
Sinn Féin's Domhnall Ó Cobhthaigh accused unionist councillors of 'acting in a Luddite fashion, by seeking to destroy what makes us unique'.
He suggested that developments in technology should make it easier to use townlands, and he noted that even delivery vans were fitted with GPS systems to help then find a specific house.
And, taking up Mr Kerr's point about problems for ambulance services, he suggested that emergency vehicles had also experienced problems using roadnames when there are more than one road with the same name.
Frank Britton, SDLP, urged the Council to put a time-frame on the process: "This issue has been about for over a decade. This is a great difficulty for people living in the country, they are not able to get their goods and services delivered to them because of the inability of the present system, and we need to get it resolved."
The DUP's Bert Johnston responded angrily to Councillor Ó Cobhthaigh's suggestion that unionists were trying to destroy townlands: "I take exception to that. I support townlands, but we do need something that is going to get us out of this impasse."
The decision to refer the matter back to the Environmental Health Committee was defeated and, therefore, the Council is to write to the Assembly and to lobby MLA's on the matter.
